Pages

Thursday, 6 March 2008

What's wrong with this pic?

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

Theres too many planes in it, and not enough ships!!!!!

Theo Spark said...

Wilky. Feel free to send me pics of ships.

Anonymous said...

Doh. Four plans, only three tails.

Anonymous said...

They don't have RAF roundals on!

Anonymous said...

No ball turrets... :)

Anonymous said...

Matt,

I only see 3 planes, 3 tails.....

Chris said...

no undercarriage

Anonymous said...

No engines.

The Remittance Man said...

They're not part of an aerial armada dropping an airborne division on Harare/Caracas/Havana/Pyong Yang/Tehran/ pick the capital of any other evil dictatorship.

Anonymous said...

They aren't bombing 140 million Muslims.

kingmagic said...

On the two farthest left planes they appear to have a conical, pointy type thing to the right of the open door? But not on the nearest plane.

Also there are no women with big bezzas!

Theo Spark said...

A clue: Where are they parked? And why or fucks sake are they there when they should be in service! If you want to store heavy lift store some brand spanking new ones. If the US don't have a use for them lend them to the RAF because they need all they capacity they can get.

I can understand storing fighters etc but not your transport fleet especially with so much going on in so many places.

rhhardin said...

It's the airplane graveyard in Tucson AZ. Very dry so the airplanes don't deteriorate much. Lots of room. You could drive around and look, in the 60s at least.

rhhardin said...

As to why, I don't know, but I imagine there are service hour limits on main structural parts that might make a new airplane cheaper.

Brian said...

I don't think these aircraft are at AMARG, Davis-Montham AFB, Tucson Arizona and the surroundings look a bit Afghanistanish and it's unlikely that the front door would be left open on stored aircraft. Also, wouldn't the engines have FOB shields? The Yellow bands on the tails and the serials indicate aircraft of the 437th Airlift Wing, Charleston AFB. What do the heat hazes behind the wings indicate?

David M said...

Have to agree with gallimaufry. Of course I don't know the actual process for enter an aircraft into storage they may be recent arrivals.

Anonymous said...

I agree with gallimaufry, that looks like an Afghani air base.. Looks like one has the engines running..

Brian said...

While we wait for Theo to spill the beans, how about this photo showing a C-17 Triplane
http://www.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/photos/080130-F-8716G-909.jpg
It's a brilliant source of photos of aircraft and the dedicated men and women who work with them helping to keep us safe.
So are you saying, Theo, that these aircraft built in 1989, 1992 and 1993 are in storage? If so it's a standard procedure to rotate the fleet to even out flying hours. Or could they be awaiting major overhauls?

steveH said...

- kingmagic; the two "pointy things" are the winglets, or tipsails, of the aircraft next to the one(s) with the open doors. This says C-17.

Being C-17s, they wouldn't be mothballed yet at DM or AMARC. We just started getting them, and they're not exactly sitting around without any work to do.

If these aren't training somewhere in the U.S. southwest, they're probably in Afghanistan waiting their next load of whatever.

Brian said...

Oh, where's Matt Drudge when you really need him! I can't find this pic on the USAF website yet www.militaryaircraft.de says it's copyright USAF.

Anonymous said...

James is right, there are no engines on any of these aircraft. They could be new awaiting power, or they could be undergoing a major overhaul. I saw a demo of one last summer at an air show. The thing can back up under its own power! Takeoff and landing are amazingly short for such a large airplane. Very impressive!

Anonymous said...

Afghanistan looks eerily like 29 Palms/Ft Irwin/Edwards AFB. If I had to guess, I'd say they stand almost as good a chance of being there as in Afghanistan, especially with no engines (my deployments were all to Iraq, so I could be dead wrong). They are not mothballed, the heat haze gives that away, and anyhow they are WAY too new to be put into storage. Little known fact: the C-17 has a heavier footprint than the C-5. Expeditionary airfields which cater to them need almost constant upkeep, but the amount of gear that they can carry more than makes up for it! I love those beasts.

kingmagic said...

Still no bints with big bezzas!