Wot are these then..?

An old mate went to Tucson 10 years ago on a company course. He took loads of photos in the boneyard and grabbed a few shots of some experimental aircraft. Strange looking things some of them. They might be prototypes or experimental?

Tony

quote:

32*09'12.87"N 110*50'29.35"W

Arrow heads?
They could be any of a number of X craft, or even planes with their wings missing.
An ex work colleague went on a trip to the US to various of the "graveyard" or mothballed squadrons, to collect ALL the serial numbers of ALL of the Phantoms amongst others, he was later arrested in Greece for doing the same thing.

quote:

Originally posted by BigH47:

quote:

32*09'12.87"N 110*50'29.35"W

Arrow heads?
They could be any of a number of X craft, or even planes with their wings missing.

Well there's at least three of them, identical with no horizontal tail surfaces, yet the (not very big) wings don't extend too far back to the tail, so they must be pretty unstable. I don't recognise them a sproduction aircraft, mind I've lost touch over the last twenty years. Experimental stealth/instability platforms?

Look like part broken Convair F-102 Delta Daggers to me.

I'm not so sure, there are some complete Daggers elsewhere on the site, these look like whole aircraft and are curiously shaped

It is the Davis-Monthan AFB, Tucson
see
DM AFB

I have been driving past this place for the last 11 years in September or October. . The number of of moth balled planes to the west of Kolb Road took a dip after October 2001.

Driving N S on Kolb Road takes you under the base with the scrap yard on the East side where they are breaking up the old planes and the storage area on the west side where they have vast quantities of almost ready to go aircraft.

During the day Tucson is buzzed by pairs of tank buster type planes doing what I assume are test flights.
A few pictures from 2002 showing the graveyard





the mountains enable the locals to ski in the morning and sunbathe in town in the afternoon - not that an Arizonian would go in the sun.

AT
32°30'33.39"N
111°19'40.14"W

about 70 miles to the north west there is Pimal Airpark where redundant commercial aircraft are stored.

Yeah Know what the site is, just wondering what these curious aircraft are, the two listed at that point and there's a third at the end of the line of Vietnam vets.

quote:

32*09'12.87"N 110*50'29.35"W

Venator Class Star Destroyer? Nah - too small.

Exactly. Odd aren't they?

High altitude +mach 6 x-planes from the late 70's judging from the plan form. Basically a big rocket engine with wings/body lifting surface dropped from a transport plane.

I used to have a Janes book of these sorts of planes that I will try and find my mum's loft next time I am there.

The other plane by the swing wing (F-111?) is from the same series I think.

Jono

Possibly these - 3 airframes were built - would have thought they'd be kept by NASA tho'...

quote:

32*09'12.87"N 110*50'29.35"W

Nah definitely more arrow shaped now i look again

Arrow like and from a long time ago the X-20 Dyna-Soar might be if the size is right.

This is what you are referring to isn't it

They are the guys.
Grumman X-47A maybe?

More X -Aircraft than you can click a mouse at.

Yes and the third here...The shadow says that it has got a vertical tail, the delta starts from the tip of the nose but ends short of the tail and possibly a fairly long pitot tube/sensor at the nose which is typical of prototypes/experimental craft

So a bit bigger than Cessna 02 and little smaller than a Phantom, not that really helps.

There are three Lockheed D-21's stored at
Davis Monthan and I think that's what these are.

Lockheed D-21 from above.

Could be a winner as there are 3 stored at Davis Montham.

No picture BTW Steve

Don't know why the pic didn't work. Here are a couple of links to pics of the single D-21 in the boneyard:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/136/400380819_8a7919a7c4.jpg?v=0

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3244/2874448764_cf28dcdcde.jpg?v=0

Yaaaaayyyyyy!!!

A mystery is solved!



My link to image of orignal didn't work either. Strange.

Well done, where did you find out the information?

I read something about them a few years back. They were somewhat of a failure but the history of the programme is quite interesting.