Alice Springs Bone Yard

[PA.]

A new tourist attraction – or at least a point of interest – is slowly developing in Australia’s Red Center.

 

More old planes have recently been arriving at Alice Springs Airport, where the first major aircraft ‘graveyard’ outside of the United States has been established.

 

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that, after a slow start, passenger jets including a Qantas 767 and four Airbus single-aisle planes are now lining up at the world’s newest ‘boneyard’.

 

Brisbane-based Asia Pacific Aircraft Storage signed an initial 10-year lease with Alice Springs Airport in 2011 to turn the 110-hectare site, which is on the opposite side of the runway to the terminal, into a giant aircraft parking yard.

 

The SMH says that the challenge for the operator has been to find airlines and aircraft leasing companies willing to overlook the Mojave Desert in California and Arizona’s 840-hectare Pinal Airpark in favour of Alice Springs.

 

Experts say that Australia’s dry climate makes many places ideal for aircraft storage. But most places with the right climate lack runways big enough to handle large passenger jets. Alice Springs, in contrast, can be used by A380s in an emergency.

 

Asia Pacific Aircraft Storage’s managing director, Tom Vincent, told the SMH that he expected at least 15 planes at the site by the end of the year. His company eventually plans to extend the parking space to accommodate several hundred aircraft.

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

Great idea...we certainly have plenty of room and a suitable climate for this sort of thing, and of course it'll create good jobs.

 

A very large and lucrative business in the US with generally two types of storage....long term - inactive storage, and a tive service where the aircraft is kept somewhat serviceable, and can be returned to service in a matter of days. Once a month or so the aircraft's engines are run, all hydraulics exercised, fuel system pumps cycled and control surfaces, aircon, and flaps exercised. Tires also of course pumped up.

 

This level of ready storage can cost somewhere around US $30K per aircraft PER MONTH ! and is generally favoured by leasing companies who often own the aircraft.

 

This certainly adds up bigtime if you have hundreds of aircraft sitting there as in the centres in the US.......the only real expenditures by the storage company is for land lease, security and paying the run up crews who can do several aircraft in one day....they are usually engineers and don't need to be pilots..........

 

..Maj....

 

 

[Guest Andys@coffs]

And I imagine a quick nip over to Mojave in a bigass RPT aircraft will only cost a couple of $ too...... I'm guessing though that they need critical mass to justify the required staff and experience to hold the stored aircraft at near to return status. Once they have that critical mass it will likely become easy...... 15 aircraft is unlikely to keep an appropriate team busy all month though.....

 

Woomera would be fantastic as well, anyone ex defence who has seen the huge USAF aircraft service the yanks will know there is unlikely to be much that couldn't get in and out of there

 

Andy

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

And I imagine a quick nip over to Mohave in a bigass RPT aircraft will only cost a couple of $ too...... I'm guessing though that they need critical mass to justify the required staff and experience to hold the stored aircraft at near to return status. Once they have that critical mass it will likely become easy...... 15 aircraft is unlikely to keep an appropriate team busy all month though.....Woomera would be fantastic as well, anyone ex defence who has seen the huge USAF aircraft service the yanks will know there is unlikely to be much that couldn't get in and out of there

 

Andy

I believe Alice Springs is A 380 capable......so pretty much capable of handling most current stuff.......

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

When I lived in California we drove acros the country to Oshkosh one year. We were in Wyoming trying to stay awake mid afternoon in fairly standard mid- western countryside.,

 

Suddenly we crested a small hill and were confronted by many silver tails of large aircraft....totally unexpected !.....

 

Greybull Wyoming...home of the Powers fire bombing fleet which is deployed all over the country each summer fire season as required. They also were doing a lot of aircraft conversions there...An interesting sight in the middle of nowhere....

 

Just checked google earth ...they are still there with two very long runways.............Maj....

 

 

[kaz3g]

There were only 4 parked at Alice 5 weeks ago when I was visiting.

 

Kaz

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

I think there are six there now Kaz..........as aircraft age I think there will be more.....eventually they'll be scrapped and recycled into alum ingots..........Maj....

 

 

[Guest Andys@coffs]

I believe Alice Springs is A 380 capable......so pretty much capable of handling most current stuff.......

Yeah my point re woomera wasn't that it was better, just as I recall pretty well unlimited storage in 3 directions away from town...such as it is.....

 

 

[Chris Tarran]

Yeah my point re woomera wasn't that it was better, just as I recall pretty well unlimited storage in 3 directions away from town...such as it is.....

I agree with Andy, Woomera would be near perfect. Only a small town but only 460km by road from a capital city. Huge amount of space and an enormous runway that used to take Starlifter and Galaxy freighters. Remember landing one day long ago in a Metroliner RPT and surmising we could have landed across the runway. Main strip is 2400 metres long so plenty long enough to land a 380 but too short to take off at MTOW (needs about 2700m).

 

 

[facthunter]

The surface has to be able to take the weight, where they are towed to. Any period of wet would make things difficult there unless reinforced surfaces provided for aircraft that are somewhere near flyable . Dust was a problem at Lake Boga.( Catalina's) prone to dust storms. Nev

 

 

[pylon500]

This idea has been touted about for many years, especially after the debacle of storing the C130A's at Point Cook, and having them corrode away in the sea air.

 

However, I have heard from a reliable source, that storage at many central Australian locations turns out to be just as bad due to the number of (sometimes) dry salt lakes around.

 

 

[facthunter]

The salt concentration in many parts of inland Australia is far higher than sea water. Nev

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

The salt concentration in many parts of inland Australia is far higher than sea water. Nev

it's more the red dust you've got to watch ....high iron oxide content which combined with alum and moisture equals big corrosion....Doing SIDS on a red dust aircraft now ....wish I wasn't.......Maj.....

 

 

[dlegg]

it's more the red dust you've got to watch ....high iron oxide content which combined with alum and moisture equals big corrosion....Doing SIDS on a red dust aircraft now ....wish I wasn't.......Maj.....

I have spent a lot of time flying through the Alice to the Tanami desert and can report that it can actually rain a lot out there. It doesn't just rain, it POURS down. So there's your red dust and moisture Maj.....Mojave without the red dust and rain is a far better location for aircraft storage. Just snakes to worry about.

 

 

[eightyknots]

I have spent a lot of time flying through the Alice to the Tanami desert and can report that it can actually rain a lot out there. It doesn't just rain, it POURS down. So there's your red dust and moisture Maj.....Mojave without the red dust and rain is a far better location for aircraft storage. Just snakes to worry about.

What about Coober Pedy? That's a really dry place. They just have to make a 2.5 km long runway, finding a straight line between all the opal mine holes .

 

 

[facthunter]

They are wanting to mine the aerodrome already. Nev