Short title

In mid-day heat of the arid Sonoran desert sit the remains of Boeing 747 airliners at the storage facility at Mojave, California. Here, the fate of the world?s retired civil airliners is decided by age or a cooling economy and are either cannibalised for still-working parts or recycled for scrap, their aluminium fuselages worth more than their sum total. After a lifetime of safe commercial flight, wings are clipped and cockpits sliced apart by huge guillotines, cutting through their once-magnificant engineering. Picture from the 'Plane Pictures' project, a celebration of aviation aesthetics and flying culture, 100 years after the Wright brothers first 12 seconds/120 feet powered flight at Kitty Hawk,1903.

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Filename: aviation_corbis40-15-08-1998.jpg
Copyright: © Richard Baker. No copying, screen grabbing, transmission or publication without permission.
Image Size: 4214x4189 / 6.9MB; www.photoshelter.com/support/license; https://www.bakerpictures.com/contact; transportation transport planes plane flight aviation aircraft air travel air transport aerospace aeronautics airline graveyard boneyard ruins redundant useless lifeless storage commercial airliners technology archaeology bygone historic era terminated end of the line decline old worthless arid desert Mojave California facility metalic aluminium scrap recycle re-usable end of service parts air frame fuselage equipment dead end scrap yard junk retired dump relics disembodied laid bare heat Sonora desert forgotten fate economy industrial cockpit sliced cut-away dust scrub nose section remains commercial aviation Boeing airbus international trade commerce sky Richard Baker photographer jet jet aircraft airliner civil blue sky mid-day USA transcontinental
Contained in galleries: Editorial, Favourite Covers (and their original images), 'Work' in 100 images, Plane Pictures, Aviation, Aviation Junkyards, Corporate, Jumbo Jet

In mid-day heat of the arid Sonoran desert sit the remains of Boeing 747 airliners at the storage facility at Mojave, California. Here, the fate of the world?s retired civil airliners is decided by age or a cooling economy and are either cannibalised for still-working parts or recycled for scrap, their aluminium fuselages worth more than their sum total. After a lifetime of safe commercial flight, wings are clipped and cockpits sliced apart by huge guillotines, cutting through their once-magnificant engineering. Picture from the 'Plane Pictures' project, a celebration of aviation aesthetics and flying culture, 100 years after the Wright brothers first 12 seconds/120 feet powered flight at Kitty Hawk,1903.