Short title

In mid-day heat of the arid Sonoran desert sits the gutted remains of a Lockheed Tri-Star airliner 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 the sleek curves. Elsewhere, Jumbo jets, Airbuses and assorted Boeings sit abandoned in the scrub minus their bellies, legs or wings like dying birds. 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. .

Filename

aviation_corbis39-15-08-1998.jpg

Copyright

© Richard Baker. No copying, screen grabbing, transmission or publication without permission.

Image Size

4233x4176 / 6.5MB

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 gutted forgotten Lockheed Tri-Star fate belly opened inner anatomy economy industrial remains commercial aviation international trade commerce Richard Baker photographer jet jet aircraft airliner civil blue sky mid-day USA transcontinental

Contained in galleries

'Work' in 100 images, Oxford Exhibition, Plane Pictures, Aviation, Aviation Junkyards