Name: What Happens to Planes After Retirement
Uploaded: 2020-03-16T16:41:27.000Z
Duration: 9 min 28 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Do you think that the newer an airplane, the safer the flight?

Adverbs of degree

Modern commercial aircrafts are very robust.

One of the oldest commercial airplanes, a Boeing 737-200, made its first flight 40 years

ago and still makes 3-4 regular flights a day!

But what happens to the retired aircraft?

There are several options for airplanes that don't fly any more.

One of the most common options is simply storage.

(gee, wouldn’t that be a great name for a cemetery?

The most ideal places for this purpose of storing airliners are deserts with dry climates,

There shouldn’t be any sand storms in the area, or salt in the air.

It would also require enough free space to build a big parking lot, a long runway, and

a local infrastructure to serve, fix or dismantle airplanes.

Most of these areas are located in the south-western US – California, Arizona, New Mexico.

But there are some in other countries too.

In 2013, Teruel airport was opened near the Spanish city of the same-name.

It's located in an uncrowded area at a height of about half a mile, with a semiarid climate;

an ideal combination for storing airplanes.

There are more than a hundred airplanes stored there already, and it's currently expanding

to be able to accept twice as many aircraft.

Teruel doesn't accept regular flights, but is the largest airplane storage in Europe.

So what happens to airplanes after they arrive?

Some of them stay there for a short time while property rights pass from one owner to another;

Others are repaired, and some find their final resting place.

They'll stay in this resting place for several months, or even years, during which, they're

What's left is sent for further processing.

The unprocessed remains of an old airplane will stay in an aviation cemetery – such

as Davis–Monthan Air Force Base Aircraft Boneyard, in Arizona.

Apart from commercial airplanes, there are about 4,400 other vehicles there, including

It's probably the biggest aviation cemetery in the world.

Kinda makes you wonder what an “airplane zombie” would be like in this place, now

An airplane isn't only the result of an engineer’s work, or a means of transporting people and

It’s a heap of useful parts and materials, which can be utilized in different ways apart

from each other and the plane itself after it's no longer in use.

When an airplane owner decides that it won't ever rise into the air again (sniff), they

first salvage whatever funtioning parts they can: engines, aviation electronics, fuel system

elements, brakes, and separate pieces of the body.

Air Salvage International claims that 95% of modern aircrafts can be reused.

Sometimes parts of fuselage and other elements aren't recycled, but given to people who might

For example, the cockpit can be used to train pilots, and the passenger cabin – to train

flight attendants, firemen and air marshals.

Special companies deal with dismantling and piecing out the airplanes.

They also repair and do maintenance to the ones that are still able to fly.

One such company, British Air Salvage International, says that working engines alone are worth

about 2-4 million dollars, which is about 85% of the cost of an old airplane.

Retired airplanes are in great demand in Hollywood too.

You didn't think the studios make movies in real functioning airplanes, did you?

At Universal Studios, there’s a huge outdoor plane crash set that was built for a for a

A commercial Boeing 747 aircraft was bought for the production, and then taken apart in

The plane cost $60,000, which is pretty reasonable for an old Boeing 747.

But the real expense was in the transportation.

They had to use trucks, a police escort, and a helicopter, with a final cost of $200,000.

After production was done, the full set was left just as it'd been during filming.

Now visitors can see it when touring the studio.

Maybe the most honored fate for an old airplane is to become a part of a museum exhibition.

It might be a specialized museum of aviation, like The National Museum of the United States

Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, or a universal gathering of different vehicles like Auto

& Technik Museum in Sinsheim – a technology museum in Germany.

This is the only museum in the world where you can see both supersonic passenger planes

that were once used for commercial aviation – the British-French Concorde and the Soviet

One of the most impressive collections of flying machines is gathered in the Intrepid

It's an aircraft carrier that's been turned into a museum.

Among its exhibits are not only American military planes and a Concorde, but also spaceships

The ship is parked in the Hudson river, at pier 86, with Manhattan skyscrapers as a background.

Airplanes are also sometimes used as monuments all around the world.

Most of them are small military planes, which serve to commemorate heroic pilots.

But sometimes, big passenger planes also become monuments as a reminder of a whole epoch in

Every once in awhile, old airplanes get to start a whole new life.

They can even be turned into a restaurant or exhibition hall.

Right in Stockholm’s Arlanda airport, a Boeing 747-200 was reconstructed into a hotel.

The airplane made it's first flight in 1976 and kept flying till 2002, when the airline

This is where the aircraft stayed forever.

Now the hotel offers both hostel-type accomodations, and separate rooms with a bathroom.

The best and most unusual room here is the one in the cockpit.

Guests staying here have not only a bathroom but a balcony wth a view on the flying field.

And if you think sleeping in a retired plane is cool, how about dining in one?

Close to the Zurich airport, there's an aviation restaurant called Runway 34.

It's in a parking shelter built above an old Soviet passenger airplane that was produced

Another vintage plane, the 60-year-old Lockheed Constellation, or “Connie” was driven

on a truck from Maine to New York to become a one-of-a-kind bar and restaurant for the

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What Happens to Planes After Retirement

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