Aviation Buffs: B1s mothballed ?

[MNJason]

I was in Tucson this weekend and flying out today over the Boneyard I spied about 15 B1s sitting there. I was shocked as I assumed all of these were still in use?

I looked at some satellite images to confirm my suspicions.

I did a quick Google search but nothing came up.

Were there some early B1As that were not converted to B models?

 

[Kingman]

Have you looked at the latest DoD budget?

 

[GT38]

Nothing unusual. Even relatively new aircraft wind up in the boneyard - flight test articles, early production block aircraft that are not cost effective to upgrade to current standards, aircraft with serious structural damage (over-stress or hard landings, etc). Sometime's it's just the budget, as Kingman points out. Davis-Monthan has lots of aircraft in "flyable storage". Depending on how they have been prepared for storage, some of the aircraft can be put back into the air in as little as a day or two.

These photos are from a year ago - the first two are B-1's in flyable storage, and the other three are of aircraft used as parts donors to keep other B-1's flying.

 

[GT38]

You probably couldn't recognize this from the air - tooling for the B-2.

 

[CH53Driver]

Cool pics GT38!

 

[fjpikul]

I think many of you don't know it, but that's what IndyGT's tungsten car looks like when he takes it racing. He covers it up with that white vinyl stuff. Some of us are ashamed to ride around with him.