I recently flew a Sling TSI airplane from the Sling Pilot Academy over the California desert of Mojave and Victorville; where you can see hundreds of airplanes parked and in storage during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Here is some incredible photography by focalflight, which is our photoship, who took the photos of our planes, during mid-air.
We flew in formation with a Sling TSI (me inside), a Sling NGT (trainer aircraft) and a Tecnam twin engine.
It is Super Bloom time! Flowers are blooming. With the recent rains, the fields have become green.
Mojave, Ca
We first flew over Mojave, Ca. Down there are the usual suspects in the graveyard. You can find many B747s and MD-11s there. You can see more from my detailed report here.
The only recent addition was a Qantas B747-400/ER registration VH-OEG.
Victorville, Ca
Next we headed over to Victorville, Ca. There are lot of new airplanes that have been flown into Victorville for temporary storage. One runway (03/21) was closed to make room for airplanes to park on it. You can see many Delta and Southwest aircraft parked on the taxiway and the closed runway.
There are also many brand new B737 MAXs stored, along with the usual FedEx DC-10s and other retired 747 widebodies.
You can see more from my detailed report here.
Thanks to FocalFlight for the awesome air2air photography. Thanks to Sling Pilot Academy for providing the aircraft.
Hey Sam 4 singapore Airline A380 and a bunch more planes just landed in Alice Springs central Australia For storage wow what a rush . Never seen anything so loud and huge…
Thanks
Amazing, just amazing. I wonder how many billions of dollars worth of airplanes are sitting there?
Dunno’. But however Billions $$$ they WERE worth in February, they certainly are worth LESS in April……..
IMO, with the H U G E surplus of aircraft just sitting – even after ‘we’ start back up – the value of them will have to go down, as every leasor will be cutting his price to get HIS airplanes back on a lease.
Kinda’ like OIL, right now, where last week they were PAYING you to take it off their hands….
As in is one runway enough to handle all the planes?
Yes one runway is efficient enough!
#1: Huge fan
#2: Are those planes parked on the runway? if so, how do planes go in?
As a SWA pilot….:-( 🙁