Originally Posted by
JamesAA
The boneyards in our SW deserts are home to planes still in use: F/A-18s, 737s, etc. Why did some of these types of aircraft have the unfortunate fate of ending up in the boneyards?
I could only speculate that perhaps the metal fatigue was an issue. Possibly too many T/O and Landings?
Another reason I thought was that particular airlines or the military were scaling back on a type of aircraft, thus having more, say F/A-18s than they need?
I'm curious as to know why.
Thanks in advanced
The FA18's you see in the desert are almost all A models. They are vastly different from the C and later models. Fighters also have a fatigue life.bwhen they reach it they have to be parked or so through a service life extension. Not going to happen with A models for reasons that can't be discussed here. The F16A has the same issue.