It’s been locked up since 9/11, but Ransom Riggs of mental_floss managed a visit to the Mojave Air and Spaceport and took plenty of pictures. The inactive airport is used as a parking lot for planes and also a junkyard of planes that will never be flown again. The result is a collection of photographs that are urban decay with an aviation slant. Link
Croccydile
Did he *really* have to process most of those pictures in harsh tone mapping?
Alex
It’s High Dynamic Range photography. Some people like it, others don’t.
Previously on Neatorama: Airplane Graveyard HDR Photo
Wes
Croccydile’s use of the term tone mapping was not incorrect. And you can create an HDR image without it bringing attention to itself the way these do, which is how I prefer it. Many of these just end up look posterized. It’s distracting from the subject matter.
Croccydile
Apologizes for the nitpicking, but I see tonal mapping far too often exaggerated as HDR these days.
Unfortunately there is not much of the real thing floating around because browsers wont support it without plugins.
http://hdview.at/hdr/index.html
http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~reinhard/tm_comp/flickr_hdr/The%20Problem.ht ml
Or really #7 in the examples is overused when a better choice I think is #14
http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~reinhard/tm_comp/flickr_hdr/Comparison.html
Oh well, just my two cents
Jackie
Would love to see these hulks transformed into some kind of homes for people in need or at least recycled into SOMETHING!
JMM
I think it is horrible that so-called President Bush kept this under wraps for so many years. Today with the new openeness and transparancy of President Obama we can both admire the beauty of these old relics and also mourn the fact that all the oil and fuel and so on draining from the planes will forever mar the environment there.
Wes
JMM, these planes were put into storage; the pilots didn’t just land them there and walk away. Any fuel or oil was drained.
Ian B
One of those Air Canada 767s is the Gimli Glider (C-GAUN) which was retired to the desert in 2008.
Jackie, those airplanes ARE recycled. Parts go to other airplanes, and ultimately the remaining aluminum is shredded and melted down to make something truly useful like beer cans.
chris197
mojave is not locked up. go to the refueling guys in the office next to the tower and give tim ten bucks and he will gladly drive you around the apron for a bit. it’s the worst kept secret in california.
Foreigner1
I don’t understand…?
Mojave Air and Space pot locked up since 9/11…?
Then how come a European friend of mine just visited that exact place with a guide and without anyone stopping her or the group she was with some 2 years ago? No-one stopped her or anyone to just snoop around and take some pics where those hulks stand. And even if you don’t actually visit the place, it quite clearly can be seen if you take an airplane and fly around there or if you take a car and just drive by it.
Locked up…?
MikeB
If JMM and Jackie are bothered by this non-issue, then Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson will probably boil their brains. Even on Google Maps, the site is astounding.
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