FedEx aircraft boneyard - Victorville, CA
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Star B
White Lightening
um... and? Everyone sends stuff to VCV... Some planes are robbed for parts, others are brought back into service. There are probably still a ton of Comair CRJ-200s still out there. Skywest likes to bring them back into service when their current fleet of CRJ2s run out of cycles.
MrFedEx
Engorged Member
True, but many of these aircraft are the DC10s Fred was buying as late as 2004-2005 and converting to modernized cargo MD10s at tremendous cost. These were supposed to be "20 year" aircraft from which we got just about 10 years of service. That's bad planning. The 767 freighters FedEx is buying now have been available since 1986, which is when UPS purchased the initial aircraft.
Bad decisions from bad management.
L
Little Brownie Girl
Guest
What about the tail problem on the MD 88?
MrFedEx
Engorged Member
Converting DC10s into MD10s wasn't cheap. Figure almost all of them had to be converted from PAX to freighters, and then all were upgraded to MD11 avionics etc. A refurbishment is different from a conversion.
MrFedEx
Engorged Member
They probably wouldn't be flying at all. Ground is the green air beneath Express wings.
As Mr. Fedex pointed out the fact that he would even consider using DC10's is absolutely amazing given their bad safety record and well known high cost of operation. Consider also the size of the support network required to service and repair all of the various makes and models they had in their inventory. Glad to see that they are finally streamlining things a little and finally realizing that cheap and economical are not the same thing..
MrFedEx
Engorged Member
There are also a few MD11s out there. If it has winglets, it's a Deathstar. Those are pretty new for freighters. More evidence our upper management makes bad decisions. UPS was upgrading it's fleet 30 years before we were.
oldngray
nowhere special
DC10's were terrible when new but not that bad once the worst problems were fixed. The name with its bad reputation could not be fixed though. Rebranded as MD11. The biggest problem is the cost to fly those old dinosaurs which is why its cheaper to park them in the desert and buy new planes.
Slick silver
Well-Known Member
I would say the same could be said about vehicles. Ups figured it out decades ago, spend a little bit more and you can make a truck last 15 to 20 years. Heck most of the trucks here at FedEx will be lucky to make it 10. I heard most of those ups trucks that are gas powered are running on the gm corvette motors. Heck FedEx ground is running those crappy ford motors that drink oil
Whats in the Box
Well-Known Member
It's not just the DC10 and MD11's mothballed, there is also a bunch of Airbus A300s and A310s in that picture too!
rod
Retired 22 years
dvalleyjim
Well-Known Member
I used to live not far from this storage place in Mojave, CA . It's cool. They will redo and update these planes when the get a deal with some 3rd world airline. Some of these planes are 30 years old and too old for the FAA but fine for Argentina airlines.
