The US Air Force’s Boeing E-3 Sentry will soon be retired.
This aircraft has been in use since the 1970s, and 50+ years is a long time for a plane.
But, after its retirement, this aircraft isn’t going to be playing golf or enjoying some quiet time on the beach.
This is because the US Air Force has a different idea in mind.
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Based on the ancient Boeing 707, the Boeing E-3 Sentry is what the U.S. Air Force calls an AWACS, which stands for Airborne Warning and Control System.
It’s a strange-looking plane, with a massive ‘dish’ glued to its fuselage, but its operational history is impressive.
Even so, all good things must come to an end.
Senior Airman Roslyn Ward/Wikipedia Commons
The Boeing 707 this plane was based on was first manufactured in 1956 and discontinued in 1978.
It’s the sort of thing Pan Am frequent flyers would’ve used at the time.
Interestingly, there’s a very specific plan in place for a situation like this.
There’s a storage facility at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base – or ‘The Boneyard’, as some people call it – where decommissioned military planes like the US Air Force’s plane are parked and ‘abandoned’.
As you can see from the picture below, The Boneyard is the resting place of hundreds of decommissioned military aircraft.
U.S. Navy by 3d Class Shannon R. Smith/Wikipedia Commons
This is particularly intriguing when we remember that the presidential Cadillac, for example, suffers a completely different fate when it’s retired.
Spoiler alert: there’s definitely no Davis-Monthan Air Force Base/The Boneyard for the presidential Cadillac because something a lot darker awaits The Beast, as the car is sometimes known.
Then again, details about the massive US Air Force’s plane are probably not as sensitive – and therefore classified.
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