Military stuff that *could* be brought back out again

[theboymoon]

I think I am developing a geeky interest in mothballed kit, American deserts filled with lines of old planes and mysterious Russian installations with all sorts of stuff under wraps...

So was wondering what is there around the world tucked away that should the need arise could be brought out flying again?

Phantoms? Harriers? other fast jets, A10s, B1-Bs, blackjacks, Migs, SU-xx's?

Did we cut up our Harriers?

That sort of thing.

What do we have? The Americans? The Russians? Others?

There's still some Jaguars in active service, right?

[zasker]

Would be good to see the SR-71 again. Not sure if these are mothballed though, probably cut up.

[annodomini2]

Harrier's were sold to the US Marines, probably spare parts for their's.

[Seight_Returns]

Most SR71s went to museams - the USAF didn't seem too bothered about seeing the SR71 fleet retired - funny that.

[Shar2]

Some A-10's have been returned to service and updated to A-10C standard. Some of the retired B-1B's could also be returned to service. Us Brits seem to send our older aircraft straight for scrapping or to museums. Although there are a number of SHAR's about in store at Yeovilton and with the aircraft handling section at Culdrose, they would take some servicing to get them up and running again.

[Fluid]

No more Jaguars left in service, shame really fantastic jet.

[LotusOmega375D]

Fluid said:

No more Jaguars left in service, shame really fantastic jet.

I think the Indian Air Force still operate them. I remember seeing a few test flying out of HAL, Bangalore a couple of years ago.

[CelicaGT]

Some Phantoms which are in the best condition are taken from the desert and made into target drones. A surprisingly large amount of work is done on them to make them airworthy again. Of course then they are blown up by a missile but at least they don't just sit out in the desert waiting to be turned into coke cans.

[Oakey]

Fairly sure that all the equipment, designs, etc that are required for the construction of the SR-71 were destroyed and that a lot of the companies who supplied essentials are no longer in business?

I think I read they have a limited supply of the fuel left as well?

I'm sure Eric MC knows

[disco1]

I'm sure the there's one or two Iowa class battelships mothballed in a natural harbour just outside San Diego.

[Tango13]

Oakey said:

Fairly sure that all the equipment, designs, etc that are required for the construction of the SR-71 were destroyed and that a lot of the companies who supplied essentials are no longer in business?

I think I read they have a limited supply of the fuel left as well?

I'm sure Eric MC knows

The tooling, assembly jigs etc was cut up and sold for scrap, Ben Rich talks about it in his book 'Skunk Works'

If the USAF did for some strange reason decide they needed more SR-71's then the manufacturing process would be totally different anyway due to advances in machine tools and their acuracy compared to 50yrs ago.

Didn't one of the US presidents want to bring back the B-58 from storage at one point? Bill Clinton rings a bell but either way they had all been recycled long ago.

[TTwiggy]

lots of American aircraft carriers (some quite up to date) are moored up as 'museum ships'. Probably wouldn't need much to get them seaworthy.

[Fat Albert]

Our equivalent of the Arizona Desert is at RAF Shawbury, there are a number of hangars tucked away on the otehr side of the airfield full of interesting stuff.
2 of my big regrets when I was stationed there was a, not doing the tour and b, not buying an ex-AAC Beaver when they dragged 12 of them out and sold them off for £12,000 each in 1989

When I was there they used to deliver the brand new Harrier GR7s for final acceptance and to build up squadron strength before they would ship out to Wittering, then we would get a load of GR5s back in.

Constant reports of fires in the Storage Hangars too!

[mybrainhurts]

Any Sopwith Camels left...?

[Hooli]

mybrainhurts said:

Any Sopwith Camels left...?

I think they are on the front line now.

[Steve_D]

mybrainhurts said:

Any Sopwith Camels left...?

You could even land them on aircraft carriers.

Steve

[Streps]

I'm guessing Russia might have quite a few soviet aircraft in emergency war reserve storage

[aeropilot]

disco1 said:

I'm sure the there's one or two Iowa class battelships mothballed in a natural harbour just outside San Diego.

Nope.

All 4 x Iowa class are now museum ships, and have been struck from the Naval list.

USS Iowa is up in Northern California being worked prior to going on display in Los Angels harbour.

USS New Jersey is moored in New Jersey.

USS Wisconsin is moored in Virgina.

And the Mighty Mo, (USS Missouri) is moored behind the sunken USS Arizona on battleship row at Pearl Harbour.

[davepoth]

Shar2 said:

Some A-10's have been returned to service and updated to A-10C standard. Some of the retired B-1B's could also be returned to service. Us Brits seem to send our older aircraft straight for scrapping or to museums. Although there are a number of SHAR's about in store at Yeovilton and with the aircraft handling section at Culdrose, they would take some servicing to get them up and running again.

AIUI we generally run our planes right to the very end of the airframe life before grounding them - Vulcan is an example. XH558 has something like 400 hours left and that was the most any of the airframes had.

[kiteless]

Tango13 said:

Didn't one of the US presidents want to bring back the B-58 from storage at one point? Bill Clinton rings a bell but either way they had all been recycled long ago.

I would love to see a B-58 flying again