JasonS wrote:Does the airport really benefit more financially from storing all those defunct planes?
Absolutely, yes. I've no doubt they're getting much per month for
each of those planes than they get from all the sports car clubs autocrossing there. And it's an aviation activity, which the FAA (who administers the Airport and Airway Trust Fund) smiles upon. You don't think autocross paid for that tower they installed, did you?
Who pays to store a decrepit plane? Once they are parted out do they just continue to pay to keep them there?
There's a company over on the far side of the airport that dismantles the planes. It's a big business. Each of those engines was about $10 million new...the fan disks alone are worth about $2 million used. The landing gear is worth about a quarter million. Cable harnesses...six figures. Control surfaces -- rudders, ailerons, elevators, flaps -- are each worth more than your car was new. And when it's all gone, the scrap value of the carcass is around $50,000. So yes, they cheerfully pay for storage until they've sold off every last piece.
Maybe I need to get into the trash plane storage business.
All you need is a runway capable of handling a 100 ton airliner, and lots of empty, well-drained space to park them. Out in Southwest, there are storage facilities that are simply hundreds of aircraft parked in the desert. See if you can spare a little room for an autocross site, while you're at it.
I was a little surprised to see the 767s...the longest runway there is only 7000 ft, and rated for 235,000 lbs. The empty weight of a 767 is 195,000 lbs -- add even a little fuel, and they had to be pushing that limit. But they've proven it can be done, so expect they'll bring in more.
The only way to make up 2-4.7 seconds is simply to let one of them drive my car with me in it as an observer 
I'm starting to wish I hadn't given some of my old winner t shirts to the homeless shelter now. Hey, they looked cold. So there's more than one of me out there now. 
