While In California for the first Super Chevy handling & Suspension Challenge, I got a chance to visit the Victorville airport and the airliner graveyard there...

People who know me also know I have a rabid lust with airplanes. It's as strong as my lust for cars. Not just the glitzy and glamorous fighter planes, but also civil stuff like propliners and early jets.

While at Victorville, I managed to find my way around outside the airport fence, and got close to the main storage yard, where what's left of the once mighty Delta L-1011 fleet now resides. Anyone who's been flying for more than the last ten years has probably flown on one of these aircraft at sometime in their life. The L-1011 was the flagship of Delta's fleet for almost three decades. Built by Lockheed to compete with the DC-10, it was a fast, economical wide body jetliner that could fly all over the world. Until it's retirement in the early 21st century, the L-1011 was the fastest non-supersonic airliner in service.

Just like going to a junkyard full of cool cars, seeing this collection of old birds rotting away in the desert sun is kinda sad, kinda cool, and makes you reflect on things a bit. Looking back to when these planes were crossing the skies, the pride of airlines all over, and fast forwading to now with them in the desert awaiting scrapping and salvage, it's just liek lookign at a car int he junkyard, wondering what kind of life it had, what brought it to its final resting place in a junkyard?

It was a cool experience, thought I'd share with everyone.