On the general subject of retired planes, I was remembering the old 747SP, which UA inherited from Pan Am. It was an easily reconized version of the 747 due to its oddly shorter length. I knew that UA had retired them many years ago, but it has been years since I have last seen any airline using them.

I decided to run a web search on the 747SP and found a web site dedicated solely to that model. Besides the collection of photographs, there were two items on the site that I thought most interesting. It detailed the ownership history of each of the SPs produced and it showed photos of active and retired planes. Several airports in Arizona have apparently been turned into long term storage facilities for excess airplane inventory and for retired aircraft to be used for spare parts.

Though I had never flown on one, I thought it strange to see these multimillion dollar airliners which had once transported thousands of passengers around the world, now sitting idle on desert airstrips.

If interested, the web site is:
www.747SP.com