Image from Inhabitat
Looking to cash in your frequent flyer miles? Maybe you can crash here….
The airplane was transported piece by piece from the San Jose airport to its current resting place on a pedestal 50 feet above the beach. It looks a bit like a model airplane on a stand, and we can only imagine the spectacular views from the balcony and the airplane windows. Five big trucks were needed to get the plane out to the resort, and while the transportation certainly had a negative ecological impact, the finished project is a stunning example of adaptive reuse.
Or perhaps here…
Image from Inhabitat
The Jumbo Hostel is housed within a retrofitted 747-200 situated in the Stockholm-Arlanda airport. The jumbo jet has a long history of service – it was originally built for Singapore Airlines and even flew for Pan Am. It was last operated by Transjet, a now bankrupt Swedish airline. The Jumbo Hostel has 25 rooms with three bunk beds each. Each room is around 6 square meters, and naturally, a lucky visitor will get the chance to sleep in the cockpit.
Back a few years ago, I broke away from a family vacation in Phoenix to go visit Biosphere 2. While I was the only one who wanted to venture to the huge desert greenhouse, I had a nice time and would encourage people to check out the facility and its story. Incidentally, Biosphere 2 did show up in one of my daughter’s spelling homework assignments this week.
On my solo side trip adventure, I tried to find an airplane graveyard that I had heard of in the desert outside Tucson. Despite my pre-travel research efforts, I never did find the airplane storage facility back then, but heard an interesting story about how it is more cost effective to mothball your surplus airship than to deliver empty seats from city to city. Apparently, there is something ideal about the desert of the American Southwest for airplane storage.
Got any good stories of airplane storage, reuse or repair? Share them in the comments!
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