A potential simulator cockpit?

The Boneyard

The final stop of the day was over to the "boneyard", a part of the airport where The Memphis Group kept the planes they were actually cutting apart. Richard had told us there was a complete 737 nose section there, and we wanted to see what that looked like. We hopped into Richard's pickup truck for the ride. I decided to ride in the back so I could take "photos of opportunity". Good thing I decided to keep my center of gravity low as Richard shot off under a 747 belly and passed under several 737 wings. We traveled down the length of the runway, the planes getting more and more ragged looking as we went. We ended up at the end of the row, with a large hunk of metal in front of us. This was the nose section cut off of a 737-200. Railroad ties piled up to the correct height supported it (and most of the other planes around us). Newell scrambled up the jagged metal at the rear and disappeared into the cockpit. We talked to him through the front windows as he told us what was left of the cockpit. Steve wanted to look inside to so Newell jumped off and Steve grabbed hold and started climbing. We found Steve was a little heavier than Newell when the entire section started tilting over on top of us! Fortunately, it stopped before Steves' hobby became the last thing he ever did.
 

A 747 towers over the truck

There was a 747 half cut-up next to the nose section that Newell wanted to look in. Richard showed us the proper way to get into a 747 if there is no way to get to the doors- you do a "Wesly Snipes" and go up the nose landing gear through a hatch into the equipment bay mentioned earlier. From there you end up on the main cabin level. This plane had a lot missing, with no way to really get up to the cockpit level (unless you grabbed a girder and pulled yourself up- Newell was the only one of us who did it.) You could step out onto the wing from a hole cut in the side of the plane, and we had fun walking out to the wingtip and jumping up and down. The wing fuel tanks were cut open so salvagers could get to some of the fuel sensors, which let us see the structure of the plane and its "wet wing". Looking around the area from the wing was pretty amazing. There were plane parts scattered all over, with window glass just lying around. Engine cowlings were lined up, flaps and slats lay around, and the main landing gears from a 747 sat there, looking like the leg bones off of a dinosaur. Attached to the plane, they are hidden somewhat. Setting by themselves it's amazing how large they are. Looking back towards the main hangar was a line of three or so ex-United 737s.

The last plane we decided to go into was one of the 737's. All of the built-in stairs had already been pulled, so Richard backed up his pickup truck and we scrambled up the tailgate and into the plane. These were in very similar condition to the last 747 we were in, with most of the instrumentation pulled out of the cockpit and wire

The end of a once proud Jumbo

harnesses just hanging out. I walked through the cabin, and stepped out onto the wing through an emergency exit. After poking around some more, we finally scrambled down out of the plane back onto the tailgate of Richard's truck, and we took off back to the main hangar. We thanked Richard and took off back to Memphis.

The trip back to Memphis was quiet after the excitement of the day. We were supposed to go back to The Memphis Group's offices and look at the stuff in their warehouse, but there was no one still working and Newell didn't have his warehouse key and so couldn't show us anything more. Steve talked to Newell about what he had seen, and put in his order for some parts. We took off back to Knoxville from there, and arrived back home at around 1:30 in the morning.