An old US Air Force F-101 Voodoo fighter abandoned in the middle of a desert

Deserts seem empty and desolate places, but sometimes you can find very interesting things in them.

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An example of this is what we can see in this video posted by Western Mine Detective, which shows us a McDonnell F-101A Voodoo fighter, a model that made its first flight in 1954 and was withdrawn from service in the United States Air Force in 1972. The The aircraft in the video is 53-2422, the fifth F-101 to come off the production line.

According to Joe Idoni, this plane was used as a bank test for different engines used later by other F-101, being redesignated as JF-101A. In 1979 it was towed to the Precision Impact Range Area (PIRA) , in the middle of the Mojave Desert and near the base of Edwards AFB (California), to be used as a target for radar calibration, not very far from the bombers we saw here last year. It has been there ever since:

You can see here some captures of the video. The F-101A is without the nose that housed the MA-7 radar.

Unfortunately, vandalism also reaches the desert. The fuselage of the plane is covered in graffiti.

The starboard air intake of the F-101A. Many of the fuselage panels have been removed, as can be seen on the right.

The fuselage has many holes. Someone must have been using it as a target for test shooting with a shotgun.

The place where the starboard reactor used to be. Both engines were removed, probably before towing it to this place.

The characteristic T-shaped tail of the F-101. In the drift, its numeral can still be distinguished: 0-32422.