{"id":51365,"date":"2023-04-28T23:32:44","date_gmt":"2023-04-28T21:32:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=51365"},"modified":"2025-04-28T00:18:16","modified_gmt":"2025-04-27T22:18:16","slug":"an-old-us-air-force-f-101-voodoo-fighter-abandoned-in-the-middle-of-a-desert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2023\/04\/28\/an-old-us-air-force-f-101-voodoo-fighter-abandoned-in-the-middle-of-a-desert\/","title":{"rendered":"An old US Air Force F-101 Voodoo fighter abandoned in the middle of a desert"},"content":{"rendered":"

Deserts seem empty and desolate places, but sometimes you can find very interesting things in them.<\/p>\n

A desert in which three strategic bombers from the Cold War are abandoned<\/a><\/rel>
\nAn unusual graveyard of Tupolev Tu-22M supersonic bombers in Russia<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n

An example of this is what we can see in this video posted by Western Mine Detective<\/a>, which shows us a McDonnell F-101A Voodoo fighter<\/strong>, a model that made its first flight in 1954 and was withdrawn from service in the United States Air Force in 1972.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.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
53-2422, the same aircraft in the video, photographed at the former McClellan AFB, California, on April 30, 1966 (Photo: SDASM Archives<\/a>).<\/div>\n

According to Joe Idoni<\/a>, 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) <\/strong>, 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<\/a>. It has been there ever since:<\/p>\n