Amid the steel, aluminum and rust at the Yanks Air Museum Boneyard

The boneyard at the Yanks Air Museum in Chino, California, is one of the few that you can walk around and explore at your own pace. 

Check out Take these broken wings: Touring the Yanks Air Museum Boneyard for more about this fascinating place.

Exit the museum's Restoration hangar and you're greeted by a Fairchild C-123 Provider that's undergoing restoration.

Hard to mistake the bulbous nose of an Sikorsky H-34, or the S-58 as the company called it.

That's a Coast Guard Sikorsky HH-52A Seaguard in the middle, and a Sea King that was once in presidential service (aka Marine One) on the left. Now they're rotor-less and awaiting restoration.

This F-8 Crusader has seen better days.

Engine-less and hollow.

The museum's Lockheed EC-121 Warning Star, aka a L-1049 Super Constellation, is on the wrong side of a fence. However, there are open-cockpit days once a month where you can have a look inside.

This example was the last EC-121 retired by the Air Force. It spent some time at the amazing Pima Air and Space Museum. 

One of several F-104s at the museum. In great shape and likely out here just for storage.

A restored A-7 nearly ready to showcase.

Once you leave the museum's hangars behind, you enter the boneyard proper. The sound just seems to die away.

The boneyard is home to planes, pieces of planes and many other items known and useful only to the restoration team that works here.

Around here you're surrounded by boneyard. It's like you're no longer adjacent to an airport and could be anywhere. Like some desolate desert full of rusty machines. 

I made a video walking around the boneyard.

An F-4 Phantom II from the late '70s, needing more than just a fresh coat of paint.

No one I asked was quite sure about this aircraft's history. It was painted to be a movie backdrop, and all its markings are fake.

Two jets from the Cold War era, an A-7 Corsair II on the left, and an F-105. Like most of the jets in the boneyard, there are multiple examples of each of these aircraft, either for future restoration or for parts.

The back of the E-2 Hawkeye you see when you enter the museum's parking lot.

It took me a whole to figure out what this is. It looks, from the front, like a flat, wide truck. The sides, however, are sort of wing-shaped. Or at least, the missing parts are that shape. This view helped me figure it out; it's a hovercraft. It's the only surviving Navy PACV.

This gave me a bit of a shock. It seemed to be one of the only remaining Lunar Landing Training Vehicles, No. 952. I believe it's not the original, however.

The boneyard holds many interesting artifacts, like trucks, some armored vehicles, and many unidentifiable (to me) machines.

A Northrop T-38A Talon an F-104, and the F-105 you saw in the last slide.

Coming around the corner of some cargo containers and I'm surprised by the sight: several much larger aircraft along the back of the boneyard, the first being this Convair C-131 Samaritan.

Delivered in 1956, this C-131 served with the US Navy until the early '80s.

A Curtiss C-46 Commando. This one dates from the late 1940s. Some of these are actually still flying.

This aircraft, N74173, once flew with Pan Am. It wasn't as popular as the C-47/DC-3 due to higher fuel and operating costs.

The nose from a Martin 4-0-4, and an old Ford F600.

On the left is an A-4 Skyhawk that last served with VF-45. On the right is not, as it seems at first glance, a B-24. It's a PB4Y-2 Privateer.

The PB4Y was developed from the B-24 for the Navy as a long-range patrol bomber. This example served with the US Coast Guard.

On military Privateers these were gun turret bubbles. The single tail is one of the major differences between the PB4Y and the B-24.

Views like this are why I love exploring boneyards. It's like another world.

This Grumman HU-16 Albatross looks too good to be relegated to the boneyard. Most likely it's just here for storage. A quick wash and it'd practically be museum-ready.

Another Thunderchief. This one retired from a Texas-based United States Air Force Reserve unit.

The other A-6E.

Silent jet turbines.

During its nearly 35 years of service, the A-3 Skywarrior was the heaviest aircraft to operate from carriers. As such it was nicknamed the Whale.

The nose of a B-52. 

The Yanks Air Museum boneyard is like stepping into a post-apocalyptic world. The museum itself is great, too. 

For more about the boneyard, check out Take these broken wings: Touring the Yanks Air Museum Boneyard.