It’s turned into one of my photographic side quests to take pictures of old airplanes, whether they’ve been abandoned or crashed.  So while I had heard of the 747 that was used for the Burning Man festival, I didn’t think much of it… let alone think that I’d accidentally drive straight out to it in the middle of the black rock desert!

Jason and I were just cruising around on the playa taking pictures of the truck and marveling at the majesty of the desert itself when we look over and are like “holy shit that’s gotta be the biggest 5th wheel camper ever…” but as we got closer Jason identified it as an airplane.  And then it all clicked!

Apparently this was the second year the 1/2 Boeing 747 has been out at burning man, but at the end of the festival this year, the landowner that was giving them a parking spot backed out and left them scrambling for someplace to store the plane.  I’d imagine that it’s not a very easy thing to find.  When we drove up (especially because I always have a camera in my hand…) the crew was fairly gruff and worried.  One lady even asked me if I was a reporter! We replied that, no, we were just out on a road trip and saw the plane and thought it was neat.  We even met the actual owner of the airplane and talked to him a little bit about the whole situation.  Apparently people feel pretty strongly about the plane and he’s gotten an endless amount of shit for it still being in the desert.  What they were doing this day was covering the entire thing in a camouflage net to hide the bright white paint.  You’d think that this would be futile since it’s such a large thing, but once you’re away from the site a little bit, the plane just disappears into the landscape.  Either way, it was pretty neat to be that close to such a large plane.  This just proves that there’s always more than one side to the story.