posted 02-19-2019 09:41 PM               

The X-34 story took a very bizarre turn in the last couple of years when the Air Force apparently donated the craft to a museum in Florida. The man who was the point of contact for the museum had to take possession of them, but was not anywhere near ready logistically to move them across the country. This would have been a major administrative and operational undertaking as each state would require special permits to move the wide loads through. We can only imagine what the bill would be to ship the rocket planes 2,000 miles east would have been, but it would have been substantial.

This is how they ended up in the back yard of the proprietor of Smith's Quickcrane Inc. With the individual in Florida totally unprepared for the complex and expensive shipping process, he asked the contractor that had moved them off Edwards' grounds to store them for a very short amount of time while he quickly got his affairs in order. According to the owner of Smith's, who we talked to on the phone, what was originally supposed to be a couple weeks at the most has turned into many, many months...

Clearly, the owners of Smith's Quickcrane aren't happy about with the situation and they just want to get paid and have the vehicles removed. But there they sit, a bizarre oddity to gawk at for anyone who drives down their road.