Some people dream of gardening when they retire and others want to finally treat themselves to a five-star vacation. Bruce Campbell didn’t dream of any of these things. In fact, once he retired, he dedicated himself to his biggest project: turning an old Boeing 727-200 into his home.
The man who lives in an ABANDONED AIRPLANE
#The abandoned plane in the middle of the forest
For many years, located in a forest in the area of Portland, the largest city in the state of Oregon, there is an old aircraft. The aircraft is an old Boeing 727-200 that in 1999 was moved inside the forest.
The Boeing sits on a piece of property over 10 thousand acres in size and has concrete pillars as its bases.
What is it doing there? It’s the landowner’s house.
#Bruce Campbell and his unique home
Some people dream of gardening when they retire and others want to finally treat themselves to a five-star vacation, Bruce Campbell, a former American electrical engineer, has quite different plans for his retirement.
His goal? To refurbish an abandoned airplane and turn it into his new home.
In 1999 he decided to buy an old Boeing abandoned in an airport for 100 thousand dollars, to which must be added another 92 thousand to move it in the forest where Bruce decided to live.
After 15 years of constant work day and night and about 220 thousand dollars he did it and for a long time now, Bruche has lived in this old plane six months a year.
#The airplane: the most resistant house in the world
The former engineer was already living in a mobile home and decided to take it up a notch by following his philosophy that “an airplane should never be scrapped.”
Most airplanes are dismantled and destroyed when they can no longer fly and it is estimated that three planes are retired and destroyed every day.
Bruce saw this as a huge opportunity, trying to show that these winged vehicles can be given a second lease on life as a residential home.
But why living in an airplane? According to Campbell, airliners are “masterful works of aerospace science,” which is why they are strong and durable, able to withstand storms and earthquakes, more than any traditional home.
#The furniture
Most of the interior is relatively intact, when you walk into Bruce’s home there is no doubt that this is an airplane even from the inside.
There’s really nothing missing from the interior of the old Boeing: there are several furnished areas complete with a bedroom, living room, and kitchen equipped with a microwave and toaster oven.
The cabin has been transformed into a reading room, a quiet place to enjoy a good book while the nacelle, the front part of the fuselage that houses some of the plane’s installations and housed the crew, is now a bathroom with a shower stall, while the toilet is that of the original aircraft.
#Anyone can visit Bruce
Bruce accepts visitors from all over the world with one rule: they must remove their shoes before entering.
He hopes to change the attitude of what he considers our throwaway culture by educating people from around the world who approach him and visit the plane.
Instead of destroying perfectly practical and useful vehicles, he wants the world to embrace airplanes and reuse them, even after they’ve been retired from flight.
ARIANNA BOTTINI
