While supposedly in their twilight years, 30 ‘mummified’ F/A-18 Hornets are being resurrected from Arizona’s aircraft ‘boneyard’ to plug a looming gap in the US Marine Corp’s front-line forces. Picture: US Marine Corps.

The Arizona desert is where obsolete and unwanted combat aircraft go to die.

Their internal fluids are drained. Sensitive internals are removed. They’re then mummified with plastic seals over their engine intakes, exhausts and cockpits.

Some are later cannibalised to keep operational aircraft alive.

The aircraft boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base Arizona. The US Marines is reactivating up to 30 Hornets due to delays in the F-35 program.Source:News Limited

But now the US Marine Corps has taken delivery of two ‘reincarnated’ F/A-18 Hornet strike fighters.

They’re the first of a batch of 30 aircraft that will rise like Lazarus from the dead.

It’s just as well the US’s military is obsessed with never throwing anything away.

The controversial F-35 stealth fighter, while flying, is still not combat capable — despite promises of deliveries beginning in 2006.

Exactly when issues with integrating its advanced virtual reality helmet with its extensive array of sensors will be overcome is uncertain. And then there’s ongoing issues relating to its raw performance: speed versus weight, combat payload capacity and ability to penetrate rapidly advancing defences.

A pre-operational US Marine Corps F-35 Lightening II aircraft is escorted by two Marine F/A-18 Hornets. Picture: US MarinesSource:Supplied

The resurrection of old Hornets is just one symptom of the delay.

The whole US military air fleet is getting old and tired. Only a handful of its newest fighter, the F-22 Raptor - were delivered before the program was cancelled due to rising costs.

Existing F/A-18 fighters, which largely serve on the US Navy’s fleet of nuclear powered aircraft carriers, have been in heavy use in recent decades. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has seen them almost constantly in the air in support of ground troops, sanctions, or interdiction missions.

They’re getting worn out. For many, their service life — measured in operational hours flown — is almost over.

Keeping them flying is getting more and more difficult.

And the F-35 is still not in sight.

Marines aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN) 71 perform maintenance on an F/A-18C Hornet. Keeping the existing fleet flying is getting more and more difficult as their airframe lives approachg expiry. Picture: US MarinesSource:Supplied

Manufacturer Boeing mains a construction line building F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, but its future remains uncertain. Many customers, including the US Marines, held off submitting orders.

Australia was forced to buy a handful of the updated Hornets after the controversial scrapping of its F-111 strike fleet in anticipation of the arrival of the F-35.

Like the Marines, the bulk of Australia’s air combat fleet are earlier models of the ageing F/A-18s.

“The cost of extending the lives of current fighter aircraft and acquiring other major weapon systems, while continuing to produce and field new F-35 aircraft, poses significant affordability risks in a period of austere defence budgets,” the US Government Accountability Office reported in March 2016.

America’s ‘undead’ airforce of mummified combat jets at Aizona's Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Picture: GoogleSource:Supplied