It might not have a heavy cargo floor, door, or gear to make it suitable for a freighter.

The photo in the Jalopnik article is showing a different airplane. The one actually being parted out is a B747-8 BBJ, not a -400. It had roughly 16 cycles and 30 hours on the airframe. It was originally destined to be a BBJ, so no heavy cargo floor. The owner had it for sale for quite a while with no buyers. Boeing bought it back and ferried it from Basel to Marana for parting out.

https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/worlds-first-boeing-747-8-bbj-scrapped-in-us-after-just-30-flight-hours

It is not uncommon for the cumulative value of the marketable parts to far exceed the value of the whole. 50 hr since new parts are quite valuable.

Flew over KMHV on Saturday. Looked like there was a China Air A380 in scrapping section of the airport. Had not yet been dismembered but all the planes around it had.

The long term storage lot is separate.

The -400 is able to be converted, i.e., the BCF. I assume Boeing has the information to do so with the -8.

And here I am flying around in 100k+ hour, 30k+ cycle, 20+ year old 777s. Life just ain’t fair, I tell ya.

There have not been any -8 converted freighters. And probably not much of a market to require engineering, testing and cert. Not sure but something else must have been going on with this bird.

There have not been any -8 converted freighters. And probably not much of a market to require engineering, testing and cert. Not sure but something else must have been going on with this bird.

Would have thought with the new VC-25B program coming online the USAF might have been interested in parking this one at Davis-Monthan to be a future source of spares.

That involves forethought and I haven’t seen too much of that out of our government for a while. It would be interesting to know if used parts are installed on VC-25 aircraft, and I could be surprised with the answer. If so, I’d expect them to be removed and stored in a secured hangar, not sitting out where some satellite could photograph it. But I also question the need for upgrading to a larger aircraft when optics are huge and the 74 isn’t exactly “green”. When I’m president (hahaha) I’ll be flying around in a pre-owned G650, good enough for Elon, good enough for me.

The -8 is a Cat F airplane, requiring larger aprons, wider runways and taxiways and weight bearing. Many airport have parallel taxiways that prohibit Cat F while the other taxiways are in use due to wing clearance. It's an issue for many operators. It simply doesn't just fit in just because a 747-400 does.