Forget retired train cars. I’m becoming more and more enamored with airliner fuselages, designed to take even more stress than a shipping container, and extremely light. The Superuse Blog notes:

To have a chunk of 747 or even a complete one, should become more easier since there might be a surplus of 747-200s heading for the market any day soon. Aiationweek: ‘Mass retirement is looming for the world’s fleet of aging freighters, especially Boeing 747-200s. Boeing says that 40% of the 320 747 freighters in service are at least 25 years old but keep flying because strong demand for new passenger jets and delays in delivery of Airbus A380s have suppressed the supply of replacement airplanes. James Edgar, a cargo specialist with Boeing, says the old 747s “will be retired in droves” in the next few years as airframe production catches up with global traffic demand and passenger transports such as 747-400s are released for conversion to freighters.’ Prices for a complete stripped out 747, are about $ 100.000, this means 360m2 of interior floor space and this is just the passenger deck. Here is a line up of 747s waiting to get scrapped.

Here’s another guy who had the same idea:

This Boeing 727-200 is a work-in-progress home conversion, undertaken by Bruce Campbell from rural Hillsboro, Oregon. For $ 100.000 the plane was obtained by the electrical engineer and the estimated costs to make it a house are another $ 100.000. The aircraft provides 1,066 square feet (100 m2) of living space and near-total resistance to the elements. The house gives him ‘A feeling of strength, security, capability and ergonomics that eclipses any other, almost as if you were in a home designed 50 years in the future. Imagine removing all the clutter, such as the seats, the overhead compartments… What’s left is an open, ultra high tech home. Besides,’ he says, ‘it’s a great toy.’ On his labyrinthic website there is a million of pictures of the work-in-progress, both exterior and interior of jet-house and a cool possibility to build a house out of wide-body 747 jet. He maintains that ‘anybody can do it, given desire, luck (acquiring decommissioned plane) and determination.’

I came across this video report from the Mugunga Camps near Goma, today. The scenes here are only a kilometer or two from one of the Goma Student Fund’s schools:

EUX.TV Videojournalist Raymond Frenken travels to Congo and finds himself in a refugee camp near Goma - in the heart of the war-torn Kivu province - that was looted by army soldiers just a few days earlier.

Peace talks between the rebels and the government have begun, but the fighting has displaced a staggering half a million people or more. The tone of this news piece is hopeful, however. After describing life in Mugunga, it focuses on reforms that the EU is helping the Congolese military make, including biometric identification cards and a “full separation of the chain of command from the chain of payment.” The hope is that well-paid soldiers that can readily identified by the populace will stop their rampant looting and help stabilize rather than destabilize areas that they are deployed to.