The Runway Day.

May 1997. Azzer was 8 years old. And it was a nice Saturday in spring. Bored with a capital B. We talked about what we could do. The hay shed.. The bridge. The park. The woods. The phone box prank.. The bus trip to randomness.. The stampede stunt... the shopping trolley walk. The car walking.

All the stunts we got up to in our rebellious streak. But we needed something really cool to do. And all this time we tried staying well clear of the military base I worked at.. For obvious reasons.. But today.. We decided to hell with it..

Well at the end of the runway.. There is a wooded area called "splash down woods" nick named from a Chinook accident years ago.. And in this woods is a small wooden fence that you can climb over and get to the outer peri track.. a road that literally follows around the air field.. for security and for crow scaring vehicles and emergency access to the fire brigade. Between this outer track is a big barbed wire fence.. Then an inner track and 20 meters is the end of the main active runway.

So we headed there and found the outer track and climbed over the fence.. And then walked across to the big barbed wire fence and laid down in the tall grass. We knew that the air craft were gonna be going out as we could hear them all morning doing "pressure runs" (where they fire up the engines.. and shut them down.. and start up full thrust and then release... if you lived near an air field you will know all about that) so.. They are bound to go and take off and do circuits.. Mainly because they probably just fixed it.. or are testing it.. or maintained it..

We laid in the grass.. level with the middle of the runway.. and just stared at the sky and the clouds.. passing the time by talking about cloud shapes and what is a drag and what is cool.. music .. mainly heavy metal.. and sang a few songs of iron maiden whilst listening to it on Azzers little walkman and the speaker head phones between our heads... an hour passed or so.. and we were well into a deep conversation about going away and being apart. when we saw the lights turn on at the end of the runway.. the main active lights all started up.. and we sat up to see the Blacktop coming.. Black Top is used to scare crows and check for runway integrity before an aircraft uses it.

We laid back down as he came past close.. didn't spot us at all.. so we make ourselves comfy and laid starring up at the sky. Then time passed until we heard it coming.. distant.. rumble.. the noise came closer and closer.. Azzer grabbed my arm and squeezed my hand.. i smiled and just looked over at him.. he started getting across between scared and excited.. it came closer.. now Azzer is practically hanging on to me daring to look up at the sky.. sometimes hiding his face in my armpit..

tick tock tick tock.. it came.. just as Azzer looked up at the sky.. WHAM!!!! RAAAAAAAAA about 5 feet above our heads the aircraft.. a Tornado GR1.. came into land...

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHH" screamed Azzer..

It was like we could reach out and touch it.. split second and then heat.. lots of heat and wind.. hot air.. smell of exhaust.. then we sat up to see the orange glow of the after burner and the air torrents and haze.. then wham.. blue flame... it took right off again.. the noise was horrendous.. after 20 mins.. we could hear again.. laid in the grass.. daring for another one.. debating when we should go.. the moment cherished by Azzer.. who loved that film.. "Top Gun" with Tom Cruise.. by now.. the hand prints over my forearm as he clenched so tightly...

we stayed for 2 more that happened that afternoon.. before going home with a headache and talk of an experience.