A very long day yesterday concluded with me fetching my son and his friends from Bristol Airport, late last night/early this morning, after their week in Madrid. At the ripe old age of 21, he is already far more adept than his father at negotiating his way round foreign climes. But my thoughts last night were more of my love of airports.
There was only one delayed flight coming into Bristol last night and that, of course, was my son’s flight. It was only an hour, but it did mean my day would spill over well into the following day. After a day of hard labour and then a round of golf, it was clear that adrenalin would see me through and indeed keep the yawns away.
Arriving at the airport shortly before midnight, I assumed my normal position at the far end of the runway to the west, which overlooks the Bristol Channel but only in daylight, and the runway itself. This is the place for anoraks to while away the hours, doing nothing more exciting than watching planes land and take off. What could be more exciting, I say in all seriousness? At night though, the area is so dark you can barely see a thing, apart from the lights of the runway and the lights of the terminal building. Sitting in my car, the instrument lights shone brilliantly. It was not warm, but I had both car windows open, listening to the sounds of aircraft engines spooling up and down. And there was that smell, the glorious smell of aeroplane fuel. It is possible that the smell is not good for you and more possibly very bad for you, just like I always wondered about the smells at the speedway I watched in Bristol back in the old days. It is probably as healthy as puffing away on packet of Woodbines but at least it’s not as addictive.
Unfortunately, as it was near the dead of night there was precious little aircraft activity. As I approached my position, I missed two planes landing and the next one due in was the Airbus A319 operated by easyJet from Madrid. And before I could say Jack Robinson, a bright light appeared over Dundry, gradually descending as the light grew brighter, and eventually landing seemingly perfectly on the runway. And that was it. The plane slowed, turned at the end of the runway, returned to the terminal building and disgorged its weary passengers.
What is the attraction of watching a plane take off and land? You do not get small crowds gathering at the bus station to watch buses leaving and railway stations are these days generally devoid of obsessive little men, of which I was once one, furiously logging details and numbers when trains were generally more interesting. I think we marvelled at steam engines and the big diesels that replaced them and were in awe of their power. We wondered how on earth they could possibly work, just like I wonder, in the absence of any real understanding of physics, how planes can possibly fly. With buses, well we know they work, they’re largely all the same and they’re not worth watching, the same with today’s uniformly dull railways.
I am a plane spotter, but only in that I like watching them. I am not interested in logging numbers or anything slightly bonkers like that, but even today I always visit Kanoni in Corfu every single year to watch planes taking off and landing. That’s not the only reason why I like going to Corfu but it is, sadly, something I really enjoy.
As I approach my dotage, I fear there is no cure so I will just have to live with it.