Janet Gogerty's Blog: Sandscript - Posts Tagged "heathrow"
Sandscript On Air
Grand Prix, everyday traffic - noise and pollution, I hate it, bring back the horse.
…but put big fuel guzzling engines up in the skies and I love them, carbon footprints forgotten.
A trip abroad begins the moment the cabin floor slopes upwards and the engines blast on full power. A window seat and clear sky provide the fascination of identifying landmarks, but if the plane ascends through heavy cloud cover there is the delight of a fluffy heaven.
My first ever flight was across the world, when our family emigrated to Australia. My novel ‘Quarter Acre Block’ was inspired by our experiences. I have flown across the world a few times since then, but perhaps most exciting was my shortest ever trip, flying in a light aircraft from Jandakot, Perth, Western Australia across twelve miles of Indian Ocean to Rottnest Island – real flying.
But mostly I have been on the ground looking up. At Farnborough Air Show, as children, we would marvel as jets flew silently by, followed several moments later by their sound.
Years later, living by Heathrow Airport, we would spot four planes in the sky at a time coming into land, at night like ‘UFO’ lights. But the aeroplane we never tired of watching or hearing was Concorde. If many Concordes had been built and flown the noise would have been unbearable, but the two flights a day were an event; teachers in local schools would stop talking at eleven a.m., working in an airside passenger lounge with a great view of the runway, we watched her take off like a graceful bird. At home in the evening I would abandon the cooking and dash outside to see her glowing afterburners soaring up into the night sky. Alas poor Concorde…
The end of August brings the Bournemouth Air Festival, now in its ‘bigger than ever’ seventh year. If you don’t like the noise, are not interested in aeroplanes and live near the cliff top, there is no opting out, unless you go on holiday. Roads are closed, there are diversions and daily routine is disrupted as over a million visitors come over the four days. But this did not affect me. With visitors coming I had no intention of going anywhere except the kitchen, local shops and the sea front.
If your visitors have made a long journey and it is their first visit to the Air Festival, then rain is guaranteed. On Thursday we struggled along the promenade against lashing rain blown by the prevailing South Westerly; miraculously the weather blew over and we stood on the beach looking up at the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, three iconic planes, Lancaster Bomber, Spitfire and Hurricane.
Predictably we had blazing sunshine on Sunday – after the visitors had left, but we had all seen our favourites, The Red Arrows, the unique Vulcan Bomber and the RAF Typhoon ( Eurofighter ).
Visit my website to see pictures of the Air Festival.
http://www.ccsidewriter.co.uk/chapter...
…but put big fuel guzzling engines up in the skies and I love them, carbon footprints forgotten.
A trip abroad begins the moment the cabin floor slopes upwards and the engines blast on full power. A window seat and clear sky provide the fascination of identifying landmarks, but if the plane ascends through heavy cloud cover there is the delight of a fluffy heaven.
My first ever flight was across the world, when our family emigrated to Australia. My novel ‘Quarter Acre Block’ was inspired by our experiences. I have flown across the world a few times since then, but perhaps most exciting was my shortest ever trip, flying in a light aircraft from Jandakot, Perth, Western Australia across twelve miles of Indian Ocean to Rottnest Island – real flying.
But mostly I have been on the ground looking up. At Farnborough Air Show, as children, we would marvel as jets flew silently by, followed several moments later by their sound.
Years later, living by Heathrow Airport, we would spot four planes in the sky at a time coming into land, at night like ‘UFO’ lights. But the aeroplane we never tired of watching or hearing was Concorde. If many Concordes had been built and flown the noise would have been unbearable, but the two flights a day were an event; teachers in local schools would stop talking at eleven a.m., working in an airside passenger lounge with a great view of the runway, we watched her take off like a graceful bird. At home in the evening I would abandon the cooking and dash outside to see her glowing afterburners soaring up into the night sky. Alas poor Concorde…
The end of August brings the Bournemouth Air Festival, now in its ‘bigger than ever’ seventh year. If you don’t like the noise, are not interested in aeroplanes and live near the cliff top, there is no opting out, unless you go on holiday. Roads are closed, there are diversions and daily routine is disrupted as over a million visitors come over the four days. But this did not affect me. With visitors coming I had no intention of going anywhere except the kitchen, local shops and the sea front.
If your visitors have made a long journey and it is their first visit to the Air Festival, then rain is guaranteed. On Thursday we struggled along the promenade against lashing rain blown by the prevailing South Westerly; miraculously the weather blew over and we stood on the beach looking up at the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, three iconic planes, Lancaster Bomber, Spitfire and Hurricane.
Predictably we had blazing sunshine on Sunday – after the visitors had left, but we had all seen our favourites, The Red Arrows, the unique Vulcan Bomber and the RAF Typhoon ( Eurofighter ).
Visit my website to see pictures of the Air Festival.
http://www.ccsidewriter.co.uk/chapter...
Sandscript
I like to write first drafts with pen and paper; at home, in busy cafes, in the garden, at our beach hut... even sitting in a sea front car park waiting for the rain to stop I get my note book out. We
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