Norway (2012)

On Friday (1 June) breakfast was being server from 6 in the morning and that was needed. We wanted the bus to start moving towards Ørland Air Base at 06.30 in the morning, to make sure that we would be there on time for the spotter’s day. We had woken up to icy-stuff around the hotel and while driving we saw several patches of snow along the road. It was a good thing that (almost) all had packed warm clothes for the tour. The ride went smoothly and just before 8 o’clock in the morning we arrived at the entrance. The registration process was easy. Busses first took us to the fire brigade, and from there we walked to a spot between the main and parallel runway. The Norwegians had thought of a very simple solution to mark the area where we were supposed to be; a long strip of grass was mown (the rest wasn’t). This marked the area, not fences, no lines. It worked perfectly! An estimated 450 to 500 spotters had made the journey to the, rather hard to reach, base. The media was interested in the large number of people that showed up, so a number of items on aircraft spotters were shot. The location was perfect and the weather very cooperative, to the first wave was captured perfectly during take-off. For the recovery of the wave, all were transported by bus again, this time towards the end of the runway, where the aircraft would taxi by. This was also a very fine spot. No lines or fences here either enabling the option to lay down on the taxi-track for the best shots. It was a thin line between awesome and unsafe. The ritual was repeated for the afternoon wave (in which mainly the tiger decorated aircraft flew), both near the main runway as well as at the end of the runway. In the end, all left the base with loads of very fine photos. A bus took us to the hotel in Åfjord again at the end of the day.