Different Days!

zuutroy

Just thought I'd recount an old story given how unlikely it'd be in this day and age:
My mates Dad works for FLS or whatever they're latest name is, and I think it was around '99 that he brought us up for the day (I woulda been 20). After about an hour messing around in Hangar 6, walking around the inside of a gutted UPS 747 etc, he decided he was busy, so he told us to go off and amuse ourselves! So around we wandered to the apron (security guy just looked at our visitor passes and waved us on) and spend the next few hours wandering through the terminal, down air bridges while all the passengers admired us in our hi-viz gear, boarding random aircraft, pressing buttons in an A321 (pressed 'T.O. Config' and all sorts of noises started buzzing!), waving at passengers in the terminal from the window of the 321, walking behind the engine of a just parked MD-11 that nearly burned the face off us.
We got asked a good 3 or 4 times if we were the dispatchers for certain flights, and met the Aer Lingus chief pilot (Donal Foley) on the tarmac who offered us a session in the A320 sim!!! To this day I dont know why we never rang the sim manager. Finished the day by walking out to a not-in-use Fokker-50 and opening it up and taking a snoop. One of the funnest days ever.
We managed all this and literally no-one looked twice at us. Imagine the chances of having a day like that these days.....!

Fabio

Sounded like you hgad a real blast! It's a real pit that experinces such as yours are close to impossible these days.

moby10

i had a similar experience,some time in the 80s my father who was a fireman new one of the airport firemen who brought us in for a couple of hours. (if only i had the chance now)we were only kids but i remember standing in one of the aerlingus 747s engines as it was in the hangar and me and my brother chasing eachother up and down the staircase. we were also in a 707 a 737 in the control tower and had a spin around the whole perimeter in the fire truck, it finally ended in the fire station i suppose you would call it looking in a freezer full of dead birds? every day i wish that i had a camera there would be some unbelievable pics, but as you say i dont think you would get the same chance today. priceless memories though!

RadioRetro

Ah halcyon days! I grew up on or near air bases that my Dad worked at and almost every free moment was spent in or around military hardware. And as for the "Wanna come along?" flights? Bliss!

Davidth88

Years ago ( I am talking early 80's ) we saw a Concorde in the BA engineering base in LHR, it was stripped of colours ( awaiting new livery )

We decided we wanted a decent photo , so we just drove into the base , showed a pkt of B+H fags to the the security post ( he didn't look at all ) , walked through the hanger onto the apron and took our photos.

We then went to the BA staff canteen and had a meal for nothing .

In those days if you pretended that you had the right to be there , no one challanged you ( as long as you didn't take the p!ss of course !

Also back in 84 ( I think ) , I was in Paris , went to La Bourget , and just walked through a hanger onto the apron , through the Biz jet factory everywhere.

Amazing thinking about it now !

You have to remember too , this was the mid 80's , the time when the IRA threat was at it's highest, and various other terrorist groups were active as well .

I keep meaning to fish out some of my photos to scan in and post here ....

Ill be honest I wouldn't ever have dreamt of going on board aircraft , let alone pressing buttons....

Saying that , went on board a Nigerian reg HS125 in Hurn one time , I remember you were greeted by a life size photo of what I assume was the Nigerian president or someone in full native dress ( wierd )

cyrusdvirus

can't match most of those stories, but around about 1985 or so my dad took me and my brother up to Cork Airport. He knew someone up there and we were given free reign of a 737 on the tarmac for a while. Sitting in the pilots seat was a bit of a laugh. Couldn't really appreciate it at that age.... Pity.........