I’ve been infatuated with aeroplanes since I was 4 years old, I’m now currently in the middle of my CPL. Growing up in Northern Ireland in the 90s, I never seen much traffic at Belfast International, apart from RAF/Army due to troubles and the odd small commercial jet. I had however seen loads of pictures and tv footage of the 747, I was desperate to see one in the flesh let alone fly on one.
One summer, I think it was 1997 during the school holidays, my grandad took me to the viewing gallery at BFS. I’ll never forget walking up the stairs into the viewing gallery and I laid my eyes, for the first time, on a 747 parked on stand nose facing right at me. She was huge! I was ecstatic to finally see one. It was a 747-200 on lease to Airtours from Air New Zealand in hybrid Airtours/Air New Zealand livery. They used them to fly charters to Florida etc over the summer. I think they flew from MAN and stopped at BFS to pick up more passengers before crossing the Atlantic.
We stayed to watch her depart runway 25. I remember my hairs standing on end at the sound of her 4 engines and the sight of her climbing away is burned into my memory to this day.
I still havent flown on a 747 as pax and sadly I doubt I’ll ever have the chance to pilot one. The 747 has been a huge part of my enthusiasm for aviation.