Fantastic post
Josh , brought back memories of my first airshow at Swansea with my dad joking with a few young RAF pilots that their Meteor wasn't a real aeroplane like his old Halifax. You summed up the yearning to be on the other side of the fence perfectly.
Every time I fly into Swansea now (many years later) I still remember the small boy peering through the chain link fence at the "unreachable" aeroplanes.