Airplane

Roswell, New Mexico 1979
This was the year that the Job Corps Center opened in Roswell, and I was in the first group of students, all 16-21 years old. It is located on the old Air Force base just outside of town and the large runways were re purposed into a local airport. An interesting note about Roswell’s airport in 1979 was that it was rented out to the German airline company Luftansia for pilot training. Almost every day their red and white planes could be seen landing and then immediately taking off again, over and over, day or night.
The entire airport was surrounded by a fence, but it was old and broken in places, It was the broken places that interested us the most during our explorations.
I do not remember the kid who told us about chasing airplanes; after he showed us how it was done we did not wait for him to invite us again, but headed out on our own when the opportunity presented itself. This had to happen after dark, because being seen meant being busted and Job Corps had no tolerance for hi jinks. It was not far to the fence line of the airport, maybe a few blocks, and being an old military base we had plenty of empty buildings to hide our progress. The hole in the fence that we used brought us far out into the airports field, which was perfect for our needs.
There are two giant banks of lights at each end of all runways. The outside bank of lights are green, marking the beginning of the runway for the planes to land, and the inside bank of lights are red, marking the end of the runway. For our needs we needed to be between them, but still without being seen; that meant sneaking, and crawling until we were actually under the path of the bright light’s beam, in the shadow of the large lamps. Then we waited.
It was easy to tell when a plane was coming in by the roar of the engines and the incredible bright, enormous headlight, so bright in fact, it lights the nighttime ground like noon on a clear day. These planes come in so low at the point of reaching the runway that if we stood up we could actually see the pilot’s face. Of course we never stood up; instead we stayed low until the plane flew overhead. Then we made our move.
Jumping up we ran as fast as we could toward the airplane as it made its touch down and immediate lift off.
As a plane lands it pulls the air behind it and we could feel that pull; our hair, clothing, and even ourselves were pulled along, sometimes with startling strength, like having a hurricane behind us. It was not uncommon to be lifted from the ground an inch or two, While this was an exciting feeling, it was nothing compared to what happened next. Of course we cannot run as fast as a plane and within seconds it was gone, completing its landing further down the runway, This was also true for the pocket of air that was being pulled along by the plane. What was left was a moment, a heart beat of nothing, no air, no feeling of pressure on the skin, no wind. And then, with a boom! the air rushed back in to fill the void. What we felt was a breeze, but what we heard was a crackling sound all around us, as though we were embedded in a universe of cellophane wrapping paper. This etheral sound lasts only a few seconds but the effects are so amazing, to hear such a noise from all directions at once it quite delightful.