Seahawk – when do you fancy going to AMS then? If you need some company shout on me!!! I am up fora day trip over there!

If it’s during the weekend you can shout at me as well. I’ll see if I can drop over.

By car. Of the motorway A4/E19 exit Aalsmeer/Hoofddorp. Drive towards Aalsmeer, first road on your left. By bus is also possible, but I’ve become spoiled with my car and don’t like to walk for 15 minutes anymore. 🙂

can people actually stand airside at schiphol like in the BMI photo?

It’s not airside as already mentioned. There’s a 6 or 7 metres wide ditch right before the guy standing “under” the main gear. You can see the slope if you know it’s there. Otherwise you can’t, which was just the effect I was aiming for. Hopefully JP will accept it, although the presence of those people might be a reason for a rejection. Will have to see.

As for security, the police and military police drive by regularly as do airside ops. CCTV is also present.

I have heard people complain that this can cause a hazard. For now I have not heard a single complaint that can not be debunked. The favourite is “what if missiles are used”. Well, if that where the case a fence would not help either.

In fact, I would take the leap to say that AMS is one of the safest airport in Europe. While many airports seem to put a fence down and think they are safe, AMS realises that a fence (or here the ditch) alone does not work. Loads of police, military police and rentacops around the perimeter. Something that seems to be missing, or at much reduced rate, at large airports like BRU, CDG, LGW and FRA. LHR is the only airport I have been so far that had roughly equal amount of manpower around the perimeter.