A little story for what happened to myself at Karl Nixon (Jaktrax) today.

The idea was to get the TNT cargo 777 on departure at 5.30am The weather was poor, to much cloud and went of an hour late. As we drove around the airfield to the Cafe for breakfast, we stumbled across the Nimrod, I had forgot it was there. We looked at the cloud situation, and decided to come back later.

Got back later, took some shots of the Nimrod, and many civvi aircraft including a nice C130. Security had a moan at us as the ladders were to close to the fence, We moved them back as requested, but got the shots we wanted anyway and left...........

As we were driving off, A fat little man walked in to the middle of the road and stopped me driving, walked around my side of the car, I wound down the window. ''CAN YOU PLEASE PULL YOUR CAR OVER THERE, TURN OFF THE VEHICLE AND GET OUT, SECURITY WANT A WORD''. mmm a little head scraching went on, So I asked why. He replied ''your in a restricted area, YOU CAN BE SHOT FOR WHAT YOUR DOING, taking pictures of a military aircraft''. I had to correct him at this point, and inform him the Nimrod is no longer a military aircraft, its part of the Museum and as far as I'm aware I can not be shot. We let him know that security have asked us to move, he went to tell us that ''SECURITY IS POOR here at EMA and if it was down to him, he'd have us arrested and taken away.


He then changed the coversation to say that we are tresspassing and we can be clamped, We made our excuses that we hadn't realised we had tresspassed as there are not signs, he informed us that if we look behind us there are some very faded signs on the fence.. Karl was starting to get a little frustrated, they began talking about by-laws and civil matters. We were offerd a copy of the by-laws for the area, but when we said ok, he changed the conversation again............Ready for this

''Why can't you find something better to do than take pictures of aircraft, your not 14'', Now I was starting to get mad, I told him its a hobby........ to which he laughed. I asked him what he thinks I do for a living.............. I'm a fully grown man and have a full time job for a car manufacturer, if I want to take pictures so be it.

It was at this point we drove off, he was left stood in the middle of the road writting down the reg of my car. As we pulled out of the road, the Police were pulling in, they never stopped us. We contact Leicestershire Police control room to ask/talk about this incident, letting them know everything that was said and threatened. Nothing had been logged with them in the first place according the woman in the control room.

I fully understand that if we were in the wrong, I'd put my hands up to which I can tolerate, but to be insulted like this is disrespectful. To make maters worse, an employee of the Airport then ridicules the security that protects him. I still can't believe we were told that we can be shot for taking a pictures of a plane at an airport.

Here's one of the images. Nimrod R1 XW664.


Gary

[Edited 2011-08-09 15:25:12]

[Edited 2011-08-09 15:27:40]