Which is sometimes like a fence post (i.e. when I have nothing to blog about, so it’s wooden and very unfunny).

Been to Hahn this week for some work – the guy I was working with there was a stereotypical German – blonde, blue eyed, and the sort of accent you imagine Germans having (English with a sorta German hint 😐 ).

Now Frankfurt-Hahn airport has a LOT of history, and this guy talked me through it all (it was interesting actually), from the early days when Hitler built the first airstrip there (not personally I don’t think), then the French took over after the war and extended it, before the Americans then took it over during the cold war, extended it some more (it was actually the closest air base to the Ruskies apparently), installed loads of those cool bunkers:

for the various aircraft, and loads of underground bunkers for the nukes.

The Americans moved out in the 1990s and the base finally became a civilian airport – I’ve been going there now for 3 or 4 years, and the changes are clear each time – the buildings and bunkers are being ripped down to make way for cargo buildings and hangars, the runway has been extended (that’s twice now) – by next year the barracks will have all gone.

I just hope while doing all this re-modelling they don’t lose sight of the important stuff like:

GET SOME DECENT FOOD PLACES IN THE AREA!

*sniff*

EDIT: Apparently, when the local airbase to me (Alconbury) was abandoned by the septics, they decided to level the area where the bunkers are, so they got explosive experts in, they did there thang with stuff-that-goes-boom™, waited for the dust to settle…and nothing – only scratched the surface. It allegedly took days to cut through the steel reinforcing to get to where they could start knocking the feckers down…