The "Big Plane, Short Runway" Story

This is one of the shots I took of a 747 landing at SXM.  This is
a French airlines while the KLM is from Amsterdam.

It was an ordinary day.  Starting to make a list of things to do before we depart on our next trip to our home base in St. Martin.  Line up the pet sitters, line up the rental car, line up the park-and-fly location … and the list is growing.  Then I started another list of things to do during our visit to St. Martin.  Eat breakfast at the St. Maarten Yacht Club, eat lunch at Andy and Cheryl's on Orient Beach, eat supper at Le Piment in Orient Village, relax during the day in the sun on a lounger with my Kindle in my one hand and a beverage in the other, … and the list goes … well that's the list!  Oh, wait.  One more thing … make our yearly visit to the Sunset Bar and Grill to watch and photograph the huge planes landing over Maho Beach.  I have written and posted photos many times about this experience, since it is one of my all-time favorite things to do while on vacation.  You can't imagine the thrill of standing on the sand at Maho with a 747 plane coming toward you and flying so close over your head you swear you could reach out and touch it.  

This is a still photograph showing the KLM 747 just
touching down on the runway after crossing
Maho Beach in Sint Maarten.

The runway on the Dutch side of Sint Maarten/St. Martin (French side) is probably the most photo- graphed and challenging runways in the world.  If you check on YouTube you will find an astounding number of videos taken by amateur videographers of either a landing or a take-off of planes at the airport.  Some are pretty neat while others were taken by amateurs who were shaking in their bathing suits as the plane descended on them.  Well, one of the airlines that flies into SXM (Sint Maarten), and uses the huge 4-engine 747s, KLM airlines, hired professionals to capture what it is like to have to fly inches above the heads of people like me on sandy white Maho Beach.  And, someone emailed me the link to videographer/journalist Sebastian Knoops really neat recording of the entire flight from inside the cockpit with narration from the pilot and co-pilot.  Amazing!!  It is titled KLM Cockpit Tales: Part 3 - Big Plane, short runway.  I'm positive you'll enjoy it and will see why I just can't go to St. Martin with out my yearly fix at Sunset Bar and Grill.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.