Rest day at Bodø

Turns out the infamous mission involving Gary Powers and a U-2 spy plane in 1960 was supposed to end in Bodø, where I am now. His U-2 spy plane was shot down in the Ural region by a Soviet surface-to-air missile, after he started his mission from Peshawar, Pakistan. It was probably a high point during the Cold War, but what interests me the most is the length of the route.

The U-2 is probably my favourite airplane, not because of its contribution to military intelligence, but the length of the missions it was involved in. In her book, H is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald talks about a U-2 pilot, and their very long flights. The book about grief and patience, but that passage on the U-2 pilot and the strings the author pulls from there into training a pet Hawk stuck with me. How does one keep a steady mind and fly an aircraft for hours, in near silence, or train a restless hawk for that matter.

I visited a flight museum at Bodø, where they have quite a few hollowed out airplanes hanging from the ceiling & on the ground in two big halls. In the military wing it’s full of radar equipments, radars, bombs, missiles, ejection seats, guns, bullets. I am not particularly interested in or fond of military, but looking at these airplanes up close, the progress in engineering caught my eye. The older rivets gave way to newer screws. The shapes of bent metal sheets got more and more complicated as aviation became more advanced. And the rate of fire for guns grew exponentially. My Airbnb host in Ålesund, Kjell told me that ships are supposed to have green and red lights on starboard and port sides respectively. I spotted them on an F-16 near the engine inlet.

Bodø, Norway