The Tactical Air Meet of 1984 was held at Gilze-Rijen air force base in The Netherlands (June 22 - July 4). I used to live nearby in the city of Breda for a number of years and sometimes took the opportunity to visit the spotters corner of the base. The number of different aircraft types represented at the TAM was overwhelming, I recall, the pictures below depict just a portion.

The airbase's location makes photographing at close range a dream: the main runway begins just a few feet from a main road. When a plane comes in for landing, the traffic lights turn to red and you'll just have to give way to the occasional F-16 or perhaps a visiting Tornado. In best case scenario I happened to be a mere 15 meters from touching the gear of a landing F-15. Or 20 meters from an F-5 turning on full afterburner with the brakes locked. Great stuff for a teenage jet fanatic. And yes, my hearing is still OK. Say what?

The pictures were taken with my standard gear: Canon A1, 300 mm, 400 ASA Fuji film. The latter resulting in the grainy quality of the pictures (it was still 1984 so film emulsion was not up to today's standards).

Links:   1, 2.