With the stop bar down, we were taken in a 4x4 along the runway at Stansted Airport.  The runway was covered in black rubber which is regularly cleared with specialist machinery.  This was an amazing experience a plane had landed in front of us and there were planes in the distance approaching the runway.  We didn’t spot any FOD (foreign objects or debris) on our check.

Amongst the Ryanair planes we saw the new BAA cargo planes Boeing 747-8F.  With a 30% reduction in noise and 16% lowe...