FX-99 shoot Air-Bilzenn, Bilzen

The road to Air Bilzen felt ordinary at first—flat fields, quiet houses, nothing to suggest what waited ahead. Even when I arrived, the place didn't announce itself loudly. It was a B&B, after all. Calm, welcoming, unassuming.

Until the door to the shelter opened.

The first thing that struck me wasn't the aircraft—it was the space. A hangar, but softened. Clean lines, warm lighting, two beds tucked tastefully beside the entrance door, as if someone had decided that aviation and comfort didn't have to live in separate worlds. And then, just beyond it—

The F-104G Starfighter.

It stood there like a relic from a sharper age, impossibly sleek, its fuselage stretching through the room as though the building had been constructed around it—which, it actually was. This wasn't just a display. This was its home. 

I stepped closer, camera hanging at my side, momentarily forgotten. The aircraft's skin was immaculate, the Belgian Air Force markings crisp and purposeful. Under the soft interior lighting,  the Starfighter didn't feel retired—it felt paused.

Only then did I start to photograph.

Inside the shelter, the light was controlled, almost studio-like, but alive enough to shift with every angle. I worked slowly, aware that this wasn't a subject you rushed. The needle nose cutting through the air of the room, the razor-thin wings that seemed more suggestion than structure, the cockpit—closed, silent, but still carrying the ghost of its last pilot.

At times, I stepped back and took it all in: a supersonic interceptor sharing space with a neatly made beds, a small seating area, a lamp casting a warm pool of light. The contrast should have been strange, but it wasn't. It felt intentional, almost poetic—like sleeping inside a story.

The rest of the building carried that same quiet reverence. Memorabilia lined the walls in careful arrangements: flight suits that still held their shape, helmets with visors slightly scuffed from use, patches from squadrons long dissolved or transformed. There were photographs—rows of them—showing young pilots leaning casually against machines that could outrun sound, unaware of how iconic those moments would become.

One corner held smaller, more personal items. Logbooks, handwritten notes, a pair of worn gloves. These weren't just artifacts; they were fragments of lives lived at high speed, in high stakes.

Before leaving, I took one final look at the space.

Some beds.  A shelter. A Starfighter.

It shouldn't have worked. But it did.

Driving away, I realized that what made Air Bilzen special wasn't just the aircraft, or even the memorabilia. It was the way everything had been brought together—not as a museum, not as a novelty, but as an experience. A place where history wasn't behind glass, but beside you. Where, for a brief moment, you didn't just observe the past— You can sleep next to it.

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