Just in case you live in a barn...

If you look up pictures of St. Maarten, you'll almost certainly come across tons of pictures like this one, with planes flying unnaturally close to the beach. The setup here is basically very small beach, followed by road which can barely be classified as one lane each way, followed by runway fence. When the larger planes that need the whole runway land, they're less than 100 feet above your head! When they take off, they position themselves on the beach side of the runway, about 150 feet from the fence (which stupid people like me stand behind). Here's a picture of an Air France jet coming in, just before I got on the fence to be nearly blown away by the outgoing jets. Aside from the 747 which comes in once a week, this is the biggest jet we get here. After my experience with the smaller USAir jet, I will not be standing behind the Air France or Corsair 747. If you've never seen it, this is what it looks like:

(This photo, and the ones below, are from Cleveland firefighter guy)

Addition:
Here is the Air France jet at the end of the runway, getting ready to go:

Here's what happens when it goes: