London, England - Britain's Bovingdon airfield was the home of General Eisenhower's personl aircraftduring the Second World War; this week it was home to a revolutionary motor cycle.
British company Intelligent Energy invited motoring.co.za's sister London publication The Independent to road-test its revolutionary hydrogen fuel-cell motorcycle on the huge runways where B17s once landed.
The off-road location was needed because the ENV (Emissions Neutral Vehicle) is a prototype that can't legally be ridden on the street.
Only two of these astonishing two-wheelers exist and when I arrived they were sprinting in parallel along the perimeter road.
The ENV looks like one of the speeder bikes ridden by Darth Vader's Imperial scouts in "Return of the Jedi" and its smooth power delivery makes it seem to glide rather than roll.
This impression of gossamer lightness is so realistic that it would not have felt strange had the bikes gone airborne.
The reason is simple: The human brain associates motorised transport with noise but, even at 80km/h, the only audible evidence of the ENVs' passing was a low-intensity hum.
Above me, a skylark hung warbling in the air, blithely unconcerned by the thrilling display of ecologically friendly technology below.
Journalists who saw the ENV at its launch at the Design Museum on March 15 but didn't ride it thought it was more like a mountain bike than a motorcycle. That impression doesn't survive a spell in the saddle.
The bike's hollow-cast, aircraft-grade aluminium frame means it is as light as a pedal cycle but its performance is incomparably better.
This machine will not be pushed into the gutter by inconsiderate car drivers.
The low-revolution torque associated with electric motors gives impressive acceleration; the ENV reaches 50km/h in just more than seven seconds and 80km/h five seconds later.
The bottom line is that Intelligent Energy and its design partners, Seymourpowell, have created a completely functional, hydrogen-powered motorcycle.
It's easy to imagine thousands of them whirring around London, Beijing or Jakarta. The prototype is good enough to ride to work today.
This is Tomorrow's World, pie-in-the-sky technology only in the sense that it will take political investment to make it spread. It works well now.
A team that lacked confidence in its technology wouldn't let a prototype be used the way I rode it but the ENV doesn't need cosseting.
It responds instantly to a twist of the throttle, manoeuvres with feline agility and is robust enough for off-road use.
I would feel equally confident riding it through the heart of a congested city or along a rutted track. It's a clean vehicle for both polluted cities and developing economies but doesn't ask the rider to accept compromise.
The 80km/h top speed of the prototypes was chosen to demonstrate a scooter-style bike but the technology can equally well produce a 160km/h version. The hydrogen fuel cell permits cleanness without subduing performance.
It works by converting hydrogen and oxygen into water and electricity. The only emission from the exhaut is a gentle flow of water vapour from twin cathode exhausts.
The first users of hydrogen fuel cell technology, the Apollo astronauts of the 1960s, drank it - it really is that clean.
The bike is actually driven by a six kiloWtt electric motor; the fuel cell powers the ENV for four hours on a single fill of hydrogen. That's good for a minimum range of 160km/h but a clever rider will go much further.
Every time you close the throttle the bike switches from using power to generating it. A display on top of the fuel records whether it is charging or discharging the battery.
By accelerating and coasting in pulses it is possible to conserve a lot of energy - which, of course, is exactly how you ride in heavy traffic.
Refuelling with hydrogen takes five minutes; I watched Intelligent Energy's research director Damian Davies refill the fuel cell he designed. It was simple - the cell, or core, lifts out of the fuel tank-shaped pod between handlebars and saddle.
Seymourpowell designed the bike to prove that Intelligent Energy's hydrogen fuel-cell is ready for the road. The result offers tangible evidence of what personal transport could be like in a cleaner world.
The prototypes are light, fast and utterly practical. They also look fantastic. If that sounds Utopian it is because clean power on a stylish vehicle robust enough to go anywhere is exciting.
Frightened petrolheads can relax: it's possible to go fast without burning carbon.
Given the political will, millions of us will soon use fuel-cell vehicles and some of us will even race them. When that happens the pits will be strangely silent but that lark above Bovingdon airfield will not be the only one singing. - The Independent, London