SE to Sharjah means you must be fairly bold,
No, just young and very foolish at the time ("I've got 90 hours, what can possibly go wrong"), not least because it was a £700.00 Percival Prentice with an almost time-expired Gypsy Queen, a wartime 4-channel crystal-controlled VHF and a dodgy VOR bought for £25.00. My uncle Bob, who distinguished himself writing off one of the 3 Vickers Windsor prototypes in 1944, said it was the most stupid thing he had ever heard of.