oil
Maybe we are getting away from aviation history, but I suppose oil exploration by air is still part of aviation.
Maybe I42 can tell me how these 20 tonne vibrators (the mind boggles) got into the desert? Surely not in a Twin Pioneer!
I can understand that it was nicer to be able to fly into a prospecting site rather than go by car, but why was "our" airfield so big (2 runways, 1800 and 1600 m), and so far from a decent road (20 km as the houbara flies), across dunes and gravel plains tough enough to break 2 out of 4 of our 4x4s!
If the seismic study was done in 1991, what aircraft would have been used then?