In the 1960s and 1970s flying was still FUN. (It really has got too serious nowadays). Especially in places like the Middle East in those days it was an ongoing game to have practical jokes (such as the door in the Officers Mess at Masirah which said "TV ROOM". The nearest TV was at least 500 miles away but some unsuspecting visitor always went through the door just to fall three feet into the desert outside!
So here is a spoof that I played on Sharjah ATC one day. First of all, we need some background. In those days it was not possible to go from Sharjah to Bahrain just using VHF or UHF communication.
Bahrain centre was, of course, on HF but Single Side Band (SSB) had yet to be introduced so all contact with Bahrian Centre on HF was on a common frequency (on AM) shared by everyone from Cairo, Addis Ababa, Aden and all the way to Karachi and Bombay. It was not good.
I had a very good friend in Bahrain who was the Deputy SATCO (he worked for IAL). He told me one day in the bar that they had just spent a lot of money installing a Lower Side Band (LSB) network linking the ATC Centres in Bahrain, Kuwait, Doha and Dubai (which had just got started). This was very much a Ground to Ground (Point to Point) network and definitely not for the likes of us to use.
Now we had a major problem when we went into the bundu to places like Heima where we had no contact with anyone and I persuaded Alan that it would be in everyone's interest if we could break the rules and call them on LSB and file a flight plan. They agreed.
So, if any of you are still awake, I was at Sharjah ready to go back to Bahrain and called the Tower for "Start Clearance".
What they then had to do was call Dubai on the telephone and ask them to get a clearance from Bahrain Centre.
So we tuned one of our HF sets on to 6745 kcs (khz) LSB and duly heard the following:
"Bahrain, Bahrain, Dubai".
"Go ahead Dubai".
"Request airways clearance RAFAIR 8199 Sharjah to Bahrain".
"Standby".
Five minutes later;
"Dubai, Dubai, Bahrain".
"Go ahead Bahrain".
"RAFAIR 8199 is cleared Sharjah to Bahrain via Flight Planned Route after take-off turn right on to heading 360 degrees, climb to and maintain 3,000 ft and contact Dubai on 125.1 and expect F120 by abeam Das Island".
So now the chap in Dubai ATC calls his friend in Sharjah ATC on the telephone and gives him our clearance (which we have already heard).
So, the Tower in Sharjah calls me on UHF;
"RAFAIR 8199 I have your clearance, are you ready to copy?"
This was where the fun started!
I said "Just for a change, how's about I tell YOU what the clearance is?"
A bit of a silence.
"All right then, what do you think the clearance is?" (Spoken with a great deal of confidence).
So we read back the clearance EXACTLY as it had been given by Bahrain.
There was an even longer silence.
Then we were given "Start Clearance".
It took them a long time to work it out.