Smujsmith asks what the soaring conditions were like in Aden. The summers were not wonderful. Apart from the heat and the humidity (which made life a bit trying) there was usually a marked inversion at about 2,000 feet so that was about how high the thermals went. There was a rubbish dump to the south west of the airfield and we used to watch the ****ehawks charging about in the weak lift over the dump. When they started to thin out and head off towards their own thermals then it was time to get going.
I can remember one day when it was decided that Stu Hoy should have a go at a 5-hour duration flight to complete his Silver C. He got in the Olympia 401 with lots and lots of water bottles etc and off he went. The rest of us spent the day marking thermals so that he would have somewhere to go if he ran out of ideas. He landed after about 5 hours and 15 minutes exhausted. I think the highest he got was about 2,100 feet but he made it. I don't think anyone else ever managed a 5-hour duration flight in Aden?
Conditions in the winter were much better and cloud base around the airfield was usually around 3,500 feet and the thermals were plentiful. Cross country flying would definitely have been fun if the security situation had been different. As it was, landing out was not an option and it was certainly possible that the retrieve crew (if you could ever find one to volunteer) would probably have found you with your testicles neatly stitched up in your mouth by the time they got there.
The only cross country flights that I can remember were when we flew the Swallow and one of the T.21s (404) back from Khormaksar to Sheik Othman after annual CofA inspection. It was considered too dangerous to take them back by road so we launched them from one of the old sand runways at Khormaksar one afternoon. It did not go entirely smoothly and I can remember one broken cable ending up in the bomb dump. In the end, Stu Hoy and AN Other got back to Sheik Othman first in the T.21. They then had to stay airborne local soaring until somebody got there by road with a gun to protect them when they landed.
The above photograph shows Sheik Othman town from the top of a thermal at around 3,000 feet.