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-   -   Sharjah. OLD airport (https://www.pprune.org/aviation-history-nostalgia/288546-sharjah-old-airport.html)

l.garey 26th Aug 2007 16:11

Sumaini
 
Thanks for that info!
I mentioned Sumaini on another thread
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=288741

It is at 24 39 10N, 55 53 40E and is also visible on Google Earth, where you can even make out the white runway markers and the name “SUMAINI” in white. The striking thing is that it is absolutely clean, with no debris of any sort, not even marks from spilled oil or any sign of having been used. I have heard from a former Oman Air Force pilot (who was also ex 8 Sqd Venoms at Sharjah) that he landed a Beaver there in 1975.

Cornish Jack 26th Aug 2007 22:01

Apologies for the tardy reply re. aircraft type at Buraimi - it was the Valetta, I don't have my logbooks with me at the moment so can't give you the ident. I've just been browsing through your fascinating website - remarkable research effort!. Your Beverley memories rang a few bells as did the skippers names - although I was with the 'opposition' at 53. We did, however, amalgamate occasionally, on exercise.
The PAF museum has a slight connection, having been detached to Mauripur from Khormaksar in the mid '50s for three weeks to fly with the Air Attache on his Anson. A fascinating period although the 'Annie' was never serviceable to fly. Karachi was a mind-boggling mix of sights and sounds (and smells) with the bus journey from Mauripur to Karachi taking you past 'Fish Corner' - a truly horrific result of the Partition.

forget 18th Sep 2007 18:07

I was in Sharjah the week before last and found an interesting addition to the Aviation Museum - first production Comet 2 G-AMXA aka XK655, or at least the nose section, seen here with the Exhibits Curator.

So what would it take for a Transport Command paint job? Much more appropriate :ok:

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...pas/comet1.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...pas/comet2.jpg

JW411 18th Sep 2007 20:02

I didn't get to Buraimi until the end of 1967 after we had pulled out of Aden. The strip we used to use was referred to as Daudi. It was indeed orientated 30/12 and was in pretty good shape apart from a few soft patches. It was quite long as I recall and it was situated about half a mile south of the TOS HQ.

A couple of years later, the Army built another strip about five miles to the east called Tawi Hammad as part of an exercise. I landed there a couple of times but it would be fair to say that "it didn't catch on"!

I gave up bashing the bundu at the end of 1971. By then, they were building a multi-story hotel on short finals to 12 at Daudi right on the centreline. I could not imagine a more stupid place to build an hotel short of putting it right on the threshold.

l.garey 19th Sep 2007 06:46

Al Mahatta Comet
 
Thanks, forget. Good to see the museum is still active. Is that Taj or Mahesh standing in front of the Comet?
This is one of the reconnaissance R2 versions operated by 51 Sqd at Wyton, and retired to Strathallan in 1974, where it landed on their grass runway and broke the undercarriage. It was finally broken up in 1984, and the nose went to the Gatwick viewing gallery, where it was until at least 2004.
I shall try to find out how the Sharjah museum got hold of it!

l.garey 19th Sep 2007 11:59

Sharjah Comet
 
As promised in post 45, I checked with David Mackenzie, the original boss of the Al Mahatta museum. He sent me the following:

This particular aircraft started life as a Mark 2a registered with BOAC as G-AMXA and first flown on 27th August 1953. It was shown at the Farnborough SBAC airshow the following month as the first production aircraft with Rolls/Royce Avon engines. It concluded its flight trials with a convincing demonstration of long range characteristics when John Cunningham covered the 3064 miles from London to Khartoum non stop in 6 ½ hours on the 22nd January 1954. It was the first Comet to go to the Royal Air Force, allocated serial number XK655. In 1955 it was modified at Marshalls of Cambridge to the secret 2R electronic intelligence gathering (ELINT) version, and during its time with 51 Squadron it was based in Cyprus. Known as a “spook” it patrolled low level the sensitive borders of Eastern Bloc countries with experimental surveillance and radar equipment, frequently calling at Sharjah for fuel. Back in England it was employed to do trials for Smiths Instruments and when retired from flying it was sold for £4,000 to the Strathallen collection in Scotland. Sadly, on landing at Strathallen, it caught the starboard undercarriage on a wall, ripping it off completely, but it was quickly repaired for static display. When the StrathallenMuseum closed in 1990 it was broken up and scrapped with only the cockpit section surviving. This changed hands a few times and deteriorated in the process until Tim More of Skysport Engineering Ltd in Bedfordshire rescued it, restored it, and put it on the roof at GatwickAirport in 1995. After spending many more years outside it was returned to Skysport for restoration again before shipping to Sharjah to take its place in the Al Mahatta Aviation Museum as the first Jet Airliner to land at Sharjah.



Thanks David.

forget 19th Sep 2007 12:06

The Strathallen arrival.:hmm:

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...as/1039139.jpg

l.garey 19th Sep 2007 12:10

Comet, oops!
 
Comet on grass. No way!
See what I just put on as post 46 after contacting David Mackenzie.
He also sent me a pdf file of 655's history. How can I put that on prune?

l.garey 11th Oct 2007 08:57

Secret activities of XK655 from Sharjah
 
Further to the postings above about Comet XK655 and its activity in Sharjah, there is a very interesting report from a former 51 Sqd electronics operator at
http://www.spyflight.co.uk/51sqn.htm

gulf_slf 16th Oct 2007 08:33

Trekking about the Trucial Oman....
 
[IMG]http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/6...ibrimp0.th.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/7...lnesje6.th.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/6...1965oj8.th.jpg[/IMG]
Thank you for the great entries to the thread on Sharjah Old Airport and related issues on aviation in the lower Gulf. Great pix Jebal Akdhar and the story of the Firq-Saiq run which I am able to drop into dinner conversation to great amusement!.
It reminds me of various memories of growing up in Bahrain during the '60's when the 'old man' was flying for Gulf Aviation. (Gulf Aviation…..the original Gulf airline, all the others are up-starts!! I mean start ups…..!).
I was intrigued with the pix of the Pioneer aircraft which I remember along with the Beverley's at that time as well as a collection of the 'V' bombers that used to pass through on a regular basis! As I was at the RAF Muharraq school we were aware of the different flights & the ground crews who were brought in for different exercises and operations occurring in the area….
The Pioneers I remember well as I remember that I used to cycle up to the airport in the early '70's to clamber over the wrecks of old Pioneers that had been stripped of any useful items and dumped behind the Gulf Aviation hanger. Used to be fun climbing up around the cockpit and checking out if there was anything still interesting to take as a souvenir….until the old Baluchi night watchman would shoo us way with his night stick ! Ahhh …airport security was in a different league in those days ….
With regard to the services and aircraft in the Lower Gulf at that time I hope that some of you might have an interest in the photos that I have listed on the thread.
There is one of the old man with the DC3 on the ground in Ibri, Sultanate of Oman, pictured with Capt. Lloyd Brickhill, plus the essential airport staff ….!! ( Note; the firefighting equipment in front of the aircraft forward of the starboard engine ready for start up….)
The other two pix are of the leased Abu Dhabi Petroleum Company DH Dove reg:
(G-AMUZ), featuring myself with Bob Milne's sons, the GM of ADPC at the time.
During school holidays he would take his sons from Bahrain to AUH, in the Dove taking the best part of the day, going via Doha, Jebel Dhanna & Tariff. The pic is of Tariff or Abu Dhabi International Airport !!
I am sure that we were only asked to come along to chase the goats off the runway before take off!!
If there is a website that focuses on Gulf aviation from the past & flying in the Trucial Oman I would love to contribute and get others to do so as well! It would be nice to remind certain airlines and their management that they have a lot to thank the original pioneering aviators for opening up the routes & generating business in the Lower Gulf all those years ago. Humility is not a quality of the current airlines !

l.garey 17th Oct 2007 07:35

Thanks, gulf, for these extra data. I am trying to piece together details for a history of aviation in the gulf. More about that later.
In the meantime, can you throw any light on the airfield I enquired about:

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=288741

Did you ever visit that area, or know anything about it?

NRU74 17th Oct 2007 20:40

I Garey
Thank you for the link
Even now, 40 years on, I'm still a tad surprised that a Spec Op has actually put into print what 51 Sqn did all those years ago.
Very interesting, of course, to those of us who served at Wyton in those days [and who flew over the Kola ? peninsular on several occasions.]

drflight 24th Oct 2007 17:25

Graet to find this thread...
 
How wonderful to see something of this famous airport and how fabulous to know there is now a small aviation museum inside 'the fort.'

There is a wee bit about this in Alexander Frater's fantastic book 'Beyond the Blue Horizon' - this is defititely a 'must read' book for aviation fans and anyone with an interest in the old Imperial Airways routes fromm Croydon to the Far East and onwards.

Some years ago (more than ten I think) there was a television series about aviation and I am sure I remember seeing moving pictures of a Handley Page 42 landing at Sharjah, taxying up to 'the fort' and the pax getting off.

It must have been quite a romantic and exciting journey in those far off days. Mind you, I can still muster up a bit of excitement for LHR despite all the critics. After all, a flight is a flight is a flight!

brakedwell 21st Aug 2008 11:22

My 8mm films taken in 1959-61 have been digitalised. This clip of Twin Pioneers flying in Muscat & Oman is now on You Tube.
YouTube - Firq - Saiq Twin Pioneers

l.garey 21st Aug 2008 13:08

Saiq
 
Excellent films brakedwell.

In the one you label as flying past Buraimi, I can clearly recognise the rocky spine that extends from Jebel Haffit, just by the modern city of Al Ain, where I lived for 4 years and that I still visit regularly.

As you know, I shall be up at Saiq in a few days to commemorate 50 years since Owen Watkinson's Venom crashed up there (http://www.pprune.org/aviation-histo...years-ago.html). I shall try to locate the site of the old airstrip, which must be very close to the crash site.
I shall report back later!

Laurence

essgee 22nd Aug 2008 12:04

last time i was in dubai,we went to sharjah,i was led to believe that the main road thru was the old main runway? correct me if im wrong please
essgee

l.garey 22nd Aug 2008 13:31

Sharjah runway
 
The runway at the former RAF Sharjah is now King Abdul Aziz Street in the middle of town. See l.garey - RAF Sharjah, Al Mahatta Museum

Laurence

brakedwell 22nd Aug 2008 14:27

It was still a sand runway when I returned to the UK in August 1961. In August 1963 I was posted to Aden on Argosies to find it had been given a hard tarmac type surface, even though it was only 100 ft wide.

Krakatoa 23rd Aug 2008 10:33

Sharjah runway
 
I seem to remember that there was a camel trail that crossed the runway which required air traffic to ring a loud bell (church type) to warn camel drivers and goat herders of aircraft movements.
Yes the new narrow tarmac runway could be a trap as it looked soo long!

brakedwell 23rd Aug 2008 11:07


Yes the new narrow tarmac runway could be a trap as it looked soo long!
It was a great leveller of young co-pilots who thought they knew it all!
Give then the landing at Masirah, which was 300 Ft wide, followed by the next one at Sharjah. Inevitably they would round out high at Masirah with the inevitable firm landing. The narrow runway at Sharjah fooled them into thinking they were high until they flew into the ground! :E:E:E

KeMac 23rd Aug 2008 19:16

A superb thread. This whole area was my stamping ground in the 70s and early 80s. I doubt if I would recognise any of it now judging from the pictures I have seen.I hope someone can get a website going on the region though the years. I remember I was in a bookshop in Jeddah a few years back and they had a book on Aviation in The Trucial States with a number of excellent pictures and I could kick myself for not buying it now as I cannot remember the author or publisher

l.garey 31st Aug 2008 11:30

"Saiq International"
 
In response to what brakedwell has said about Saiq airfield up on Jebel Akhdar in Oman, and especially his recent amazing films on YouTube, I was up exploring what is left of the Saiq strip last weekend, 29 August 2008. It is quite difficult to find, and the whole area is very rough indeed. We could not even find the sandy strips that brakedwell described and of which he sent me a photo privately. I think the surface has been eroded since then. But it was exciting to stand on the threshold and imagine the Twin Pin coming in, and even more so to stand in Sharaijah village perched high above the strip and imagine brakedwell's plane approaching that enormous cliff on finals. Rather him than me.
The fort seems to have disappeared, and the whole area is being encroached upon by an army camp and housing.
Laurence

brakedwell 31st Aug 2008 12:55

Here is a photo of Saiq "International" taken in 1961. Looking towards the northwest with my Twin Pioneer parked at the far end.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c3...Saiqrunway.jpg

Union Jack 31st Aug 2008 14:23

A fascinating thread, thank you gentlemen. Do any of you have any tales to tell about a Hudson, or possibly a Mitchell, I seem to recall lurking, along with other interesting aircraft, around the edges of the airfield at Sharjah in about 1969?

Jack

JW411 31st Aug 2008 14:40

We have already covered this in a previous thread but I think you are talking about the fleet of the JW Mecom Oil Company which used to be based at Midway/Thumrait.

The aircraft were flown to Sharjah when the operation was closed down. The Lockheed Lodestar didn't make it beyond Sharjah and ended up in a scrapyard downtown.

The B-23 Dragon (N86E) and the C-82 Packet (N127E) didn't make it past Athens and ended up being scrapped there.

The only one that made it all the way back to the USA was the C-46 Commando (N9588Z).

hootnroar 25th Sep 2008 18:05

So you are one of the guys that would wake us in the wee hours! ........along with the Sterling Caravelle. The old RAF Sharjah field, was near the town. In fact adjacent the old fort.............which used to be operated by International Air Radio, the fort that is! Did you by any chance take your 1-11's into the old Muscat base at Bait-al-falaj.............now that was a interesting approach!

hootnroar 25th Sep 2008 18:15

Firq Saiq
 
True, they do exist. I have one. Arabic 4 with a palm tree. My example is green and very skinny. Not something that one can comfortably wear nowadays.

JW411 25th Sep 2008 18:25

I have spent many a night in the fort at Sharjah (when it was occupied by IAL). I could always imagine the old days when the Imperial Airways HP42 landed and taxied up to the front gates and the passengers made a dash towards civilisation to have the doors clang shut behind them.

I particularly remember the concrete soldiers that manned the parapets and often wondered just who was intimidated or fooled by these apparitions.

Even after Sharjah got its tarmac runway (which was only 100 feet wide) the old airfield datum point was still there to the west of the new runway.

To the youngsters in our midst, this was a tarmac circle which sometimes had the airfield letter in the centre. Would you believe, the Sharjah one had an "S" in the centre.

I can also remember one at Riyan and another at the old landing field in Masirah (half way down the island on the left hand side).

brakedwell 26th Sep 2008 07:15

Bait al Falaj
 

Did you by any chance take your 1-11's into the old Muscat base at Bait-al-falaj.............now that was a interesting approach!
On 152 sqn we operated three Ration Runs a week to Bait (Mon, Wed, Fri) routing BAH-SHJ-IBRI-BAIT-SHJ-BAH. I landed at Bait many times with Twins Pioneers and Pembrokes. This is the only photograph I have of Bait showing the then new parking ramp with two 152 sqn aircraft and a rare SOAF (single) Pioneer. Airwork did all the maintenance

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c3...aitalFalaj.jpg

JW411 26th Sep 2008 14:34

The runway at Bait al Falaj was originally a gravel strip about 4200 ft long and quite narrow (60 ft?). The next stage came when they concreted about 500 ft at each end.

Then, when SOAF ordered Strikemasters to replace the Piston Provosts, they decided that the whole runway needed to concreted. They started from both ends moving towards the middle and then realised that they weren't going to meet!

Thus the nice new runway had a 2 or 3 degree heading change halfway down. It looked quite strange coming down finals but not so obvious after landing.

Gulf Aviation did indeed start a schedule into Bait with the BAC 1-11. It ran about once a week and it would be fair to say that they did not have a lot of room to spare.

brakedwell 26th Sep 2008 15:11

I remember it being shorter than 4200 ft in 1959/61. In April 1961 I was on detachment at Ibri with the SAS. Our Twin Pioneer had inoperative Flaps and Slats, which were physically locked up after a chain and sprocket failure caused by sand contamination. Unbeknown to me and the squadron engineers at Bahrain, operating the flaps also bled the hydraulic brake system. The brakes became spongier and spongier until pumping them before landing became ineffective. I flew to Bait so that the Airwork engineers could take a look at the problem. A flapless landing in calm conditions followed by a total brake failure resulted in us running slowly off the end of the strip (downhill) and through a barbed wire fence before coming to a halt in Brigadier Smiley's "back yard". No damage to the aircraft and the welcoming G&T from Mrs Smiley was a good start to a very pleasant night stop! From then on we visited Bait on a weekly basis to have the brakes bled and eat something edible!

old,not bold 27th Sep 2008 20:31

I was lucky enough to ride along on the proving flight with the GF BAC 1-11 to Bait-al-Falaj. It was a condition of the sale of the ex-Phillipines 400s (I think they were) that the CAA, who regulated Gulf at that time, would approve scheduled operations into Bait-al-Falaj. The aircraft was crewed by BAE pilots, but there were some GF ones there as well who had done the course.

It was an interesting day starting with the first approach and landing (down the valley going Northish, aim for the painted spot on the hillside, look right for the runway, turn just before hitting the hill and get it down quick on account of there's no option to go round, if I remember rightly. OK in a DC3, even F27, but challenging in the jet, they said).

Then a number of take-offs and landings with just the test crew on board, simulated engine failures at various stages, and then the same again with ballast up to MTOW (or some quite high number), and the aircraft passed with 'flying' colours.

The final departure, after a necessary change of the main wheels, had us all back on board, with some ballast and fuel for Bahrain, GF crew flying, and a failure at V1; Rex E was sitting beside me in the cabin and as we watched the crest getting closer he said conversationally "I've just done the course, I've been flying here for years, and what I know is we'll hit about 200ft below the top".

A few moments later, there was a shove in the back as the "failed" engine was recalled into service, and we lifted over the crest nicely.

The CAA gave their approval and the rest is history.

airmead 12th Mar 2011 23:27

slight correction..
 
I know this is an ancient post.. but..

After being scrapped at Strathallen XK655's nose was badly trashed by the scrapman who pulled it across a field on it's roof. It came to Carlisle but suffered a fall from it's towing trailer on the M6 motorway - somewhat ironic given its poor landing at Strathallen. After a couple of years I bought it, and began the restoration process inside, including replacing instruments pinched by a previous. It's not strictly true that it deteriorated in private hands. It resided first in my back garden near Cockermouth, then onto Solway Aviation Museum after a repaint in 51Sqn scheme. Still, the skinning damage was quite bad in a couple of places. I sold it to Gatwick and Skysport finally repaired the outside - something requiring more tooling than I had available. Strange to see it now so far away - but looking really good!

Ex Brit ARAMCO 22nd Nov 2014 17:01

Heliops 1971 78 Sqdn
 
Remember Nizwa (Firq) and Saiq - Yes got the tie.

I have been reading with interest the TOS and Omani nostalgia

The Omex Patrols with the Sultan's Forces were always favourites with 78
Sdn Wessex Crews. In particular I remember the latrine behind the Bungalow that had bullet holes. One first timer pilot did not believe it was
shot at by dissidants until a round one went through whilst he was sitting.:D:D:D:D


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