Thanks for those photos, leesarandra. Very dramatic!
Tayibah is just north of Masafi. Maybe that was its RAF name. Twin Pin XM959 crashed there in 1967.

Post revised to correct the date!

Laurence

Tayibah
 

My foggy memory puts the Tayibah strip quite a bit north of Masafi village (as does a mud-map in my logbook). It was quite a nasty strip and didn't seem to have the scope to be expanded as the current Masafi strip has been. Perhaps the replacement of the Twin Pins with helicopters meant that it dropped out of use.

Those rocks were almost a perfect size for jamming in-between the wheels. We almost came to grief a couple of times.

Sorry, the crash was 1967. I shall correct the post above.
It was written off.
ASN Aircraft accident Scottish Aviation Twin Pioneer CC.2 XM959 Tayibah
I seem to remember that brakedwell referred to the crash earlier in this thread.

Laurence

You have just reminded me of another epic cock up, Laurence!

Two 152 sqn Twin Pioneers were working out of Sharjah in February 1961. I flew XM959 down to Muscat, Nizwa and back on the 11th. As the second aircraft (XM939) was not required that day the crew were enjoying a lie in. At around 10 am the Station Commander burst into the sleeping pilot's room and told him to get up immediately as XM939 had been tasked to take aerial photographs of a landing assault exercise on Sir Abu Nuair Island and that the station photographer had already been briefed. What the S/L didn't say was that he had been sitting on the tasking signal for 24 hours! By the time the TP arrived overhead Sir Abu Nuair the landing had already ended. As usual the TP pilot was unable to contact any of the RN ships, so he decided to land on a beach and seek advise from the army commander. During the landing run the port main wheels ran over an embedded rock and the aircraft swung sharply to the left, the pilot over corrected with the brakes and the aircraft ended up on it's nose. The occupants of the TP (2 crew,1 civilian IAL air traffic controller and 7 airmen on a jolly) enjoyed a boozy night on a frigate before I arrived to take them back to Sharjah the following day.

Before 939 was returned to normality!
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c3...psd0aa4077.jpg

Back on 6 wheels.
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c3...psb392230b.jpg

939 being towed to Dubai by the frigate HMS Lock Inch or Loch Fyne.
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c3...ps4f966cdc.jpg

Back at Sharjah before being shipped to UK
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c3...ps342b72f4.jpg

Lovely stuff brakedwell. I had seen the first of those pictures, as you know, but the others are amazing!

Laurence

brakedwell
 

I was on 37 Squadron at Khormaksar in 1961 when I was ordered to report to the AOC's office to act as escort to a TP pilot about to receive a reprimand for bending his TP in a landing accident. After the serious stuff I was dismissed and was told later that the AOC had a friendly chat with the pilot.

The coin that Navstar mentioned would be a 6d piece,as it was the same size as the starter cartridge safety disc,which occasionally `blew`.There also was an official prop turning implement,for pre-start hydraulic checks.A pole with a steel loop covered in cord ,rather like a lacrosse stick,but if you didn`t have one then they were probably in `stores`,in the UK, `just in case someone needed them....as usual..Probably still there..

Starter
 

Spot on Sycamore! We did have the strop.Viewed it once being used to start the engine which fired and the strop disappeared at a great rate of knots into the desert. Never found and never attempted again!:E

Just idle speculation......did that TP with its nose punched in, on its raft, really need the towing vessel?

I was thinking of that in the pub just now, and it crossed my mind that if you fired up both engines it could have achieved quite a good speed, perhaps with some stout rope between the engine mountings, as the point of thrust, and the raft.......

Fuel? Hmmm, maybe some spare cans would be needed.

Cooling? Ah, not so easy. Multiple punkah/wallah air propulsion units?

Ah well, it was only an idea....we had to improvise a lot in those days in the Trucial States.

Was that the one where it did a delicate nose over. I seem to remember that one was put back on its tailwheel and flown out. But I could be wrong - it's a long time ago.

Krakatoa
 

He was a good friend of mine. Unfortunately that was his second accident on 152 Sqn as he was also involved in a Pembroke accident at Buraimi on 30th Jan 1960.

Capot - I believe the pontoon was called a Hippo. I wonder if the Royal Navy claimed any salvage money.

Back to Twin Pioneers at Sharjah.
There is still a bit of one there: in the Al Mahatta museum inside the fort is one fin and rudder of XP295 (as far as I have been able to make out from the constructors' plates still attached).
Pity there isn't a whole one there for old times' sake.

Laurence

The more I think about it, the more I believe that the Tayibah strip is the same as the one I have been calling Masafi, and I illustrated earlier. The runway is longer now, and indeed there are signs that it was bulldozed (heaps of rubble still there). Maybe it was just too dangerous and short in the 1960s, so it was lengthened. There is in fact quite a lot of space around, once you have avoided the mountains! It is difficult to imagine that two runways would be built within 6km of each other.

Laurence

XP295 spent virtually all of it's service life at RAF Odiham before it was bought by Flight One at Staverton. It ended up with Air Atlantique as G-AZHJ.

That's right. When the Sharjah museum was set up a few bits and pieces were acquired from Baginton, including a TP fin, ex G-AZHJ, although it is labelled G-APLW!

http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/c...x/DSCF0022.jpg

Museum
 

Its nice that they remember the Twin Pins in the Sharjah museum. About a third of the unscheduled trips we did evacuated locals to hospital; burns cases and difficult childbirth mostly.

The burns cases arose from the (then) common practice of 'dry cleaning' clothes in petrol (put back into the vehicle afterwards) and then sitting by the fire before they were properly 'aired'. The difficult childbirth were caused by bone inflexibility, even in quite young women. The result of drinking mineral -rich well water all their young lives. I think that it was an excess of fluoride that was the culprit. There were also a couple of wedding-related disasters where leaping over the fire whilst firing a sub-machine gun went horribly wrong...... We did a 'no-lights' night landing at Al Khatt for one of those. There was a full moon and the few white-painted rocks lining the strip showed up perfectly.

Other times, it was used as a taxi service for people with business with the Sheik. Sometimes a simple as a trip to the dentist on one of the scheduled trips. TOS used to act as a vetting agent for those.

Well 'sizeman' your thread is set to run & run.

Excellant B & W photo's of J.D's and Brakedwell(nice video of the Pembroke too.) This certainly is a fascinating thread and with everyone's contributions it's turning out to be a definitive history of RAF Sharjah!

Here's another one of mine, it's a colour slide again! I do have some B&W ones, indeed I have in front of me 4 TwinPins flying in formation(must have been some kind of record?!) My 'Yashica Minister D' was confiscated by customs(couldn't afford to pay the duty!) at Benson when I 'indulged' home for Xmas '65 and it took ages for it to be returned to Sharjah. So I used my mates 'second' camera for a month until mine was returned from the UK.

Taken from XL996 on 7.8.65http://i1297.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4f45c8b2.jpg

SAROSKEETERMAN, were the Twin Pin formation air-to-air photos from 1965 JD's also? I had them on my walls, but someone 'souvenired' them years ago. The most dramatic was an air-to-air of the formation turning, with Sharjah town in close background. If you have it, it would be nice to see.

TwinPin formation.
 

Leesaranda, no it is one of my own photo's and probably not worth showing as it was taken on a 'cheapy' camera. I only have an overhead shot of them, but I will scan it to see how it comes out. It must have been the same date, although I have nothing on the reverse. I'll have a look and see if I have the date in my diary.

Local/Casevacs
 

Two flights always spring to mind, both involving the TOS at Buraimi. On the first occasion the CO at the fort asked me (unofficially) to take one of his corporals back to Sharjah to celebrate his son's first birthday. We landed in the early evening and retired to the mess. The following day rumours of a murder spread around the camp. It turned out to be true and the TOS corporal from Buraimi had commited the crime. Apparently he arrived home to find his wife being pleasured by a neighbour. In a fit of rage he set fire to the barasti hut. Both adults and his child died in the fire. At the trial he pleaded guilty and was cleared of killing his wife and her lover, but guilty of killing an innocent child. For this he was sentenced to death by burning! After considerable diplomatic pressure the Sheikh agreed to commute the death sentence and allow the corporal to serve a life sentence in a Bahrain jail.

On the second occasion we flew down to Muscat early on a Sunday morning and returned via Ibrii at lunchtime. During the climb out of Ibri the starboard engine started misfiring for several minutes before settling down again. After landing a magneto check confirmed one mag was dead and there was no spare available. The Sharjah Fete was getting under way so after a quick change we headed for the beer tent! Two hours later I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see the Stn Cdr and MO looking serious. He asked me how I felt. "Fine,"I said. "Then get down to sick quarters and drink as much coffee as you need to sober up because you have to pick up a casevac from Buraimi. The doc is going with you and will brief you in sick quarters."
The situation was serious. A Rock Cobra had bitten the TOS Squadron Sergeant Major on his middle finger as he went to hang up a hurricane lamp in his room. The doc explained that the snake bite sarum stocked at Sharjah was a mixture to cover bites from three indigenous snakes, Sand Crites, Russell's Vipers and Rock Cobras. Because of this the effectiveness was reduced. I told the MO that the aircraft was unserviceable with a magneto problem and asked him what would happen if we didn't fly to Buraimi. Without the serum he will die and he will need specialist treatment at The American Hospital in Dubai if he is still alive when we get back, was the reply. We took off very late in the afternoon and landed at Buraimi as the sun was setting. The doc injected the patient and decided not to move him until the serum took effect. Unfortunately the sergeant major deteriorated and couldn't be moved. A couple of hours later the doc decided the only hope of saving the man was to get him into hospital asap. We took off in the dark and kept climbing while both engines were running normally. At 8000 feet the lights on the coast became visible on the horizon and I was forced to throttle back as the engines were overheating. The starboard engine gave several loud bangs as it cut in and out, then stopped. We continued towards Sharjah in a shallow descent and landed without further drama. The Sergeant Major was rushed to hospital in a very bad way, but eventually made a full recovery. Unfortunately, the beer tent was closed!