Twin Pin Formation
 

Looking at my log book, it wasn't 1965 that we flew the formation, but 16th February 1966.

We should not forget another excellent thread on Sharjah:
http://www.pprune.org/aviation-histo...d-airport.html

In 2007 I posted a note about a well-known user of Twin Pin medevac, worth repeating here.

Gertrude Dyck arrived in Al Ain in 1962. She was a Canadian nurse, who was one of the first white women in Al Ain. She worked at the local "Oasis" Hospital until 1988. As there were few doctors around, she often had to do more than nursing and was always called "Dr Latifa" by the local people. I last saw her in Al Ain in 2004, when she showed me the photo of a Twin Pioneer on a medical mission. I think it was taken at the Daudi strip, often called just "Buraimi", which was on the outskirts of modern Al Ain, and was finally bulldozed for housing 3 year ago.

Here is a photo from her book The Oasis: Al Ain Memoirs of "Doctora Latifa." Dubai: Motivate Publishing, 1995.

http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/c...ps3d67e85f.jpg

Laurence

4 Ship
 

Leesaranda. You are correct I was with Snowy McKee in XM289 16:25 for 00:55 flight time down as formation:ok:

TwinPin formation.
 

Leesaranda & Navstar. For what it's worth here is my photo' of that formation. Quality not so good, as it was taken on that 'cheapy' camera. There are some blemishes at top L/H corner and on inspection with a magnifying glass I see that I had tried to type(unsuccessfully!) the following....."All of 152Sqd's a/c in the air, Feb. 1966." I didn't have the date in my diary(not like me!!) so thanks for info.'
XM289 is the lead a/c with what looks like XL996 behind. The two 'wingmen's serials are too 'fuzzy' to read.

http://i1297.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4965237b.jpg

Four in the air once, that must have taken a super human effort by the engineers. I can't remember more than two Tin Pins ever being serviceable at one time.

We suffered from serious flap and slat problems while I was on 152. The flaps and slats were rearranged by a complicated system of hydraulic motors, sprockets, bicycle chains and bell cranks, a system which was very vulnerable to sand ingestion. I suffered two flap failures while cleaning up after take-off. One at the start of my tour in 1959 and the other at the end while detached to Kuwait for border patrols during the stand-off with Iraq in July 1961, so they never managed to solve the problem during my time on 152 Sqn. On both occasions there was an audible crack and the flaps/slats on one wing extended fully while the other side retracted. Quickly selecting full flap cured the roll on both occasions. After the first failure we operated the Twin Pioneers with flaps and slats inoperative for several months while Scottish Aviation searched for an answer to the sand clogged mechanisms. During this time the engineers fitted wooden blocks, retained by jubilee clips, in the flap runs and wired the flap lever in the up position. Unfortunately nobody realised that the only hydraulic auto-bleed was in the flaps system! During a two week detachment with the SAS at Ibri I could feel the brakes getting spongier by the day. When the brake pedals had to pumped vigorously to obtain any pressure I decided to seek help from the Airwork engineers at Bait al Falaj. When we arrived overhead the pumping routine failed and I was forced to carry out a flapless, brakeless landing. We went off the end of the strip at a stately speed with both engines stopped, ran slowly down a shallow slope before ending up with nose poking through a hedge around Brigadier Smiley's garden. Fortunately with no damage to the aircraft. The Airwork engineers discovered the auto-bleed design flaw while they were bleeding the hydraulics and obtained clearance from Bahrain for us to continue flying. We returned to Ibri and managed to operate for another three days before returning to Sharjah with no brakes!

Flaps-Slats
 

The slat and flap problems must have been cured as we had no problems to the best of my knowledge in 1966. :ok:

"Tin" Pioneers!
 

Some strange structural issues occurred in two airframes at the end of 1959. When taxying over uneven surfaces, particularly at Sharjah were the sand was smooth but undulating, it was possible to hear twangs coming from the back end, similar to the noise made by twisting a large biscuit or crisp tin. After a lot of head scratching at RAF Muharraq the SEO was advised to contact Scottish Aviation at Prestwick direct. To our surprise the designer of the Twin Pioneer, Mr Bob McIntyre, turned up a few weeks later. He was a very friendly Scot who enjoyed a wee dram. We got on very well, so I volunteered to help him and spent many hours over a two day period taxying both the twanging Twin Pioneers around all sorts of obscure areas of Bahrain Airport while Bob was down the back with one ear pressed to various parts of the stripped down fuselage and floor. Every now and again we returned to dispersal and he would rivet a length of angled aluminium strip to various parts of the rear structure. Having stopped the twanging on the first aircraft the second was sorted out in no time.
Scottish Aviation Twin Pioneer CCII Designer

Hydraulics
 

Your flap problems remind me of a mod Lionel van Praag made to the ADASTRA Hudsons to 'stop you youngsters killing yourselves'. Yup, a wooden block to prevent the selection of 'full flap'. (but that's off-thread!).

Getting back on-thread: On one attempted trip to Tayibah (keeps coming up!) we were on approach down a rocky valley, and hadn't yet got sight of the strip, when a TOS Warrant Officer came up to the cockpit entry. He was dripping with hydraulic fluid and politely asked, 'is this normal', indicating a fine mist of fluid in the cabin. While speaking, he leant his hand and forearm against the door frame, popping half the circuit breakers mounted there. Luckily I spotted what was going on as Tony struggled to work out what was happening. All the time we were low level in this bl***y ravine. A few seconds later and we'd have had a nasty accident, as it was we managed to get sorted out and get back to Sharjah for a no-brakes landing.

During the trip back I went down the back to see if there was anything to be done about the hydraulic leak. But apart from being very impressed by the amount of engineering in the cabin ceiling which appeared to have been sub-contracted to Sturmey-Archer, there was little to be done with the tools we had on board.

TwinPins
 

Those photo's of JD's(395) are great 'Leesaranda.' And 'Brakedwell,' the photo's and the story(399) of the 'bent' TP, just great. As I said before you can't beat B & W for conveying the atmosphere in a photo' - much more than colour I think. Still, that said, here's another of mine, this time one taken of XL996 at Mirfa on 3.11.65

http://i1297.photobucket.com/albums/...ps7202d63b.jpg

Mirfa
 

Saroskeeterman: John Eeles and I were the crew on that flight........

Mirfa.
 

Leesaranda. Well, 'tis indeed a 'small world' as the saying goes. Would you like a full size copy of it? If so PM me with your email address.

Mirfa
 

One thing I recall about Mirfa was the high density of ancient pottery exposed in the scarp behind the coast. There must have been a big settlement there in ancient times. I sent a sample off to the British Museum, but they had no resources to follow that up at the time.

I was working in Al Ain from 2000 to 2004 and pretty well every weekend we went trekking in the UAE/Oman desert. Two striking things were the amount of bones (animals AND human) lying around, and the amount of bits of pottery. There are even copper smelting sites from ancient times. My friend Brien, with whom we did most of our exploring, both aviation related and history related, is an expert on local ancient pottery, so I could ask his advice if you have any questions. Brien, are you there?

Laurence

leesaranda - Was Tarif, the oil company airfield down the coast west of Mirfa still operational during your time on 152?
This 8mm video was taken in August 1959 when I was being familiarised with all the strips we used. We flew from Buraimi to Mirfa at the end of video.

John: I visited Tarif several times with an Argosy (last visit was 01 Sep 1971 in XR141). It was a long smooth strip in those days.

Gulf were also still using it and they had a set of steps kept in the shade of the "terminal" (a tiny three-sided basha).

I believe TMA (Lebanon) used to go in there with their DC-6s.

Thanks Jock, I seem to remember Tarif was operated by the Iraq Petroleum Company. All their supplies came from Beirut in Yorks, including Watneys Red Barrel, which made it a popular night stop (when an excuse could be found)!

By then I am fairly sure that Tarif was owned by ADPC (Abu Dhabi Petroleum Company) Their sister company was ADMA (Abu Dhabi Marine Aereas) who operated Das Island.

PDO (Petroleum Developments Oman) were, of course, based at Azaiba and operated Fahud and several other strips such as Heima.

Tarif
 

Yes Tarif was busy. We didn't go there often, usually only a stop-off en route to Humar. Mirfa was a much more regular stop.

I recall being struck by the range of glossy magazines in their (civilian) mess. Of course, no Playboy, but Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, Queen, Tatler and so on. I foolishly asked if there were women in the mess and received a grin. I got talking to a young engineer who was making so much money that he'd already bought a very large country house outside Aberdeen, and was planning to retire at 35! Very different to our life.....

IPC were just prospecting for oil then. They did tell me oil had been found, but that promising wells were going to be capped for later use. Which reminds me of another adventure. .

We completed a five day Firq-Saiq airlift and decided to spend the last night with Major John Cooper at Saiq. During the night a signal arrived from RAFPG in Bahrain advising us that Sharjah airfield was flooded and we were to return to Bahrain via Tarif, the only other airfield in the Trucial States with fuel. The following morning we flew down to Firq and topped up to 120 gallons, which gave us 3 hours endurance for the 2 hour flight to Tarif. When word got around that we were returning to Bahrain, not Sharjah, a Lt Col appeared and asked for a lift as he was due to go on leave in the UK the following day. As usual the 4 channel HF set had gone out of tune during our time in Jebels, so we had no means of informing anyone of our flight plan/intentions or obtaining a met forecast. We followed our usual track out of the mountains, passing between Jebel Shams and the 9000' Jebel Kawr, then headed towards the Ibri oasis. Up to that point the the visibility had been good with a light northwesterly wind at 5000'. Not long after setting heading from Ibri the visibility began to deteriorate and it became turbulent. We were soon swallowed up in a full blown sand storm and battling against increasing headwinds. The navigator, a hairy old Master Nav, admitted he was about as much use as a leaking kettle as he could see nothing through the drift sight and the ADF was only picking up static. Knowing our position roughly by the colour of sand and the time flown from Ibri, I descended until dunes became visible at about 500'. We soon realised that our ground speed was no more than 50 kts and it was obvious that we did not have enough fuel to reach our destination! As we crawled towards Tarif I had to descend to 100' to maintain visual contact with the ground. After we entered an area of dunes with promising flat areas between them I decided to land and sit it out until the wind dropped and the visibility improved. We could then fly back towards the high ground safely and land at Ibri or even Firq. I was hoping to see some vehicle tracks, which might have given some indication of the state of the surface, but none appeared. It was rather like looking for a suitable layby when junior is bursting for a pee, I kept putting off the landing, hoping for a better area beyond the next dune, there is always a better spot just around the corner! Suddenly a clear flat stretch of greyish sand appeared in front of us, I lowered full flap and landed. After shutting down i opened the upper escape hatch and fitted the pitot covers. In the distance a thin white line was just visible through the blowing sand. It resembled the salt outcrops near Mirfa, but we were still many miles from the coast. I decided to investigate. The white line turned out to be a line of tents along the side of a graded airstrip about 1000 yards long! They were all zipped up against the weather and there was no visible way into them. The sound of music drifted from the end tent. I had to kick the side of it several times before a zip slid down and a head appeared through the gap.
"Where are you parked?" he said.
"Over there," I replied, pointing towards the dunes behind the tents.
"Drive it down and leave it with trucks, then come and join us."
He looked surprised when I said, "OK, if I can taxy it over the hump." I went on to explained our situation and he said, "No problem, how much fuel do you need - our aviation specialist is familiar with Twin Pioneers.
We had stumbled across a Geo-Survey team who, having marked out the strip the previous day, were ready for their first York. Their radio was out of action, but due to the weather they were sure the scheduled York would not be arriving that afternoon and were enjoying a few drinks in their air conditioned day tent.
The aviation specialist put in 40 gallons a side and handed me the container tops wrapped in a blue cloth. "Your receipt," he said.
We had a very enjoyable evening and woke to a clear sky and calm conditions.
It turned out that we had landed over a hundred miles short of Tarif and would have run out fuel if the headwind had remained the same to the coast.
After a quick refuelling stop at Tarif we flew on to Bahrain and said goodbye to a very happy colonel. Nobody knew we had been missing for eighteen hours and nobody ever picked up the fact we flew for six hours on four hours fuel!