Autocrat in RAF Sharjah
 

I have photos of the Auster Autocrat at the museum but I'm not being able to post attachments here. Can anyone please help me on that?

Savio: An easy way to post photos is to use Photobucket. Do you have it?

Brakedwell: the magnetic heading may have drifted a bit since your days!

Laurence

Edge lighting might be problematic
 

But to be honest if the right bod in Museum asked the right bod in the Palace, I can guarantee that a suitable open space would be available.
Given the strong winds, even a hover approach would be fine.
glf

If it did Laurence it must have drifted back.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c3...ps6ad59c34.png

Got on photobucket to get the photos here. It's at Auster Autocrat which landed here on Oct 5th 2012 (reg G-AJRE) which was piloted by Captain Martin Slater who is possibly a former RAF pilot.
The Autocrat at the museum hangar now:

http://i1300.photobucket.com/albums/...ps0fc5aef6.jpg

http://i1300.photobucket.com/albums/...psaa9e0c45.jpg

Salvio,
Martin Slater is a close friend - he owned the Auster prior to selling it to the Museum. The aircraft was based at Wellesbourne and incidently, was the first aircraft that Martin flew in .He is not ex-RAF. The passenger who flew with Martin took a number of photographs. Is there anyone who could post them on the forum if I were to e-mail them?

That looks nice, pity it doesn't fly as well as it looks

Thanks for that bit of info Mr. Brownie. The Autocrat will be in very shape here as the museum is very unpopular in Sharjah and very few people visit nowadays. Unforunate for them; fortunate for us :ok:

The door of the Autocrat is actually opened (without a lock) and I managed to get inside. It seems very nostalgic.
I so wish we had an RAF Spitfire at this museum. Was a Spitfire ever flown here when the airfield was active?

That's the airport yard few days ago: #memorieshttp://i1300.photobucket.com/albums/...ps35f23553.jpg

Same place when it was a little more ....ahem....."untidy"

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c9...psadf6b79c.jpg

Box brownie: Send me the photos and I can post them.
l.garey at sunrise.ch (with usual changes to an email address).

Laurence

Here are Box Brownie's photographs taken from the Auster after its delivery to SHJ, during the 15 or so hours it did in the UAE before going to the Al Mahatta museum.

http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/c...psfcaa8d75.jpg

5 October 2012: flying around the Sharjah lagoon

http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/c...ps65b9d98d.jpg

Sharjah 28 September 2012

Lucky fellows! Now where is the runway again? Ah yes, just behind the big mosque left of centre in the first picture.

Laurence

Who would have ever thought Sharjah would look like that - bloody amazing! :eek:

And it's not finished yet!

Laurence

To all the guys on this forum, which of you were actually RAF personal in Sharjah when this airport operated?

I was on 152 Squadron based in Bahrain from August 1959 to Sept !961 and spent half that time flying Twin Pioneers out of Sharjah.

I've got awesome respect for you Mr. 'brakedwell'. I do imagine flying Twin Pioneers in the Gulf in 1960 was much more exciting that B767's in Europe....

78 Sqn Wessex, Dec '67 to May '68. The reason for the short spell is that it was the remains of a Khormaksar tour. Yes, much more fun than flogging an "aluminum toob" around the holiday spots of Europe.

105 Sqn Aden & Bahrain/Ardet Bahrain (Argosy) from May 1966 to October 1971. Did a lot of flying to and from Sharjah.

84 Sqn at Sharjah flying Andover C1 from Nov 67 to Dec 68.
Awesome changes since then.

84 Squadron at Sharjah as an Air Communications Mechanic, October 1969 to November 1970. Sadly I have no photographs and I now realise how sketchy my memory is of the area! What a change over the years. I do remember many things about life in general while I was there.

Friendlypelican 2 - thank you for putting up the photo in your post #456. That made my day! That's exactly as I remember the place and I do believe that chap examining the propeller blade is nicknamed Twig or Twiggy.

Sisemen's first picture at post #465 also brought back memories, thank you too. I'm so glad I never had to work in the hangar except once or twice, only briefly. It was a cooker! The second picture in that post has me a bit disorientated. Was that hangar in the background 78s? If it was, we didn't usually park the Andover aircraft in that direction. Beyond the Argosy when I was there, would've been 8 Squadron (Hunters) or the Shackleton Detachment.

Reflecting while writing this, it was a wonderful posting made very tolerable by the folk I worked and lived with. Oh! And Pop's tea that he used to bring round the billets (nobody seems to use that word any more) in a big can with a burner underneath.