Page 109 - Demo
P. 109
109Force of Oman (RAFO), commanded at the time by the charismatic Air Marshal Erik Bennett and manned by a mixture of Omanis, ex8patriot British on contracts and some loan service officers. It was a heady mixture to become involved with as the flying environ8ment was considerably more vibrant and much less reg8ulated then the domestic RAF scene. Additionally, after the long two8stage flight out in a SOAF BAC8111, there was the challenge of flying an aircraft which you had never been in before %u2013 in my case the Shorts Skyvan used by SOAF in the light tactical transport role %u2013 with the need to muster all the skill and authority of a CFS examiner. One would often be crewed with a young Omani aviator whose grasp of English might be rather tenuous and who would be somewhat overawed by your presence. The cargo could easily have included the occasional goat and some locals who might never have been in an aircraft before. Some of the strips were very primitive, I recall one close to the Yemeni border where, after landing, we had to keep rolling, whilst discharging cargo and passengers %u2018at the run%u2019 before getting airborne again, all the while being tracked by the Yemeni ZSU823/4 anti8aircraft batteries just the other side of the strip boundary/national border. It was a far cry indeed from flying with a QFI in a Jetstream at Finningley. A total contrast was provided when flying with the Hunter squadron based near Salalah up in the desert at Thumrait. The aircraft was well equipped, carrying two Sidewinders in addition to its 30mm cannon, rocket and bomb armament, and was flown with great %u00e9lan by its pilots in an environment virtually totally free of any form of restriction or regulation. At the time of the 1988 visit the cross8border war with dissident elements in the Yemen had only just petered out so flying with the Hunter squadron was very much %u2018war time operations%u2019. Establishing one%u2019s authority and credibility as a %u2018Trapper%u2019 in this very The SOAF%u2019s Thumrait?based Hunters were %u2018flown with great %u00e9lan%u2019.
