Page 112 - Demo

112Our task was to fly with the staff and students of the F85 Operational Conversion Unit, whilst my basic and rotary examiners flew with the basic fixed wing and rotary establishments. Living con8ditions at H5, the F85 base, out in the desert, were somewhat rudimentary, and the duty %u2018mutton grab%u2019 formal lunch to which we were invited as honoured guests was difficult to digest successfully without offending our hosts!Nevertheless the visit was a success, our report accepted gratefully and I like to think that ties between our two air forces and countries were indeed strengthened. A somewhat different, and more hedonistic, visit was that to the Dubai Air Wing of the UAE Air Force. Dubai was a very different place to Jordan, with conspicuous wealth and consumption being evident as long ago as the late 1980s. The small Dubai Air Wing%u2019s front line was equipped with Macchi MB326 and 329 basic jet trainers and Hawk advanced fighter/trainers, in addition to small rotary and basic training units. The loan service squadron leader explained during our in8brief that only those from the upper reaches of Dubai%u2019s hierarchy flew the jets, and he advised us to take particular care not to get in their way as we drove to the brand new air base every morning as they swept by at high speed in their expensive cars, blatantly ignoring the speed limit. Again, the flying was restricted to the training units but the presence of the loan service RAF officer, a well known fast jet expert, certainly made matters much easier. Nevertheless, observations on flying skills had to be delivered with great care and tact, but at least we were familiar with their main training aircraft, the Hawk. It was fascinating at the end of the working day to see the military police holding up the traffic as the fighter pilots all left the air base in a high speed convoy back to their palaces at cease work. They even wanted Among the more unfamiliar environments encountered by the %u2018Trappers%u2019 was the back seat of a Jordanian F?5.