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138RIGHT UP YOUR STREETAs a newly qualified C-130 Hercules captain in the early 1970s, I proudly (and somewhat smugly) headed off to the Middle East, in charge of my own crew for the very first time. I had picked a route that I knew well from my years as a co-pilot, which included Akrotiri in Cyprus, and Sharjah on the Arabian Gulf coast, so there was no problem getting the trip authorised. However I was, essentially, on probation, and not permitted to carry passengers until I had a few more command hours under my belt.We duly staged through Cyprus without mishap and, the following day, approached Sharjah from the northwest, just as it was getting dark. The Australian air traffic controller on duty indicated that runway 35 was in use and, with no other aircraft airborne, offered us any type of approach that we cared to make. While the rest of the crew were quick to point out to me that a left-hand join downwind for a visual approach would minimise the time delay before a winddown beer and dinner, I decided on another course of action. Back in the %u201870s, training hours were hard to come by and the %u2018steam driven%u2019 simulators we used bore little resemblance to the real thing.Consequently, each flying sector was supposed to be concluded with some sort of instrument approach as a means of keeping skill levels as high as possible. Mindful of this, and wanting to demonstrate my undoubted ability to my new crew, I elected to carry out a VOR1approach, and briefed the navigator to supply me with periodic drift and groundspeed readouts. I advised my Australian friend in the tower, who indicated that we should call again when on finals to land with undercarriage down, and set course for the beacon. The crew somewhat reluctantly joined in my attempt to over-fly the VOR and head south-ish outbound, but not without pointed comments from the loadmaster and flight engineer about bar closing times.From my perspective, things appeared to be going well as I turned inbound, skilfully (?) interpreted the VOR needle to acquire the runway centreline, descended to minimum altitude, and searched the