What Ho Chaps Wing Comander Percy Prune's the name, 

Percy to my friends

We took off  from Waddington AFB bound for Faro, traffic busy tonight so I’ve got to go.check our route, ah yes we are just pas Rsing between Brize Norton and Lyneham, I can just make out the outline of the Isle of Wight to our south, the coast glittering in the moonlight, we should cross the British coast somewhere near Portland Bill.

After passing over Jersey we cross  the Brittany coast near Cape Finistere , everything fine till we are well out over Bay of Biscay, weather 8/8 and rain,  Wind has verred right round now coming at us at 70 knots on our starboard side pushing us continually off track, try  to compensate with the engines to no avail. at 00:30 I start talking to Faro 

Arrived in Faro 01:10 after a truly dodgy flight! Engine controls totally useless, she really is a dreadful aircraft, but then I should be used to that after my 38 years with the RAF. Our Navigator refuses to fly in her again and the Engineer has the F700 our and is ripping panels off.

Just look at that flashy Learjet parked next to us, its crew are out of hours and have gone off to the beach-club, for a long weekend they said, their parting words were that they’d “goanna take in a few waves”, whatever that means. Only waves I ever took were in an ancient PBY5A Catalina, not unlike that one parked over the way.

Should be interesting see what tomorrow will bring

I have to admit the Orion P3 does take a bit of getting used to, but I'm told that once you have figured out her female ways you'll find her a trusty ol' bird.

Good night had by all in Faro, though rather too many G & T's for me -My excuse is I'm just getting my air legs. Our Engineer Matt Roberts says MA-DEE is as good as new, so at 13:00 we headed out, when we had climbed to 14,000 ATC put us a new heading you guessed right, sent us back to Faro, every time we were handed over, the same happened, there's a special name for that kind of Spanish gent.'  Went VFR till we were out of range and headed for Gibraltar after an uneventful  flight, refuelled, and climbed steadily into the blue.

Our flight last year in a Piper Arrow III, took us over the North Pole, then down to the West Coast of Canada, down to LA, across to Hawaii, south to Christmas Island, across to Guam, then to Fiji, then to South Island NZ, up to NZ North Island, then Oz, up to Singapore, across to Coco’s Island then to Gan, up the gulf, across to Istanbul, across Greece to the Alps, through them into France, and so back to dear old' Blighty.

I've flown many times from Gibraltar to Bengahzi so I cancelled our IFR Flight plan and went VFR. I took her up to 32,000, she didn't like that too much and the view became a bit hazy so came back to 30,000 and, after half an hour, picked up the Algerian coast. Loads of excitement  here though, as  we were buzzed by a pair of French Air Force Mirage Jets, who came to see who we were. I hope they got some good pictures of Maddie.

After a couple of hours we passed over Tripoli and another hour brought us to Benghazi, spent many happy hours there when I was a young sprog, but once over the desert we lost the ground to a Ghibli so came down and instead of pushing on to Mersa Matruh, we decided to night stop at Gamal Abd El Nasser (El Adem). ATC clear us to land but no life on the ground frequency,but having been here before we had no trouble finding our way to the apron.

Most of the buildings we had, when I was stationed here in ‘69’ are gone. This airfield has become quite featureless except for the water tower which still sticks up like a sore finger.

I remember the Advance Base Unit water tower did the same, until some daft Charlie, in an Armstrong Argosy decided to beat up the Airfield but hadn't noticed the water tower, that is until it was too late - killed the lot - poor blighters.

AI've flown many times from Gibraltar to Bengahzi so I cancelled our IFR Flight plan and went VFR. I took her up to 32,000, she didn't like that too much and the view became a bit hazy so came back to 30,000 and, after half an hour, picked up the Algerian coast. Loads of excitement  here though, as  we were buzzed by a pair of French Air Force Mirage Jets, who came to see who we were. I hope they got some good pictures of Maddie.
After a couple of hours we passed over Tripoli and another hour brought us to Benghazi, spent many happy hours there when I was a young sprog, but once over the desert we lost the ground to a Ghibli so came down and instead of pushing on to Mersa Matruh, we decided to night stop at Gamal Abd El Nasser (El Adem). ATC clear us to land but no life on the ground frequency,but having been here before we had no trouble finding our way to the apron.

Most of the buildings we had, when I was stationed here in ‘69’ are gone. This airfield has become quite featureless except for the water tower which still sticks up like a sore finger.

I remember the Advance Base Unit water tower did the same, until some daft Charlie, in an Armstrong Argosy decided to beat up the Airfield but hadn't noticed the water tower, that is until it was too late - killed the lot - poor blighters.

A quick call to Abdulla Momud  from the call box in air movements brought him hotfoot in an ancient Humber Shooting Brake, inviting us to  stay in his humble abode.  After a couple of hours we passed over Tripoli and another hour brought us to Benghazi, spent many happy hours there when I was a young sprog, but once over the desert we lost the ground to a Ghibli so came down and instead of pushing on to Mersa Matruh, we decided to night stop at Gamal Abd El Nasser (El Adem). ATC clear us to land but no life on the ground frequency,but having been here before we had no trouble finding our way to the apron.
Most of the buildings we had, when I was stationed here in ‘69’ are gone. This airfield has become quite featureless except for the water tower which still sticks up like a sore finger.

I remember the Advance Base Unit water tower did the same, until some daft Charlie, in an Armstrong Argosy decided to beat up the Airfield but hadn't noticed the water tower, that is until it was too late - killed the lot - poor blighters.

A quick call to Abdulla Momud  from the call box in air movements brought him hotfoot in an ancient Humber Shooting Brake, inviting us to  stay in his humble abode. In 69 he lived in a tent or rather 3 tents 1 for the men, 1 for the women, 1 for the Mercedes, in that year I attended his forth Wedding. I always remember his advice, he said "Johnnie one wife no good, two wives fight, three wives two against one, yes Johnnie four wives best", well last night they made an old man very happy indeed.


On returning to the Airfield at 06:30 we found MA-DEE in a line-up of six MIG-21's with Russian crews dashing about, no one took the slightest notice, as we calmly did our checks, taxied out and flew away east.

Before long we crossed the Quattra depression then came up to Cairo by 09:00 and by 11:00 we were talking to Jeddah and at 14:54 we made a textbook landing at Ali A.