This weeks we welcomed back Keith Thomas who entertained us about his time in the Sultan Of Omans Airforce (SOAF) as a helicopter pilot.  Keith described what it was like operating in the desert heat.  He was seconded from the RAF and this was the only tour which was unaccompanied, meaning that his wife and children remained in the UK.  Notwithstanding this his wife was able to visit regularly and during his service with the SOAF he spent 6 months on duty followed by one month on leave in the UK, all travel provided.  He also explained how he earned extra money whilst on secondment, that everything was tax free, decent accommodation provide, in fact all he had to pay for was food in the mess.  

Interestingly Oman is a lot less strict re alcohol and meat consumption than many other Middle East states and women are accepted though not as equals, and are able to drive etc. Also of note was Ramadan where the locals do not eat or drink during daylight hours, meaning they compensate for it during the evening and night.  This meant that by midday the local Omani aircrew were stood down due to fatigue in the interests of safety, aviation does not tolerate mistakes….

The actual helicopter operations were interesting but in Keith’s words their is ‘an awful lot of nothing’ in the desert most notable was a flypast of a stadium by SOAF on a state occasion, with the aircraft crossing the stadium bang on time only to find all the locals outside as they had been unable to open the stadium due to loss of keys!  They were asked and indeed did repeat the exercise once everybody had been let in.