My next ferry was a double trip in July and August 1957 and started 
from Ta Kali in Malta where we were now based. There were three of us and we knew the route by then and it was fairly routine and unexciting, just as they all should have been.
Our return trip was only for two aircraft, myself leading and a no 2. All went well and was routine until Habbaniya. For some reason my no 2 was short on fuel so l played the gentleman and let him land first. He landed and burst a tyre halfway down a fairly short runway 
and, instead of taxying off with a flat tyre, he shut down his engines leaving me unable to land without hitting him. Fortunately the diversion was only a couple of minutes away but it being a Sunday there was no Air Traffic Control or fire and rescue services in place, but needs must.
After a couple of days and a wheel change we set off again and all went without incident until El Adem. We refuelled and set off. Rolling down the runway and at rotation speed my no 2 called that he was aborting so I had no choice but to get airborne. He had experienced fumes in the cockpit and wisely aborted. I had a full load of fuel and had to burn off fuel at low level for 45 minutes.
The remainder of the trip was uneventful.
On one ferry, 3 aircraft were forced to force land in Northern
lraq due to a series of errors. The three were returning form Aden and had landed at Habbaniya (Baghdad) and were forced to wait some days due to bad weather. The leader decided to go when the weather was the worst recorded at Habb but it was forecast to be OK at Diyabakir. Unfortunately the forecast upper wind was 180 degrees different from forecast. The flight was conducted over an eight-eighths cloud cover and they could not navigate by map reading. Diyabakir was a Turkish Air Force base and there were no English speaking controllers. The formation let down and broke cloud at 10,000ft with no recognisable ground features. They turned south and made a powered wheels up landing in the desert near Mosul in Northern Iraq. No one was injured but the 3 aircraft were written off since recovery vehicles could not get to them.
I wanted to record this to give some idea how we operated and navigated without the benefit of NDBS ,VORs, and SATNAV and for long times and distances with no one to talk to.
- Al Thomas
