Libya

Libya Contents

Chapter 14. Work

Pete has gone to Kufra again!! (Jan’s letter home Jul. 77)

What does a U.N. electronics "expert" do? He does everything! By training and experience I can maintain almost all types of electronic gear used at an International Airport.   Sounds boastful? It is maybe, but its true enough.
  New Zealand is a good training ground, a technician is expected to be versatile, and if he is single as I was most of the time.   He gets transferred a lot and gets to work on a variety of equipment.   So with 25 years experience, I felt confident in tackling what Benina airport and its outstations had to offer.   Particularly as I had been told there was plenty of local staff.

I was in for a shock.
  My first day or so was spent being introduced to the Libyan CAA staff, the senior air traffic controller and so on.   I was also introduced to my compatriot.   Every UN expert is assigned a compatriot when he starts work in his country of posting.   The compatriot should be of equal standing and his job is to liaise with the local workforce and smooth the way for the expert.

Omar was very helpful in that he could introduce me to the technicians and answer my queries as to their experience and abilities.   He could show me where everything was, how best to get around the airport and so on.   Unfortunately, he fell far short of what I expected as a technician.   In fact all the Libyan technicians were the same, except one, whom I didn't meet for another six months as he was away on a course.
  It was not their fault.   They had not been taught the basics of electricity and electronics.   It was like asking a surgeon to do an operation without him knowing the internal workings of the human body.

Working at the new transmitting station.

I asked one technician how he came into the job, his reply explained a lot.   "When I was ready to leave school," he said, "I was told to report to the CAA offices as they needed technicians." It was the same with several others.
  They didn’t particularly want to be in the job and this showed in their attitude.   Having said this, there were three or four of them who were keen and wanted to learn.   Naturally, these were the ones I collared whenever a job came up.   This backfired a little later on, as their keenness didn’t extend to them working all the time while the rest did nothing.   Still at times, we did some good work and achieved quite a lot.

The biggest problem was that none of the Libyan technicians had the training or experience to fault find and repair complex equipment.   That is where I came in.   If a piece of equipment went u/s, it was far better if I got to it as soon as possible, and did the repair work.   If the Libyan technicians’ tried to fix it, they usually made it worse.   How did they get on before I came? Several ways.

They imported technicians from Egypt.   They replaced the faulty item with a new one.   They canibalised some other equipment.   It was evident that all these methods had been used, as I found equipment with parts missing, I found a storeroom full to the ceiling with piles of unserviceable parts and modules.   I also found that a good part of the technical staff were Egyptians.
  The Egyptians were good technicians and saved the day when I first arrived, though almost all the operational equipment was run down and just limping along they were able to keep it going while I came to grips with the enormity of the job ahead.

Unfortunately, only a few months after I arrived all Egyptians were expelled from Libya, and when these technicians went, so too went my only backup for technical expertise.

I was now on my own but it was a good challenge.   I had by now listed priorities.   I knew the limitations of the stores system, and the limitations of the Libyan technicians.   I had done quite a lot of repair work and things were running better.   Best of all I had become accepted as someone useful who could make everyone’s job just a little easier by making everyday operations run smoother.  

What is it then about an airport that the airline passenger never sees but which enables his aircraft to arrive, depart, and carry him to his destination in complete safety.

It’s really quite complex in detail, but broadly can be described under two headings.   Communications and Navigation aids.   The coming and going of aircraft is controlled by an Air Traffic Control (ATC) system.   For ATC to function it must have first of all reliable communications.   This is extremely important, for without ground air ground contact a modern passenger airport could not function.   In addition, for an airport to function efficiently and safely, navigation aids are important.   These aids assist the aircraft crew in that they allow accurate navigation to and from the airport, and allow ATC to position the aircraft for the safest and best use of the airspace.

These two items, Communications and Navaids contain all the equipment I was responsible for.   I am not including military operations here though there was some overlap.
  Under communications more or less in order of importance is:
  Air ground air VHF.
  Air ground air, and point to point HF.  (including rtty)
  Ground operations VHF.
  Telephone, teletype, and telex circuits.

Under Navaids is:
  VOR.   (Vhf Omni Range).
  DME.   (Distance Measuring Equipment).
  ILS.   (Instrument Landing System).
  NDB.   (Non Directional Beacon).
  Benghazi had no radar equipment though there was talk of getting it in the future.

All the equipment noted above is standard throughout the world, the problem as far as a technician is concerned is that there are many different manufacturers of each item, each with its own methods and idiosyncrasies.   Luckily, I was familiar with the Wilcox VOR and DME and the Philips ILS, used at Benina.   Aerocom, a strange make to me, made the NDBs, and some HF transmitters However, they were reasonably straightforward and didn’t present much of a problem.
  Many of the VHF transmitters and receivers were of strange make, German and British, and gave lots of problems, mainly due to their technical manuals being missing or virtually unusable due to pages and diagrams missing or damaged.

Fairly early on, one thing became clear.   I would have to lower my sights a little.   Take the VOR.   This piece of equipment broadcast a signal that in effect laid down a pattern of radials or bearings to the station.   Once the aircrafts receiving equipment identified the radial the aircraft was on, the crew knew where they were and could use the information in various ways.   Usually by locking on to the radial and flying directly to the station.

The VOR is a very important aid to navigation, it is used the world over and is an integral part of ATC procedures.   Pilots rely on it, the air traffic controllers rely on it.
  A VOR is almost always co cited with a DME.  (Distance Measuring Equipment) This piece of electronic magic supplies an aircraft’s pilot with a continuous readout of the distance from the aircraft to the DME station

If the pilot knows what VOR radial he is on and also the distance to the station, putting those two together gives him his exact geographical position.   A very important piece of information indeed.

That was it then, after a few months I could see what was needed, and how to go about it.   The Egyptian technicians could handle the day-to-day stuff while I got on with getting the systems working again.

The really big problem was Air traffic control VHF communications.   The standard system where there is no radar assistance, is to have an area controller, an approach controller and a tower controller.   The area controller accepts aircraft entering their controlled airspace, sorts them out and hands them on to the approach controller, who controls the aircraft by adjusting their altitudes and headings so as to make an orderly and safe approach to the airport.   He then hands the aircraft over to the tower for the final approach and landing.   For departing aircraft it all happens in reverse.

A controller relies on the aircraft to report its position at set times or on request.   The aircraft gets this information from the Navaids, or simply from visual sightings.   It is obvious from all this that the controller and aircraft crew must have very reliable communications at all times.   This was my first and biggest problem.

The area and approach control was conducted from a purpose built unit much like a large trailer.   It was in fact a trailer that had had its wheels removed and replaced with a permanent foundation.   It was extremely cramped and most unsuitable for the job it had to perform.

My introduction to this centre of the Benina ATC world, produced a feeling of disbelief.   -This can’t be real - The noise level was way above what I was used to, it was to put it mildly, bedlam.
  Whereas at home a station this size would have a staff 6 or 7, here there were 10 or 12 people.   Say four people were actually working, the rest were hangers on of some sort.   This would be acceptable if they were a visiting group or something but no, this was normal.   If they had been quiet, that would be acceptable, but no, they talked loudly, - they had to, to be heard!
  I used to watch the sequence of events.   In the morning it was reasonably quiet.   The gains were turned down on the desk speakers, the teletypes had yet to start chattering.   Then a few people would drift in and start talking, an aircraft would call and the controller would turn up his desk level to hear it.   A printer would start up making its usual racket.   Up would go the speaker levels again, up would go the conversationalists voices, up would go the controllers voice levels in sympathy.
  My overriding thought was, ‘they would never believe me at home’! I kept thinking of the hushed almost churchlike atmosphere of the Christchurch ATC centre.

Eventually I got used to it.   It was the way the Libyans did things, everyone saw themselves as equals, anyone could go anywhere.   Often I would go to see Abdulrahim to get some matter sorted out, but would come away frustrated.   As soon as we started talking, someone would wander in and demand his attention.   He would get it, I would wait as patiently as I could, then start again, someone else would wander in and so it went.

I mentioned above that the VHF comms’ was my big problem.   In any normal situation each controller, that is, each desk position, would have available a main and standby transmitter and a main and standby receiver, for each channel he had to operate and there were at least two channels per position.   That makes four transmitters and four receivers per desk.   All eight units should be in full working condition.   With two desks operating, there would be eight transmitters and eight receivers available.
  At Benina they were all installed, but! Of the sixteen units only two were working.   One transmitter and one receiver.   These were shared between two controllers.

If one of these had gone u/s, and it could at any instant, theoretically, the airport would have to shut down.   We never got to this stage as I managed to get enough units working to provide the necessary backup.   There was provision for a battery operated multi channel transceiver, but it's batteries were flat and its charger inoperative...

There is no doubt that safety was compromised at times due to intermittent com’ failures.   I do believe however that the aircraft crews had experienced so much of this that they kept a wary eye on each others positions, and maintained there own separation to keep away from dangerous situations.

It took months of fairly constant work to finally get the VHF comms’ back to fully operational.   It was probably the single most important thing I did in the four years I spent at Benina, and I believe justified my presence there.

The VOR was the other constant worry.   It had been operated on by a series of Libyan technicians, with the same result as if the untrained surgeon I mentioned earlier had operated on a patient.   It was nearly dead.   There were no spares.   Paradoxically, because the Libyans kept it running it was more dangerous then if it had failed completely and gone off the air!
  The reason for this is, the VOR must not be allowed to transmit inaccurate information.   An aircraft pilot without any external visual references (which is most of the time) relies on the VOR information to fix his position.   If the information is wrong then his position is wrong and that is a recipe for disaster.

Preventing transmission of inaccurate data is simple and effective.   The transmitted signal that set the VOR pattern is electronically monitored, and if the pattern moves outside a predetermined limit, that VOR is automatically shut down.   In NZ, it is drummed into every technician that the VOR is never to transmit without the monitor in control!!
  Air Traffic Control have set procedures they use if a VOR goes off the air, they have no procedures for an inaccurate VOR, as it should never happen.

In New Zealand, the equipment is well maintained to the extent that the monitors are set to allow a radial a variation of only +and -1 degree from its nominal value.   ICAO regulations allow a variation of +/- 4 degrees.   The monitor can be set to a maximum of +/- 8 degrees.

This latter setting is what I found the Benina VOR set to.   Way outside the ICAO maximum.   What had been happening was that for various reasons the VOR electronics gradually failed and the radials started drifting, the monitor picked this up and shut the equipment down.   The technicians’ found it easier to widen the monitor’s error range then to fix the original faults.
  Over time the monitor ended up at its maximum value, The VOR still transmitted information but it was becoming more and more inaccurate and more and more dangerous.   The only saving grace was that Benina was a safe airport to approach, there was no high terrain, and the weather was usually benign.   Still it was an extremely dangerous situation and couldn’t be allowed to continue.   Bad though it was worse was to come.  

Spare parts were a big problem.   Over a period of years all the spare valves and other sensitive parts had been used as necessary.   But!! They had not been discarded and new ones ordered, I don’t know why, probably too much trouble because the stores system was virtually non-existent.

I put in an order to Tripoli for new valves.   Back came the reply.  ‘Our records say you have plenty of valves there’.   Back went my reply.  ‘We have no valves, they have all been used.’ They wouldn’t accept this, so to reinforce my argument I took Omar my compatriot out to the VOR site, stationed him by the door, brought out the carton that contained all the loose u/s valves and with great ceremony threw each one as far as I could into the scrub surrounding the building.   Omar was impressed.
  He rang Tripoli and told them that it’s true we don’t have any spare valves.  

This resulted in a special visit from a Tripoli storeman proudly carrying two spare valves.   I had ordered 16!!
  I got four more a little later but never had enough to feel comfortable about the VOR reliability.  

I stabilized the equipment as much as I could and reset the Monitor to the ICAO limit.   I went to Abdulrahim with Omar and tried to get the message across as strongly as I could that the monitor settings must never be touched by anyone but me.   Abdulrahim wrote a directive to this effect, which was posted on the technicians notice board.   That should do it thought I.   I should have known.

A few days later I went out to the VOR, where to my horror I found the transmitter switched to manual and the Monitor switched OFF! This was the worst thing that could happen.   I reset everything then went back and tried again to get the message across.   No one seemed to care, or even want to know.   It was so frustrating.   The same thing happened a couple of more times and eventually I collected every key I could find and kept them in my office so only I could get into the building.   It meant I was virtually on call if the VOR became faulty, but at least it was safe.
  In relation to this safety of navaids aspect, ICAO recommends that all aids are checked at six monthly intervals by a specially fitted out calibration aircraft.   I was well used to this procedure as New Zealand had its own Cal Flight which operated full time around New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.

I had been at Benina for a few months when I was told that the calibration aircraft was due the next day. This caused a mild panic as usually we knew well in advance that a check was due.
  There is a certain amount of setting up to do and checks to perform to get equipment ready.   Air traffic control have to be advised as a calibration upsets the usual traffic flow of an airport.
  All was ready and the calibration aircraft duly arrived. It turned out to be a King Air and belonged to the Algerian Civil Aviation Department.   They were responsible for the whole of North Africa and the Middle East.   The crew were Algerians, the pilot being an Algerian Air 747 captain seconded to the flight, all The Algerian Air captains had to take their turn at Cal flight duty.

Inside the cal flight aircraft.

They were a happy crew who didn’t take life too seriously, the four of them, pilot , engineer, and two technicians, seemed to take the whole thing as a chance to have some fun.   However when it came to the actual work they were reasonably professional.   My job was to coordinate things on the ground, change equipment status, set levels, switch units over and so on.   The aircraft flew standard orbits or approach profiles and was monitored by one of the technicians on the ground using a theodolite.   In this way the accuracy of the equipment being tested could be checked to a fine degree and the results used to advise the Civil Aviation authorities as to how acceptable the particular aid was.   Needless to say the technician in charge of the equipment did his very best to maintain his equipment as well as possible to get a good flight report.   This was not easy in the Benina environment.

We had to fly to Kufra to check the aids there and that flight was one of the more interesting ones I have experienced.   To start with we were all aboard and ready to go I had securely strapped myself in, which I noticed no one else bothered to do, when the port engine refused to start.   The engineer muttered something in French and disembarked.   He took a spanner and thumped something in the back of the engine, the pilot tried again, this happened a few times then suddenly the engine turned over and started.
  The engineer came back on board secured the door sat down and took up a guitar and started playing.   We taxied out and when the pilot called the tower controller for take off clearance the engineer leaned over and sang a few bars into the pilots mic.   As I said they were a happy crowd, I just tightened my seat belt and hoped for the best.

The cal flight at Kufra

We completed the flight safely though I couldn’t help thinking what I good thing the Kufra VOR and NDB were working correctly.   We had the same problem with the port engine on the ground at Kufra and it was overcome the same way.   The engineer explained it was the starter motor sticking and usually responded to a few good thumps.

Subsequent Cal flights with different crews were not so entertaining, one crew came to check out a new VOR that had been installed at Benina.
  Glade,the Wilcox company's installation engineer and I were on the ground as the check got under way.   After a couple of orbits the theodolite man, who was of a rather surly disposition, came to us and said we were 10 degrees clockwise.   This was ridiculous, we had done our ground checks and knew we had it right, we argued but he was adamant.
  “ Come anti clock 10 degrees. If I am wrong I will eat my theodolite.” We resignedly made the correction which entailed taking the cover off the antenna undoing the holding bolts rotating the whole assembly and tightening it all up again.   It gave us no pleasure when after a few checks he came back and without apology admitted he had made a mistake and could we rotate clockwise 10 degrees.   We restored everything and then asked him if he would like tomato sauce with his theodolite, he didn’t crack a smile, in fact didn’t speak to us again just packed up and disappeared.


MORE STAFF.
  When the Egyptian technicians were sent back to Egypt, I started making noises to ICAO via Thorsten and the UNDP at Tripoli that to do the job properly at Benina and the outstations more staff was needed.   I pushed this as often as I could on my rare visits to Tripoli and during even rarer visits from the Tripoli staff to Benina.
  Eventually a letter came from Montreal to say that they were considering a further posting to Benghazi.   I knew from the odd contact with Pete Corner ( the one who started the whole thing off) that he was still interested in an ICAO position, so bearing this in mind I wrote to Montreal suggesting that if Pete’s name came up applying for a position, he would be ideal for a Benghazi posting, as his expertise would neatly fit in with mine.   He being more experienced on the Wilcox DME and much more experienced on the Philips ILS.

Its now March 1978 and good news in the mail.   A letter arrived from Pete to say he has been posted to Benghazi.   This really was great news, I had been worried that the Benghazi posting might have gone to someone who would need time to get up to speed with the Benghazi setup and who may not have the particular expertise required to fit in with the overall picture.   Petes letter took away all these misgivings.   I knew his years of experience in the New Zealand setup meant he would be able to fit right in and share the increasing workload at Benina and the outstations.

Pete offered to bring anything we needed from New Zealand so Jan immediately wrote home and asked her parents to collect a few things we needed, mostly books and deliver them to the Corners.

Pete and Annette have arrived, and here we go again in the Villa hunting game.   The situation is worse then when we arrived two years ago, a government edict has decreed that there will be no more rental agreements signed.   What small supply of rental villas there was has disappeared.   We arranged for Pete and Anette to house sit a friends place for three weeks which gave us some breathing space, but things did not look good.
  However persistence won in the end, and with the help of Suliman, a wealthy Libyan who has recently built a new house has agreed to let Pete and Anette have full use of a flat which takes up the upper floor.   The flat is very spacious and new, and the arrangement looks reasonably permanent.
  So that’s a big relief to have the Corners settled in.   Once again we settle in to a routine.   There are now three ICAO people in Benghazi.   Myself, Peter, and Edwin De Courcy.   Edwin is a Civil Engineer who specializes in Airport infrastructure.   He is not connected with us except, being ICAO, he shares our office area and Post Office box.   He doesn’t warrant an airport car so uses ours for rides to and from work.

Edwin is an older man and is English in spite of his name and the fact that his home is in Nice.   His wife is French and prefers to stay home, can’t say I blame her, I think I would prefer Nice to Benghazi!

Edwin arrived a few months or so after I did and settled in quickly, being an old hand at this expatriate business.   His previous posting had been to Gambia on the West African coast.   He was disappointed to leave there and hoped to get back one day.   He and I got on famously, he had visited New Zealand in his youth and thought it and New Zealanders were great.   Although he was nominally in charge of our small setup he deferred to me in just about everything.  

As our work commitments were quite separate, he was quite content to keep a low profile and get on with what work came his way.
  Edwin finally got his wish in July 1977 and has departed on leave prior to being posted back to Gabon.   We were sorry to see him go.


OTHER STATIONS
  Benina of course was my main concern, but there were two other major airports in the Cyrenaican region.   Kufra, and Tobruk.   Kufra was a civil airport, though as is usual here, it had military connections.   Tobruk’s airport was called Gamel Abdul Nasser airport, after the Egyptian ex president.
  It had originally been an RAF station called El Adem.   But was renamed after the expulsion of the British.   It was a military station but with civil connections.   Both airports were equipped with VOR’s, DME’s, NDB’s, and the usual communications equipment.   Kufra was quite important, not so much for local reasons, but because it was on the main Airway between Europe and the rest of Africa. It's NDB, VOR, and DME were ideally sited for aircraft using these routes.   I spent quite a lot of time there with varying degrees of success.


KUFRA
  Hard to believe the land I was flying over was once open savannah.   Grassland, home to antelope and deer, Zebra and giraffe, lions and elephants.   Just a few tens of thousand years ago there were rivers and lakes.

Now it is easier to believe I am flying over the surface of Mars, or the open ocean.   The term sand sea is very apt, not for nothing are camels referred to as ships of the desert.   Below the Libyan Airlines Fokker Friendship is a flat waste unrelieved by anything that might catch the eye.   We have been flying for more then an hour, Kufra is still over an hour away.

Initially there were signs of water courses, dry wadis, water worn rock outcrops, then there were dunes, great ridges of wind blown sand stretching for kilometers North east/South west.   Now just flat sand.   The dry watercourses are there though, buried under tons of sand, visible only to the prying eyes of satellite borne radar, and the probes of oil prospector’s instruments.  Kufra is a product of these ancient rivers, it is an oasis and it sits above an enormous reservoir of crystal clear water.

The land below is changing character again.   Huge outcrops of black rock are poking above the sand making the view even more Mars like.   Low rocky hills and escarpments give some form to the landscape.   There is still no sign of vegetation but this will soon change.
  The hills spread out and something new comes into view.   Groups of strange hexagonal shapes, aligned in rows.   Then collections of round shapes also arranged in rows, they extend in all directions over tens of square kilometers.   They are a bright green against the drab grey of the desert, and are obviously some sort of vegetation.   I found out later that they were part of an ambitious project to convert the desert back to a semblance of how it was all those years ago.

This was my first trip to Kufra and I had no idea what to expect.   There was an airport that was obvious, but what an airport! The aircraft made a straight in approach that gave me no chance to see it from above.   I was still trying to figure out what the strange shapes were on the ground when I realised we were landing.   Then we were down, on a black sealed strip that seemed to go on forever.   We taxied then stopped, and I disembarked looking round with great interest.
  At what!  Very little.   A pipe stuck up out of the ground labeled ‘refueling point’, at least it was in English.   Two hundred meters away was a small metal prefab and a hangar.   A kilometer away was a control tower, and that was it.

A few cars and a bus appeared from nowhere and the other passengers disappeared.   Then a land rover showed up from the direction of the control tower, and I was introduced to the SATCO.  (Senior Air Traffic Controller).   I had arrived, and was to stay for the next few days.   While we drove back to the tower I commended the SATCO on what a fine runway he had, referring to the expanse of black seal we had landed on and were driving alongside.   “That “ he said.  “Is the taxiway, the runway is further over”.

Kufra airport.

When we went up into the tower I could see this was indeed the case, an enormous concrete runway stretched for 4000 meters with the taxiway alongside.   There were no other buildings associated with this facility.   Looking away from the runway there was the beginnings of the town of Kufra, which was situated a few kilometers away behind some low hills.  

Kufra, as I was to find out over the next few days was quite a reasonable size, with about 20000 permanent inhabitants.   There was no recognisable hotel, only a couple of boarding establishments.   There was a hospital and even a picture theatre of sorts.   Also a substantial police presence as I was to find out on a later trip.   On top of a ridge that gave a commanding view over the whole area was a large military establishment.

The reason for this visit was to familiarize myself with the place.   See what equipment was actually there, what stores there were and what state it was all in.   The Egyptian technicians from Benina had been looking after the gear and it wasn’t in too bad a condition.   Faud one of the Egyptians, who had been based at Kufra for eighteen months until he had been able to persuade his bosses to transfer him back to Benghazi, accompanied me on this trip.   Faud was a real gentleman and I can understand why he wanted to quit Kufra.

Stores were nonexistent, as I had come to expect.   A couple of local lads had been sort of trained by Faud as technicians, but their duties were limited to switching the gear on after a failure usually due mainly to mains power problems.
  This was OK as they were not capable of fault finding or tuning up the equipment.   Unfortunately they couldn’t always restrain themselves and most of my subsequent troubles were due to what we politely call ‘finger trouble’.  

Two army officers appeared and offered to drive me to the VOR station, I think they wanted to check me out, as this was, after all, their patch.   They had a new range rover and liked to show it off.   We went down the main runway at 140k and straight off the end without slackening speed.   I must say the car took it beautifully but it still gave me a hell of a fright.
  Later back at the tower, I was asked to check out their communications equipment, which is different to the civilian gear.   I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to do this but I hauled the gear out and looked it over and gave it the OK.   This made everyone happy, but I was glad there was nothing seriously wrong as there was no test gear or manuals.

No one seemed to know what to do with me, Faud had gone to stay with friends, but the SATCO arranged for me to go to an accommodation area for the night.   This was OK as far as sleeping went but there was no arrangement for food.   Before it got dark I wandered down into the town area and found a place that sold me a rather nice unleavened bread sandwich, some sort of meat and an egg.   I roamed around for a while then turned for home. But where was it, I really hadn't noticed where I was going and as night had fallen I couldnt see the area on a small hill where the accommadation block was.
  Lighting was sparse, the streets all looked the same, but I zeroed in on where I thought my ever more desirable bed was. In the end some half hour later and with the help of a couple of young Libyan men I found the building and went thankfully to bed.

Next morning I met the local technicians at the tower and was invited to breakfast.   I went into the workshop area and there were four people seated round a table.   The two technicians, an electrician, and I think a driver.   Faud had disappeared somewhere.   They waved me to a spare seat where my place was set.   A single spoon!
  No one else had any eating implements.   In the centre of the table was a plate and on the plate was a large mound of something.   My first thought was congealed porridge, but it was more then that.   It was made up of various cereals and slightly sweet.   I liked it.

Not quite like this.

The trouble was eating it.   They waited politely for me to start, so I took up my spoon and attacked the part nearest me.   Then they all started, simply using their hands.   This was fine for a while, but as the mound grew smaller, closer came the finger marks of the two people alongside me.   I became more and more careful where my spoon went, trying to be unobtrusive about it.   In the end I had no room to maneuver and had to give in.   I put down my spoon and sat back, everyone stopped, leaving a little pile of whatever it was sitting there with my spoon marks surrounded by finger marks.   We finished off with warm Pepsi and everyone was happy.

That first visit was quite good I met the people I had to and they met me, which is quite important.   From their point of view I was this ‘English’ stranger (I could never get them to understand where New Zealand was.   I spoke English so I was English) who had come to fix all their gear and take their worries away.   I hope I didn’t disappoint them.

Accommodation at Kufra was always a problem, on the next trip Faud again stayed with a family he knew, and I was given one half of a caravan in a single men’s compound.   This place was quite odd.   The people staying there were labourers who worked on the ‘desert blooming’ project.
  They came from all over Africa, all colours and nationalities.   Few spoke English.   There was nothing to do after the evening meal in the canteen.   Everyone disappeared back to their cabins.   Later about 9 O’clock I went for a walk down an aisle between these cabins, some were quiet but from others came the sound of music, weird music, music that called to mind old films of darkest Africa.   Drumming mostly, but some wind instruments and singing.   I wish I had had the nerve to knock on a door and ask to join them.   As it was I stood outside and listened and let my imagination wander.

Faud and I returned to Benghazi after the first trip but I knew that Kufra would be an ongoing problem, To keep a station with a VOR, DME and NDB running as it should do, not to mention the communication gear, called for a permanent technician, suitably trained, someone who could maintain the equipment in fully operational order all the time.   A big ask for a place like Kufra which at one time had the reputation as being one of the hardest places on earth to visit.
  Admittedly, it is only a couple of hours away by air from Benghazi, but it still feels like living at the end of the earth.   I knew I would be back at fairly regular intervals until someone could be found who was willing to come and live there more or less permanently.

My next visit lasted nearly a week, as I wanted to set up the Navaids properly and see if I could train the local boys in rudimentary fault fixing.   If they could keep the gear operational for long enough, I could extend the period between visits, which was a good thing all round.

Every thing went well till I decided it was time to record a few permanent memories of this place.   I had brought Jan’s camera with me and there were quite a few shots left on the roll in the camera, which was three quarters used up with our Christmas photos of the family.
  I asked the SATCO if it would be OK for me to photograph a few things round the airport and the town.   “Sure no problem” he said “ Just don’t photograph anything military”.

There would be no trouble there, I thought, the only military establishment was well away up on top of a ridge, just a line of buildings in the distance.   There were several anti aircraft rocket sites scattered around the perimeter but they were well guarded and I had no intention of going anywhere near them.
  I took a few shots around the airport area though there was not much of interest except a wrecked Russian freight aircraft, which had crashed on take off with a load of sheep the previous year.

Then on into town where there were plenty of interesting subjects.   The town consisted of a main street and a cross street.   Various short tracks and roads led off these, to houses more or less scattered around.   There was a new area where some quite substantial houses had been built for the people imported to make the agricultural and horticultural business succeed.   Then there was the original Kufra which was much more typical of an older Arab settlement.
  Small stone houses more or less haphazardly scattered over low hills.   On first seeing some of these houses I thought they were derelict and had fallen into ruin, they had no roofs or even windows, but no.   People were living in them.   Then it dawned on me, it never rains here.   The annual rainfall is measured with just a few millimeters.   Who needs roofs!

I went on into the town center where the two streets cross and down one cross street I spotted a market.   I parked the Landover I had been given and wandered down to have a look.   This was more like it, a genuine Arab livestock market.   It was too, there were no outside influences, this was solely Arabs selling to Arabs.   I was the only European there, not that anyone took any notice, they were busy buying and selling or just looking on.
  It really was interesting.   Horses milled about, some of them quite magnificent, Camels by the dozen lying quietly, donkeys, goats, some sort of sheep, even poultry.   Right! Lets capture some of this.   To do things right I approached a man leading a camel and mimed a request to photograph him.   He was only too pleased and posed proudly.   Click went the camera.  “Shukran” (Thanks) I said.   “Af-whan” (You’re welcome) he said, then waited expectantly.   Ah, A problem here, I spent the next few minutes trying to explain to him that it was not a Polaroid camera.   He eventually got the message and went off slightly disappointed.

What happened next was the start of one of the more ridiculous episodes that I was to endure during my stay in this country, which is rather prone to producing bizarre happenings.

I was lining up my next subject when someone grabbed my arm.   There stood a little man dressed in a rumpled suit.   I shook my arm free and stepped back, he followed and pointed at the camera and held his hand out, I didn’t know what he was on about but I wasn’t going to give up Jan’s camera.   “No, no” I said, and for good measure “La, la” which is the same thing.
  He lunged forward and grabbed the camera strap, I hung on and something of a tug of war ensued.   A few people started to gather, this was getting ridiculous, one of us had to let go.   I figured if he was a thief, I had plenty of witnesses and if he took off, he wouldn’t get far, so I let go.
  He turned and marched off, I followed, no way was he getting out of my sight.   Out of the market place we went, on to the side street and then the main street.   Suddenly he turned into a shop and went straight to a phone with me close behind.   He spoke for a while, hung up, and still without a word to me went outside.   We stood on the kerb saying nothing, waiting.

We had stopped charging around like Laurel and Hardy, so I had time to think.   The little man was not some sort of camera snatcher so must be something official.   I must have done something wrong by taking photographs, but what? Surely taking pictures of a man and a camel was not beyond the law? Maybe he was a professional photographer and I was on his patch.   Hardly! He didn’t have any camera stuff himself, and anyway surely he wouldn’t go to all this trouble.

My musings were interrupted by the arrival of a Rangerover containing two policemen, the little Napoleon chatted to the two officers, handed over the camera, and walked away without a backward glance, obviously pleased with his days work.   One of the officers got out, opened the back door and intimated that I should come with them - as if I had an option!

We drove for a couple of blocks and pulled up at the police station.   I was ushered inside and given a seat.   Nothing much happened so I had time to look round.   My only experience of the interior of a desert outpost law enforcement office was from Hollywood movies.   I couldn’t help thinking of those old westerns, particularly the ones set in Mexico.   There was a striking similarity, adobe type walls, beat up desks, scruffily uniformed officers lolling round, guns in evidence.   I would not have been surprised if Clint Eastwood had wandered in… There was a fair amount of discussion going on, Jan’s camera was obviously the subject, and me too judging by the glances coming my way.

One of the discussion group finally approached and tried to talk to me, it was no good, his English just wasn’t up to it and my Arabic certainly wasn’t.   The others came over and tried to help, still no good.   Then, a break through.   Out of the mixture of English and Arabic I caught the words “hospital” and “speak English” Ah! There was probably someone at the hospital that spoke both languages.   I said “ok,ok” expecting someone to go and get him.   Nothing happened, everyone looked at me.   They must mean I had to get him, I got up and wandered out the door, no one stopped me, but someone pointed out the hospital, which was just down the road.

I was lucky, a Pakistani chap had just come on duty and agreed to help me.   He spoke good English and assured me he spoke Arabic.

Back at the police station we started again, but now I got the whole story.   Apparently I was seen to be photographing military establishments.   Sure enough, thinking back, it is possible the buildings on the hills in the background of the market shots could possibly appear in the photographs, but they would be way in the distance.   Still that was the problem.
  The police wanted me to destroy the photographs.   I thought about it, all those family pictures, beach shots, Christmas shots, and what would I tell Jan? There had to be another way.   Back to the negotiating table.   Is there any place in Kufra that could process the film? No.   Could the police send the film to Benghazi for processing? No, too complicated.   In desperation I suggested I take the film to Benghazi, have it processed and bring the photos back next visit.   Silence.   Some discussion among themselves, then, “Yes you can do that”.   Talk about a trusting bunch, I couldn’t believe it.

I rewound the film and took it out of the camera, this might work out after all.   Everyone relaxed, but at that moment, and it couldn’t have been timed more perfectly, the closed door of an adjoining office burst open and through it strode yet another character from the Mexican scenario.
  I thought I was getting used to surprises, but this was something else, Wallace Beery came to mind.   He was big in all ways, unshaven, scruffy uniform, obviously an officer of some sort.   But what got me, he was half drunk.   He stood for a moment and waved a half full bottle of some pale liquid.   “Whisky” he said happily.
  Everyone stared, then pretended to work.   He then went round the four or five people and insisted each one drank from the bottle, I don’t know what his motive was but it didn’t go down too well.   One young officer refused, he was actually the neatest dressed one and had done most of the interrogating.   I quite liked him.   The officer insisted and eventually the young man took a sip, but he was not at all pleased.
  I was the only one left.   He regarded me for a moment, made his decision and brought the bottle over.   “Whisky” he said again.   I didn’t like the idea of the communal aspect of all this, but I didn’t want to give offence either, so I accepted the proffered bottle, said “cheers” and took a mouthful.   It didn’t taste of much, and neither did it have much in the way of alcohol in it.   It was probably a wine made from raisins or something.

Formalities completed he spoke with the rest of them, then after a pause looked at me pointed at the film I was still holding and roared out “NO”! He held his hand out and I gave him the roll of film.   He opened a drawer in a desk and tossed in the roll, slammed the drawer shut, wheeled round and stalked back to his office still carrying his ‘Whiskey’.

No one spoke, I looked at my interpreter who seemed quite unnerved by the whole thing.   “What now?” I found out soon enough, we were back to square one.   Someone had to destroy the film.   I wouldn’t and neither would they.

Time was moving on, my interpreter said, “I must go” and disappeared out the door.   I picked up Jan’s camera, hesitated, now what, do I just walk out? Then the two officers who had first picked me up stood up and motioned me to follow.   We went out to their Rangerover, climbed in, and drove back to my Landrover, they knew where it was! We said goodbye and they drove off.

Many thoughts filled my mind on the flight back to Benghazi, predominant among them, how was I going to explain to Jan that I had left her roll of Christmas and beach photos at the Kufra police station?

I made many more trips to Kufra and when I could, I went back to the police station to see if they had managed to have the roll of film developed.   Forlorn hope.   They were quite friendly and would have liked to help, but it was all a bit too difficult.   Each time I visited, they opened the drawer and showed me the roll of film still there.   As far as I know it is still there.   I never saw the ‘whiskey” drinking officer again.

When it became apparent that my visits to Kufra were becoming fairly regular, arrangements were made to accommodate me at an Italian compound.   This was far better then the previous places I had stayed at and made my visits much more enjoyable.

The agriculture plots.

I met an Italian engineer Enrico, who took me on a tour of the desert recovery project.   Very interesting indeed.   We drove out to one of the circular plots, got out and walked to the edge of the irrigated area.
  Within a meter the ground changed from bare desert to reasonably lush vegetation, some sort of alfalfa.   He explained, “Unlimited water is less then 100 meters down, wells are sunk and a diesel powered pump and generator is installed at the well head.   Water is pumped up and fed to a gantry, which is half a kilometer long, the gantry carries the water pipe, sprinklers can be arranged at various distances along the whole length.
  The gantry is mounted on duel wheeled bogies every 50 or so meters.   The whole thing rotates round the well head about once every 24 hours, irrigating continuously, so you end up with a round patch a kilometer across."
  There are hundreds of these plots, arranged in rows at various sites.  I was staggered by the size of the project, it was immense, and yet compared to the size of the desert it was nothing.  We continued on to his head quarters, which included a large workshop area.   Enrico told a little of the history of the project.

In its early days, the idea was to grow produce for the Benghazi and Tripoli markets and even to export to Europe.   Early on however it became apparent that the economics didn’t stack up.   The Government was willing to subsidise the project, but the cost of growing and processing the harvest and transporting it to the markets, was just too much.

The next idea was to use the harvest at Kufra itself, and to this end the crops grown was changed from market garden products to animal feed.   Thousands of sheep were flown in and housed in vast yards, they were fed with the harvest from the irrigated plots.   The sheep were duly shorn and the wool airlifted out to the world markets.   I was interested to learn that during this period the majority of shearers were New Zealanders brought here under contract.

One of the plots from ground level

This scheme also fell through and the sheep were transported back to Benghazi and elsewhere by air.   A Russian freight company had this contract, which resulted in the loss of at least one of their aircraft as I mentioned earlier.

We continued the tour, through the huge workshop.   Diesel engines everywhere, in various states of repair.   Enrico said “These are the pump engines, Deutz high speed diesels specially designed for the work”.   I wondered why there were so many under repair.

“They have a hard life,” he said in answer to my query.   “The operating environment is tough and their maintenance is minimal.”   I could relate to this! “   For instance” he went on, “If the air filters are not checked or replaced regularly, they clog up and the poor old engine starves for air, the speed regulator opens up with more fuel to compensate causing the engine to try to speed up, which requires more air, the regulator opens up more and so on.
  Eventually the regulator becomes wide open and stops functioning as a regulator and just feeds fuel at high level.   The engine over revs and finally blows up.   Enrico told me all this quite dispassionately as though he was resigned to having his expensive charges wrecked because of a lack of simple maintenance.

We went on to where the stock yards were, now disused .   These were very extensive and complete with shearing sheds. The shearers had daubed there names on the wall and quite a lot of them were Maori.   To one side was an area containing hundreds of tractors, parked in rows.   Noticing my interest my guide said, “Another expensive example of waste.   There is not much wrong with any of these machines, its just that when one fails and a spare part is not available it is parked here until the right spares arrive, or it is used to provide bits for some other tractor, or as is likely, it is just forgotten.
  Sooner or later a new shipment of tractors arrive and they will go through the same process and eventually end up here”.
  I couldn’t help thinking of a few farmers at home I knew, who would like to get their hands on this lot.

The whole project was still continuing, but I felt the initial enthusiasm had waned a little, there was little commercial activity, and the focus now seemed to be on the research aspects of making the desert bloom again.

I visited Kufra many times, and usually came home with a tale to tell, for instance, regularly in the late afternoon we were treated to a very impressive flying display by a Mirage jet fighter.   This would be trundled out of the small hanger and on to the runway, it would take off and disappear, it would then reappear at high speed, and do several low level passes across the base each time from a different direction.   He would finish with several circuits and at this time would throw in as many aerobatic maneuvers as he could get in.

Pete and I discussed this performance and decided that it was for anti aircraft training.   I mentioned before that there were several AA rocket emplacements round the base, and we figured the Mirages antics were aimed at giving the rocket crews practice in preparing and aiming their missiles.
  I think the pilot really enjoyed his chance to get his aircraft in the air and put it through its paces.   He probably enjoyed one particular pass.   Pete and I were returning from the VOR late one afternoon in our old Landrover, trundling along the access road next to the taxiway, minding our own business, at peace with the world, when this guy buzzed us from behind.   He came out of nowhere and disappeared in a flash, he went over us at an altitude of about 50 feet.   I honestly thought a bomb had gone off! The Landrover shook violently there was dust everywhere and the noise was shattering!   Then it was all over and peace returned.   My heartbeat didn’t return to normal for half an hour.
  This little story has a sad end, as Pete was to relate after one of his visits there.   He was watching the display from the control tower when after one of its passes the mirage was seen to dive out of sight behind low hills some distance away.   There was no answer to radio calls.   He had crashed and the pilot was killed.

Pete was horrified and then surprised at the lack of reaction from Air Traffic Control and whatever search and rescue system they had operating.   He said there was a long delay before a convoy of trucks set off for the crash site.

Kufra was an extremely interesting place to visit, the weather was usually good, though sandstorms (the notorious Ghibly) were common at certain times.   Sometimes taking a break from the electronics I would wander out on the desert and watch a passing camel train, - they still appeared now and then - though usually accompanied by a couple of Mercedes trucks.
  At night I liked to lie on my back on the sand and look at the stars and think about where I was, which explains the opening passage of this account.


GAMEL ABDUL NASSER AIRPORT.
  I had been in Libya ten months, and pressure was starting to mount for me to go to the Gamel Abdul Nassar airport as the civilian Navaids were not functioning.   I had been putting this off as I had more then enough to keep me occupied at Benina.   However I was finally persuaded as Abdulrahim laid on a driver and a brand new Peugeot 505.
  Gamel Abdul Nasser was a military airfield about 20 kilometers inland from the port of Tobruk, the name Tobruk had connotations of the war and New Zealand’s involvement with the area, so in the end I was quite happy to go and see it.

The airport had been an RAF base up till March 1970 and was called El Adem at the time.   I had actually visited it in 1960 when I flew to Britain in a New Zealand Air Force Hastings.   El Adem was a convenient stop over place and we spent a day and a night there.   I remember it as being a typical RAF station.   Everything spick and span, neat buildings, pathways and roads clean, no rubbish anywhere.

My driver this time was not Omar but one of the technicians, Ibrahm.   at least he was listed as a technician though I had never seen him do any actual technical work.   He was a very pleasant young man though he didn’t speak much English.   I think the reason that he was chosen for this particular job was that his family came from a small town about half way to Tobruk, and he had offered to put me up for the night.

We left fairly late and arrived at his place in the early evening.   I was introduced to some of the men, none of whom spoke English and was then shown my room, which thankfully had a bed, (not always the case in Arab households).   Ibrahm disappeared and I was left alone.
  After about an hour I started getting hungry.   Could it be I was going to have a night without food, and should I do something about it, like wandering into the kitchen or even going out to see if there was a café or something?   I decided to stay put and started to read a book I had brought with me.   Nine O’clock came and went, maybe I should go to bed and try to forget the hunger pains.
  Then at half past nine Ibrahm and another man arrived bearing plates of food.   Were they ever welcome, that standard fare of mutton stew and rice never tasted so good.   After a desultory attempt at conversation they left and I finished the meal and went to bed feeling much better.

Early next morning I was given some cereals and we left to continue our journey.   Arriving at the base we had to wait at the guardhouse while they summoned someone to escort us to the officers mess.   I was regarded with some suspicion, but Ibrahm was able to explain who I was and what we were there for, though I am sure Abdulrahim would have signalled this information to them before we left.   Eventually we were cleared to go and check the Navaids and drove out on to the airfield proper.

I was saddened to see the state of the place, badly run down, rubbish blowing round, broken windows, frames hanging loose, weeds everywhere.   This would really have the British warrant officer tearing his hair out.   I began to worry at what sort of state we would find the equipment in.
  My worries were confirmed, even as we drove up to the VOR/DME station I could see things did not look good, the building was obviously neglected, gaping holes where the air conditioners should have been, the door hanging open.   I felt like asking Ibrahm to turn round and drive home.

We went in however, it was a mess, There was no power at all, dust everywhere, the air conditioners were missing, no doubt being put to full use in some Arab household.   Here was a challenge, to get this lot working was going to take real effort.   It was obvious that I could do nothing on this trip, power had to be reorganized, air conditioners installed and the place and the equipment thoroughly cleaned.

I checked everything I could, which only took an hour, then found Ibrahm who had wandered outside - he wasn’t interested in technical things - and told him we were out of here.   He needed no persuading, and we were soon on the road.   It was just after lunch and he said he was happy to drive straight back to Benghazi, I knew I could fill in the time mentally composing a report for Abdulrahim that would have the signals flying back and forth between Benina and Gamel Abdul Nasser for some time to come.

Ibrahm wasn’t as flamboyant a driver as Omar, but he didn’t waste any time.   He seldom exceeded 140kms per hour, probably in deference to my clinching the seat belt up tight - he didn’t wear one of course - but by the same token he didn’t drop below 140 k’s much either.   It was actually a pleasant drive, the latter half by night, and I took the opportunity to tune around the European broadcast band and listen to some of the hundreds of stations available on the excellent Peugeot car radio.   In New Zealand in pre FM days one would be lucky to hear half a dozen stations.  

I made a couple of more trips to Gamel Abdul Nasser with Libyan Technicians, and by judicious swapping of spares and a lot of cleaning relay contacts and a fair bit of cussing and swearing, I got the VOR working.   A ground check came out OK, but I couldn’t officially hand it over for use until a flight check had been done, this was an ICAO regulation, as it had been necessary to replace some sensitive parts.   (The gonio, for those who may understand Wilcox VORs).

Flight checks were supposed to be carried out every 6 months on international Navaids, and happened in Libya on a now and then basis.   The people who did the checks were an Algerian outfit and they were responsible for the whole North African area, which also included the Arabian Gulf states.

We got very short notice of their swing through Libya and usually only had time to do the Benina and Kufra aids, so the Gamel Abdul Nasser aids never did get flight checked.   This didn’t worry the Libyan ATC at all; they merely asked an aircrafts captain if the VOR seemed OK, if the captain said yes everyone was happy.  

The Gamel Abdul Nasser VOR/DME was an odd situation as it was sited at an Airforce base, but its prime function was as an aid to civilian flights, which is why I was involved.   However, it was controlled by the military and whenever tension got a bit high between Libya and Egypt – which was most of the time I was there - they switched it off.  (No sense in providing enemy bombers with the correct path to fly to the target).   For this and other reasons I never had Gamel Abdul Nasser high on the priority list.

It did (or nearly did) feature in an incident involving a chartered flight carrying Haj pilgrims back from Mecca to Tripoli.   It was a Russian Tupolev Tu 154 airliner belonging to Balkan Bulgarian Airlines and was one of six chartered to Libyan Arab Airlines.   It had a Bulgarian crew.   The flight had left Jeddah and was en route for Tripoli, which took it through Benghazi airspace.   The time was late afternoon when it first contacted Benina air traffic control, the message was simple enough.   Apparently it had somehow misjudged its fuel requirement to reach Tripoli and wished to divert to Benina to refuel.
  The trouble was it had picked one of the few days of the year when Benina was closed due to bad weather.   The area was covered with low cloud, and visibility at Benina was well below that which would allow an aircraft to approach and land, even in an emergency.   The crew was advised that Benina was closed and to find another alternate, the crew said no, they wanted to try Benina.
  Problems began to arise as the controller at Benina was an Indian and was not very experienced.   The Captain of the aircraft did not have a very good command of English.   A complicating factor was the fact that although an ILS (Instrument Landing System) had been installed at Benina, it had not been commissioned.   There was difficulty in getting this message across.
  The aircraft arrived and the crew set it up for a landing run using the VOR and NDB’s.   The captain descended to below the height where he should have seen the landing lights, but could not do so and had to pull up and go round again.   Same result on the second attempt.

I had been at home when all this started when I had a visit from one of the air traffic controllers who said there was an emergency at the airport and would I go there and check the gear was OK.   I arrived as the second attempt to land was made, and had a quick check around.   All the equipment was working as it should, which is always a relief in these situations.
  The SATCO had arrived and taken charge, but the situation deteriorated as signs of panic appeared in the voices of the aircrew.   An example of this was their request for Benina to “increase the altitude of the runway lights”.   This caused a little confusion with ATC till they realised the crew wanted the intensity of the lights increased.   They were on maximum of course but even this fact was hard to get across.

They now accepted they could not land at Benina and asked where they could go.   Benina advised the nearest airport capable of taking them was Gamel Abdul Nasser, and gave them the headings to fly to get there.   They also gave them the correct VOR radial to fly to take them there in a straight line.   This caused confusion as the aircrew got mixed up between the radial number and the VOR’s operating frequency.   They were now in real panic mode as apparently their fuel indicators were all hard against the empty stop.

They eventually got on track for Gamel Abdul Nasser but would not climb as it would use too much fuel, they maintained a height of only a few hundred feet.   Unfortunately, this soon took them below line of sight with Benina and direct VHF communication was lost.
  As it happened, a British Airways freighter was high overhead the area, en route to Southern Africa and had been listening to the drama.   He called Benina and also established contact with the unfortunate Bulgarians, but not for long.   Some traffic was passed, but then the BA aircraft said they had lost contact with the Bulgarian.   That was that, his fuel ran out and he made a valiant attempt to land on a country road.   It was a good attempt and he may have even got down without too much damage, but the road took a sudden rise before the aircraft came to a stop and caused it to break in half.

There was no fire as there was no fuel to ignite it, but damage to the plane was quite high, even so 109 of the 159 on board survived including the flight deck crew.   They would certainly have some questions to answer when they returned to their home base.

We at Benina came out of the whole thing quite well, I was particularly pleased that only a few weeks previously I had gone to a lot of time and trouble to get the recording system working.   There were two recorders installed one old twelve channel Dictaphone which was hardly working at all, and one new 36 channel Phillips which had nothing connected to it.   I had set up the Phillips and wired in every possible voice channel I could, including the official phones.
  Consequentially we had a good record of all the voice traffic involved in the incident.   I collected all this on to one cassette and was able to present it at the local enquiry.   It was also sent off to the official enquiry, which was held elsewhere.   I was also pleased that the Gamel Abdul Nasser VOR was working although sorry that the aircraft ran out of fuel before it could use it to help make a safe landing.

Military aircraft at Benina came to grief at fairly regular intervals but I was never involved as the military kept themselves to themselves which was a good thing all round.
  The military at Benina occupied a large part of the airport but were quite separate from the civil area.   The two places where there was a connection was the control tower and the old transmitting station.   I spent a lot of time at both places.

As there was only one control tower it had to do duty as both a military and a civil facility. This was not a good arrangement but it seemed to work.   The civil controller had to defer to military requirements at all times, mostly everything worked OK, but now and then conflicts arose.   At times a furious argument would erupt as the military controller would suddenly shout at the civil controller telling him to get his aircraft out of the way as he had a MIG on some sort of emergency and needed the airspace.   The poor civil controller would have to tell his airliner to break off his approach and go round again, much to everyone’s annoyance.
  I actually saw the military man snatch the civil mans microphone out of his hand and yell the orders himself when the civilian didn’t react quickly enough to a demand.   I used to think about this carry on whenever I was a passenger in an aircraft approaching Benina.

The transmitting station is where all the civil communications transmitters were situated, and it was itself located inside the military compound.   To get in to the compound a special pass was needed which had to be produced at a guard post.   At first a guard would come to my vehicle and check me out, he would lean down at the open window and look inside, this didn’t worry me but his sub machine gun slung over his shoulder did! It swung down and pointed at my head from a few inches away.   I never got used to looking down the barrel and wondering if it was loaded.

Proof that it was came some time later.   At the time I was driving the old Volkswagen I used to get to and from work and while at work.   Things had got a little lax at the guard station as I used to go in and out several times a day, and a simple wave to the guards sufficed instead of stopping and presenting my pass.
  Some officers noticed this and gave the guards and me a really good telling off, particularly the guards, with the result that things were tightened up considerably.   However the next day I left the VW with the airport mechanics to get some minor work done.   A young mechanic brought the car back to the transmitters and tried to pass the guards with the usual wave.   When he didn’t stop, the guard, obviously still smarting from his telling off, unslung his gun lined up the left front wheel and shot the tyre off.   Not only the tyre but the whole front wheel was wrecked.   The bullet passed through the front left mudguard leaving a neat round hole 9mm across.   Word got around smartly and everyone followed the rules after that.   I was quite proud of my bullet holed VW and showed it off at every opportunity.

LABRAQ
  Labraq was another station I was reluctant to get involved with.   It was a wholly military helicopter base, but it had a civil NDB (Non Directional Beacon) installed there.   This Beacon would be of great use to the helicopter crews when returning from whatever missions they went on.   Luckily it was not too from Benghazi and did not need a stopover when I had to visit it.

My first trip there was quite straightforward as I was with one of the more senior Libyan technicians, we checked in with the guard commander, the two Libyans talked for a while and we were waved through.   The airport had a short runway on which were parked several Boeing Chinook H-47 helicopters, more were parked in revetment areas.

The Chinooks were the very large double rotor troop carrying machines, I had never seen them before and would have liked to get a closer look but my companion didn’t want to know, he just wanted me to look over the civil equipment and get out of there.   This we did and as usual I found the equipment run down and severely lacking in spares.   I resigned myself to the fact that more visits would be necessary.

My next trip was by myself (I often found it difficult to get any Libyan technicians to come on outstation visits, they didn’t like going away from their familiar station.) This time the guard took me to an office area where I was closely questioned as to just what I was doing there, I explained all about the Civil equipment and what I had to do.   I eventually convinced them that I was not some sort of spy and what I was doing was good for their operations.   There was some talk on the phone and after a while a very young soldier arrived carrying a rifle.   “This is your escort” they said.  “He has been told he is not to let you out of his sight”.   With this veiled warning we were allowed to depart.

So, closely followed by my shadow I went about my business.   I couldn’t move about much except between the control tower and the beacon site, a distance of a hundred meters or so.   If I tried to wander off my guard would look worried and say something in Arabic which probably meant “Please, don’t get me into trouble”, but then again could have meant “Go any further and I will shoot you”
  One interesting fact came to light on one of my later trips when things were a bit more relaxed as they got to know me.   I met a couple of Americans and had a quick chat, it turned out they were Chinook pilots, here to train the Libyans.   They were not very forthcoming and I wondered what their status was, I doubt they were US air force personnel, probably ex airforce earning some good money while they had the chance.

I was never entirely sure whether I was supposed to work on military stations, I got conflicting instructions from UNDP in Tripoli.   For instance I was told not to work on military equipment, but no one knew what to do about civil equipment on military bases.     In the end I made up my own mind about it, I wanted to stay friendly with the military as they had a far better stores system and I sometimes had to borrow gear and test equipment to get a job done.   It didn’t matter really as keeping equipment running was my job and by doing so I might save lives, be they civil or military.


GIALLO
  The area south of Benghazi was a vast desert, known variously as the Great Libyan Desert, or the Colenso Sand Sea, or even just the Sahara.   Whatever it was called it contained an area several hundred kilometers square where oil had been discovered.   Scattered throughout this area were oil wells.   Two of the main sites were quite large complexes with oil wells and pumping stations and because of their importance had quite a large staff of expatriates, mostly Americans but some British and a scattering of others. They also had small runways and NDB’s.

I knew about these small and remote stations and I asked Omar my first counterpart about them.   He was not very forthcoming, I asked around a bit more but no one seemed interested and I let the matter drop, I was too busy with Benina in the early stages to worry about them any way.

However late in the second year when everything was running as smoothly as it ever did, all of a sudden people started talking about Giallo and Dahra.   Giallo was closer to us and definitely in our area, about 200 kilometers to the road end and another 60 kilometers into the desert.   Dahra was 400 kilometers to the road end and 70 kilometers into the desert, away over on the western extremity of the oil field.
  I managed to get Dahra accepted as a Tripoli responsibility (it was about the same distance for them), and that left us with Giallo.   Abdulrahim asked me if I would go to Giallo and get the NDB working as it had been off the air for some time and was needed by the various companies that operated aircraft in the desert.  

I said “OK, how do I get there”   “ Take one of the land rovers and drive down,” he said.  “Oh and take one of the technicians with you”.   This seemed a bit too easy, but I asked Youssef my counterpart of the moment, (my counterparts changed at regular intervals, I think they found their workload went up considerably when attached to me.) I wanted Youssef to come with me as he was by far the best of the Libyan technicians, but he begged off for one reason or another.   None of the other technicians would come either, either they knew something I didn’t, or they just didn’t like going into the desert, I think the latter.
  I was getting nowhere so went back to Abdulrahim and told him if I was to go I would have to take Pete Corner with me as I certainly wasn’t going alone.   He agreed though they were not too happy when the both of us went off together leaving them to cope alone.
  The Libyan technicians had come to depend on us even though we tried to incorporate them in the work as much as possible so they could manage by themselves if the necessity arose.

I managed to contact Giallo by phone and told them we were coming and asked how to get there.   No problem said this American voice, as soon as you hit the desert go directly south for 70 kilometers and look for our smoke.   The smoke it turned out was from the burn off of the unwanted gas that came up with the oil.   As it was burned night and day it was always there and was as good a beacon as any.

I organised the best Landrover in the pool and had it checked thoroughly, making doubly sure its four wheel drive capability was working, - not all the motor pools landrovers had this essential facility working as I found to my cost a couple of times - I also obtained a good compass from the stores and a spare from Jan’s scout group.   Our route was simple enough, take the Tripoli road to the town of Ajdabya, turn off and drive inland to a village called Aguila.   This village is at the roads end and from then on it is desert.

We set off early and while we drove I told Peter what I had learned from talking to friends who had worked on the oil wells and knew something of the area.   Most said the same thing.  ‘Trust your compass, keep a check on your mileage, watch for sudden hazards, such as isolated rocks sudden dips and so on.’ One particular piece of advice I thought interesting was.   ‘Don’t take any notice of other vehicle tracks you might come across, don’t follow them, follow your compass heading.’ I was to remember this later.

We reached Aguila and drove down the one street, there was a petrol station, but our petrol gauge showed three quarters full, should be plenty we decided to get us 70k’s and back.   Mistake number one.   The road turned to a track at the end of the street and we kept on going, the road soon petered out and we were driving on desert sand.   It was quite firm and reasonably smooth.   I looked back and Aguila had disappeared, we had only come a kilometer and all that could be seen all round was desert.
  This phenomenon was due to the simple fact that we had driven over a low hill, which was unnoticeable in the general terrain.   It also pointed out the fact that you could drive past a place only a kilometer away and not see it.   I stopped the Landrover and we got out and Pete took the compasses off to one side and made sure they were not affected by the metal of the car.   They weren’t, and we got a good steady indication of where due South was.   Off we went again and followed our heading.   I kept the speed to about 60 – 70 k’s but noticed the accelerator had to be a bit further down then when driving on the sealed road.   The sand though firm was causing quite a bit of drag.

“Hey what’s that” Pete was looking off to the right, I looked, it was a fox! It ran off diagonally away from us, I turned and followed, I had never seen a desert fox and wanted to get a good look at it.   We followed for a while, then it ducked away again and I let it go.   We wondered what food it could get away out here, scorpions maybe.

Back on track we drove on, it was like being on a boat at sea, a flat horizon, no landmarks at all.   We had been wondering how close we had to be to see the smoke that would lead us to our destination and as we couldn’t even guess we kept a close watch on the horizon.   “There” said Pete, “slightly to the left”.   Sure enough a plume of smoke could be seen on the horizon.

What followed brought home to us just how untrustworthy our senses can be in an unfamiliar environment.   I drove toward that faint plume as we tried to guess how far away it was, we had come 25k’s already so it must be at least 45ks away if it was our destination.   We both happily agreed it was our smoke and felt somewhat relieved it was as easy as that.

Then all of a sudden there appeared ahead of us a couple of hundred meters away a tractor puffing smoke into the air from a vertical exhaust pipe.   We had come over another of those low rises that had hidden the tractor but allowed us to see the smoke.   What a shock, I stopped and looked, the tractor was supplying power for a small sort of quarry.   One man was working, shoveling sand into a rotating sieve.   We tried to talk to him but he had no English at all, so we had no idea what he was recovering.

We got back into our vehicle and drove on returning to our due south heading, we were both silent then Pete started laughing, I joined in, I couldn’t help it, I think there was a bit of hysteria in it.   It seemed the most ridiculous thing that could happen, mistaking the smoke from a tractor exhaust a couple of hundred meters away from that of an oil well burn off 40 odd kilometers away.

We settled down and started looking for smoke in earnest.   Nothing, just desert and a cloudless sky, the going varied from smooth hard pack to softer patches and at times shingle patches, but there was no trouble in negotiating these and we made good time.   The only worry we had apart from the non appearance of smoke, was the petrol gauge the needle of which was dropping fairly quickly.

Then at last Pete spotted smoke dead ahead, I stopped and we got out and made sure our perspective was right and the smoke was from a comparatively long way away.   Back into the vehicle an on our way again, this time with a feeling of relief that we had something definite to aim for.   The smoke plume grew bigger and soon we could see buildings and then we arrived.   Workshops, stores, a street of sorts and an obviously official center.

We made ourselves known and were made very welcome, we were introduced to various people, one of whom, a Scotsman took us under his wing and showed us around.   Jock was the station electrician and was very helpful at the time and even more so later.
  We were also introduced to two Filipinos.   They were the company electronics technicians whose job was to look after the electronic equipment associated with the oil well.   They had also been asked to look after the NDB on a sort of goodwill basis.
  This had not worked out as their skills were not up to it, and eventually the NDB’s, both main and standby failed.
  They took us to the site and stood by.   We tried to find out what had caused the failure, but they were quite uninterested in the equipment or us.   In fact they were really only interested in each other, after a while they drifted away and that was the last we saw of them.

Giallo NDB smoke plume in background.

We worked the rest of the day then went to the mess hall for dinner, this was very good with no shortage of good things to eat and drink, (no alcohol of course).   After dinner there was not much to do, and as we were fairly tired after the long day, we made it an early night.   Next morning we finished the work, both NDBs were running OK, and while Pete was finishing off I took the opportunity to have a close look at the source of the smoke plume.
  The site was not far away and I walked over to it.   I got as close as I could, which was about 50 meters, the heat and noise was too much to approach any further.   What I saw was very impressive, A large pipe lying horizontally and about 30cm in diameter had been buried with its open end poking into a hollowed out arena.
  Gas roared out of this pipe at tremendous pressure and started burning after a gap of about a meter.   The flame extended for another twenty or so meters before it faded to produce the smoke plume that rose into the sky.   I couldn’t help thinking, what a waste, all that energy just blowing off into the atmosphere, gone forever.
  There were probably thousands of these burn offs going, all round the worlds oil producing countries.   I suppose the economics of storing this gas and transporting it to where it could be used just wasn’t on.   Easier and cheaper to just burn it then and there.

I had been keeping an eye on the petrol gauge, which was now down to just over a quarter full, and judging by how much we used driving across the desert to get here, there would not be enough to get us back to Aguila, not with any certainty.   I wasn’t worried as I was sure a request to the man in charge would get us a full tank, particularly as the night before he had said ‘Anything you want just ask’.
  So I asked.   Did he say, ‘Sure just help yourself’? no he didn’t.   In fact he said, “Sorry there is no way we can let you have petrol.   Our own supply has nearly run out and our own vehicles are on a ration.”
  He said this in a way that implied that if we were stupid enough to come here without enough petrol to get us back again then it was our problem.   He was quite right of course, which didn’t help matters any.   We talked about it and there appeared to be two answers, One, we could take the risk and try to make Aguila, or we could stay there until the company could get a tanker down to them.
  This could take anything up to a week.   Pete and I discussed it, I was fairly sure we would get back, but was it worth the risk? While we were deliberating, Jock arrived on the scene, he had heard of our problem and came to see if he could help.
  He could and did.   “Here’s what we do” he said.   “You drive on out of sight, go behind those hills over there”.   He pointed to some low hills more or less on the way out.   “Wait there”.  

Pete waiting for Jock to arrive.

This we did and sure enough after a quarter of an hour Jock arrived.   “ I ve just taken my ration.” he said.  “I’ll give you a couple of gallons and that should be plenty to get you safely to Aguila”.

He hauled out a can and a siphon tube and soon transferred the precious liquid into our tank.   We professed our everlasting gratitude and hoped he would not get into trouble.   “ No worries “ he said cheerfully.   “If I run out, which I doubt, what can they do about it? Any way its their own fault for allowing there stocks to run so low.” He hopped back into his Landrover and with a cheerful wave drove off.   A good man and our best wishes went with him.

Back into the Landrover and with a much healthier looking petrol gauge we resumed our heading due north.   Feeling quite pleased with ourselves we enjoyed the drive and the unique surroundings we found ourselves in.   Neither of us had ever been any where near a desert before, let alone driven over one as we were doing now.
  Time went by, then we came to a broad set of wheel tracks, there were dozens of them spread over a hundred meters and running diagonally across our path.   I stopped “This must be the Kufra track” I said to Pete.   “It runs all the way from Aguila to Kufra.   We must be a little off our heading, if we follow this it will take us straight to Aguila.
  I must have sounded convincing as he agreed, so off we went and followed the well defined tracks.   I did have the sense to note a pile of empty oil drums off to one side as we started off.

We went on for quite a while but then began to notice that the number of wheel tracks was getting less and less, soon in fact we were down to only a few.   Then just as had happened with the tractor episode we came over a rise and there in front of us was another quarry.   This was or had been a much bigger operation.   There were a couple of trucks and a front-end loader working.
  I stopped and found one of the guy’s was a Greek and spoke some English.   It appeared they were quarrying stone for some road works or other, they were not going any where near Aguila, and when we asked how to get there he pointed back the way we had come.   We were a way off course.  

Back we went, Pete was silent for a while and neither of us felt much like laughing.   Finally he said “ What was that about, never follow other peoples tracks, and always trust your compass? ’Yeah right” I said, and to change the subject suggested he keep a lookout for a pile of oil drums.   They duly appeared and I turned left and resumed our original heading of due north.
  Our petrol gauge was starting to look ominously low again and we still had no real idea of how far we had to go.   Or even, after all our wanderings whether we were heading in the precisely right direction.   Very occasionally we came across vehicle tracks, I studiously ignored them, even though one of them might have been our own track from the previous day.
  On we went and as time went by peered more and more anxiously ahead, wishing Aguila had a smoke plume to guide us.   Then just as suddenly as it had disappeared on the way out it reappeared dead ahead of us.   What a welcome sight that scruffy little village was to us and what a great relief when we pulled into the one petrol station.

Our experiences were not over yet, though what happened now was a lot more pleasant then the desert episodes.   There was another land rover ahead of us filling a tank on a trailer.   The driver was European so I went up and talked to him.   He was an Englishman and was working for a film company that was making a feature film about the Libyan fight for independence from the Italian colonists.   The film starred Antony Quinn and depicted the life of the Libyan hero Omar al-Mukhtar

Our new friend invited us out to where they were filming some battle scenes, so as he also promised us a cup of coffee we readily accepted his invitation and followed him to the location.
  There was no actual filming going on unfortunately, but he introduced us to a few people and explained something of the scenes they were to shoot.   We were in a shallow valley and there was a large group of military vehicles, not your modern tanks and so on but 1930 vintage army trucks small tanks, small cannon and the like.   Apparently the scene was to be a battle between Libyan patriots some on foot and some mounted, against Italian armour.

Our friend took us to a large tent fitted out with tables and chairs and brought us the promised coffee.   The place was obviously the company commissary as while we were there a continuous stream of people came and went.   There were Libyan patriots complete with aged rifles and even swords, there were Italian soldiers in field grey, there were Italian officers in ornate uniforms, all were waiting for the filming to begin.  We would like to have stayed with them but time was getting on and we still had a long way to go to get back to Benghazi.

As it happened I had the chance to repay the hospitality of our English friend as they later came to a location near Benghazi.   I looked up our friend and invited him home for dinner.   He came and we had a great evening.   He had a great fund of stories connected with the film they were making and others he had worked on.   He left us clutching half a dozen bottles of my home brew, the first beer he had had in eighteen months.

The trip back to Benghazi was uneventful, but the events of those few days I will remember for a long time.

I did one more trip to Giallo, but this was in luxury.   At the start of my fourth year there Libyan civil aviation bought an aircraft to be used among other things as transport to visit these out of the way stations.   When Giallo next went off the air the civil aviation King Air aircraft was available at Benghazi.   Pete and I grabbed it, flew down to Giallo in half an hour, fixed the beacons and returned, all in the matter of six hours.   A vast improvement on our first trip.

I often look back on that desert journey and think just how foolish we were. For instance we took no spare water or food. If we had missed our destination either way we would have been in big trouble. We heard many stories of people who had got themselves lost and either died or ended up in a very bad state by the time they were rescued.

Next page.   Chapter 15 Colonel Ghadaffi