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The War in Northern Oman (9781913336332) Muscat and the Sultanate Of Oman 1954-1962 Helion & Company via Casemate UK The Muscat and Sultanate of Oman bring about visions of flowing dessert, however the area at the entrance to the Persian Gulf is also strategic, this was realised by the western nations such as Portugal and later the British. Even in the 1950s before the discovery of major oil the areas biggest export was still dates. The Jebel Akhad War broke out in 1954 and again in 1957. This was lead by locals in the interior of the area to protect The Imamate of Oman. This was a historical state within the borders of Oman. It was thought there were oil reserves in this area, and the Sultan in Muscat licenced prospecting in the region, The Sultan's forces backed by the British then moved on the area. Following a series of losses into 1957 the British extended its military aid, including the dispatch of RAF aircraft from nearby Aden. Decisive action from the British brought about an end to the war in 1959 with the structure of the region then being debated by the Arab League, and the UN without an real resolution. While the later war in Oman and the Dhofar Rebellion is better known, this period of war in the late 1950s is relatively unknown. Although smaller in nature it was important for the region. Declassified information from British archives does not paint the Colonial "advisors" in too great a picture with attacks on civilians, crops and irrigation systems. No warnings were given by the RAF attacking civilian targets. Much of this went unreported as the Sultanate denied visas to any and all members of the press. When questions were asked in the the British Parliament it was said The Imamate had broken the Treaty of Seeb between it and Muscat (This had granted autonomy to The Imamate while recognising the Sovereignty of Muscat). However again declassified British documents show this to false with the British colluding as early as 1945 to advance into the interior of the country in the advance of oil companies, and to prop up the Sultan. The book is 56 pages long with 8 pages of colour profiles, photos, and maps in the centre. it gives a brief history of the region prior to 1954, then looks comprehensively at the period up to 1962 concentrating on the military action and its consequences. Focus is made of the Men, and their equipment, and in the air power brought to the region and against which the local tribes men had virtually no defence. Conclusion This is an excellent detailed book on this period of the regions bloody history which is largely unknown. Highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of

Good evening, I stumbled across this photo of a updated and change camouflage scheme applied very late in the Omani Jaguar's career: Airliners.net link There is another a two seater taken from the same position also on Airliners.net, but doesn't provide any more information. The markings look to be the same as any other Omani Jaguar, but to map out the camouflage scheme, other angles would be required. Unfortunately this is the only photo I've found of this late scheme. I'm guessing a language difference has hindered the search. Does anybody know of any other photos? Cheers, Hoops

Hi folks As my airfix Gazelle is nearing an end I thought I'd post the next aircraft for my Dad's retirement project. It will be, if you haven't guessed, an S.A.330-J puma presented in Sultanate of Oman Royal Flight livery. Not entirely sure when my Dad first started work in Oman. I know my Granddad was out there prior to my Dad (think my Grandad worked on strikemasters). I was born in Oman, 1984; so probably sometime just before then. After I was born we traveled back and forth from the UK to Oman but finally settled in the UK permanently around 1991 or 1992 (I do remember some adventures of living there but I was rather young to really appreciate it I do remember every time the gulf air plane landed in Muscat and the doors opening. - the intense heat and smell of Jet fuel mmmmm. Loved it! Smelt like victory) I'll be using the airfix 330 puma 1/72 kit for this with some additional after market parts. Rotorcraft composite rotor blades Whirlybirds conversion sets which include larger sponsons and floatation gear. Also some etch parts too. Whirlybirds S-61 seats Eduard etch for superpuma. My Dad took an interest in photography around this time which is rather handy for references! Below are a couple of photos that I have of the aircraft 'A40-AG' (my scanners playing up so these are photos of photos; they came out okay though): what I picked up from my Dad was that there were VIP aircraft and escort aircraft A40-AG was one of the VIP transports. I don't have any internal photos but my Dad seems to remember there being four seats in the front and a few more in the rear, one for a stewardess and a little sink. In one of the photos you can just make out one of the seats but not much else. I'll be using some artistic license for the interior but basing a lot of it on the Royal flight VC-10. http://www.airliners.net/photo/0750394/L/ http://jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=6625314 Here's A40-AG parked next to the Sultans old VC-10. Booootiful And here's a photo showing the VIP and escort aircraft in flight This will be very slow build (slower than my gazelle) as we are expecting our first in February :excited: Thanks for stopping by and any advice from puma pilots and phixers would be greatly appreciated Cheers Aaron

Hello gentlemen, I am starting a new project which I had planned a long time ago. I am going to build an IIAF F-4D which took part in the Iranian military intervention during the Dhofar Rebellion. And, as this is a quite unusual subject, I'll give you a brief summary about this conflict. Historical summary of the situation in Oman in the 1970s The year is 1952, the country is the Sultanate of Oman. An armed rebellion, which will last until the late 1970s begins. On the rebel side, radical left armed groups, mainly supported by South Yemen, the USSR, China and other Eastern bloc countries. They fight against the Omani government, which receives help from the United Kingdom, and later, Persia, who was at this time, an important ally of the United-States. The Shah's intervention will take place in the late 70s, with sources claiming the exact date to be around January 1978, and will include more than 4000s troops, including an important air support, consisting of Helicopters (Hueys, Cobras, Kiowas, Chinooks) and aircrafts (F-4s, C-130s). The province of Dhofar (read "Zofar") in the Sultanate of Oman British troops searching for mines in Oman About the Airway in Oman ​At the beginning of the conflict, Oman's military isn't really advanced, and lacks of airpower. Britain will help them by providing them with Hunters and Strikemasters, which will show useful in anti-guerilla fight, but will later be no match compared to the weapon capacity and range of the F-4s. On the Iranian side, the Shah being a strongly "anti-communist leader" and his nation being in a period of trouble, with leftists groups taking importance in Iran in the late 70s, he sees as crucial to extermine any communist threat in the Middle-East which could propage to his country and thus when he will send his troops in Oman, will he make a very intensive fight to eliminate the menace as quickly as possible. When the Iranian Revolution starts in 1979, the "Red Threat" in Oman will indeed have been wiped out. Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in his military uniform ​Iran didn't publish a lot of informations about their part in this conflict, the Islamic Government didn't appreciate to telle the "exploits" of the government they overthrew, but here are some things we know: C-130E, F-4D, RF-4C and F-4E models aircrafts took part in the task force, with alternating squadrons, keeping always at least a dozen aircrafts on Omani soil. By the way, a dozen aircrafts might seem like a low number, but it already had a bigger fighting power than the whole omani Strikemaster air fleet combined. My aircraft will be a F-4D with the markings 3-616 For the weapon load they carried it would usually consist of: ​23mm SUU-16 canon, extremely useful against low armored targets and cheaper than missiles or bombs 2x AIM-7E-2 missiles as a security measure Mk. 82 Bombs, 12 on high value targets, 6 against lower value targets. About my model kit. I chose Academy's new tool F-4D, which seems quite nice for the moment, crisp details and easy adjustments, I don't think I'll need a lot of putty. It is the ROKAF model because I couldn't find any other versions at my local model store, but since I won't be using its decals, if anyone is looking for a Korean F-4, I'll gladly give them to him! I'll also add some detailing and, of course, the IIAF decals, which are from Hi-Decal, a brand that I highly recommend for anyone interested in exotics paint schemes. I started with the cockpit, using Eduard's PE parts: The main challenge about this kit will be time: I want to finish it before November so I can give it as a present to my aircraft enthusiast and modeler uncle, who lives on the other side of the Atlantic and I thus can't often see. And finally, please excuse me for my English, I guess I did some mistakes, but I am still learning this language, so I can't guarantee a perfect level for the moment. Have a nice day, Daniel

There's a topic in another section concerning limited use of Meteor before the VE-day, so - instead of asking there - I'd rather go for a new topic here, as my question concerns limited combat use of RAF Meteor during the Cold War period. As all we know Meteor and Vampire were not only two first British jet fighters, but also two most numerous ones in whole history with Hunter and Venom (a Vampire half-brother BTW) far behind and all others still more exotic. Both (i.e. Meteor and Vampire) were widely exported and their final users didn't hesitate to use them in combat ranging from minor skirmishes up to the serious conflicts like Korea or Israeli-Arabian wars. AFAIK the RAF also used Vampires in combat against Malayan and Kenyan guerillas (No 45, 60 and 8 Sq.) and flown them operationally in other "hot" areas like Cyprus and Oman. So why wasn't Meteor F.8 combat-tested by RAF, while the contemporary FR.9 made combat sorties over Suez in 1956 and ex-RAF F.8s fought with RAAF No. 77 Sq. in Korea ? Cheers Michael

Hi everybody, I have finally managed to finish something. It is Hawker Hunter 842 from Oman, approximately from the early/mid 1980s. This Hunter is one of the former Jordanian a/c presented to Oman in 1975, serviced by Airwork Ltd., a British contractor, and flown by British and Omani pilots. You will certainly have seen the pictures of fairly low flying Omani Hunters and Jaguars. It must have been a interesting period for the people involved and at least for the foreign contractors, Oman seems to have been a dry country only in meteorological terms. Together with the Swiss and Singaporean Hunters the Omani a/c were the most modified variants of this classic fighter. Apart from their unique two-tone blue-grey camouflage (the pattern is similar to the one used by Rhodesia and of course based on the three-tone RAF scheme) the Omani Hunters also received new pylons under the wing roots for carrying Sidewinders. Towards the end of their career, some Hunters were also fitted with AN/ALE-40 countermeasure dispensers on the rear fuselage. There were also several patterns of camera noses, not all identical with the RAF's FR.10. For this model I have used the Revell F.6 kit (because I had it in my stash) and added the fairing for the brake parachute using a resin item made by Quickboost. Eduard Brassin provided the AIM-9P Sidewinders. The inner pylons and the chaff/flare dispensers were scratch built. I also added the outboard 3 in-rocket rails which the Omani Hunters carried throughout their carreer as well as the "towel rail"-antenna on the lower fuselage. The paints used are my own free-hand mix of Tamiya XF-2, XF-18 and XF-82 for both the lighter and the darker blue-grey. The decals (never many on Omani aircraft!) came from Xtradecal with some modification to get the Arab "842". Based on photos I aimed at a very weatherd look. Photographing models still presents a challenge to me and it was remarkably how much the colours shift depending on lighting and background. Actually, I haven't fully understood yet how this highly automated camera works. Anyway, that is how the model looks approximately: And finally: together with a RAF Hunter operated in the same part of the world (but roughly 20 years earlier!):

Howdy, Another WIP... The last few days have been spent cleaning and re-organising my modelling room. Things were quite bad that most recent fettling has taken place on the kitchen table. After the sort out (which is still in progress but majority done) I thought I'd start this kit, something I've been keen to get on the bench. Dangerous territory here, but my thoughts are that rather than building one kit over a long period of time I'll build a few at the same time in the hope I'll have more finished kits... Whether this happens or not is yet to be seen. Anyway... The build After many times perusing the rotary nostalgia & Bristow threads on PPrune for reference and inspiration I came across a few photos documenting a Bristows AB204B used in the Oman. VR-BDX was based in Muscat and Khasab around 1980, assisting with the installation of electrical pylons. Having a personal affinity to Oman (being born and spending my early years living there) the idea of modelling this aircraft really appealed to me. I'll be using the italeri 1/72 UH-1B kit (more notes about this below) and CMK detail sets for the interior and for external details. My initial choice of kit was the italeri 1/72 AB204 (makes sense of course as VR-BDX is/was an AB204B). However, VR-BDX was not fitted with a Gnome engine, as per the italeri 204 kit, which is fine as I was going to use the CMK kit which as far as I know represents a Lycoming T-53 engine. Also, and this is where I'm a little confused, but I am a layman so maybe some more knowledgable out there could correct me, but the tail boom of VR-BDX looks to be the same length as a UH-1B. I was under the impression that civilian AB204B's were all built with the extended tail boom and larger diameter main rotor? From the information I have gathered on the forum threads and other online databases VR-BDX was an AB204B. Using a very rudimentary comparison involving a picture on my ipad and the two fuselage pieces, one from a 1/72 UH-1B & the other from the AB204B kit, it would appear that the UH-1B kit is the correct length for VR-BDX. Not much in regards of progress. The doors have been cut from the fuselage halves. The interior is almost ready for some primer and the seats have had some work but need some more details added (no photos of the latter). For those interested, here is a link to the forum thread with some photos and info on VR-BDX (I hope this is allowed? If not then please delete the link Mods ) Post #487 http://www.pprune.org/rotorheads/287207-bristow-photos-25.html And some other photos appear on the following page as well. Heres a profile pic of VR-BDX taken in 1972. One of the pics I used to compare the UH-1B & AB204 fuselage pieces. http://www.abpic.co.uk/photo/1097593/ Cheers Aaron

Hi, here's my 1/48 Fly Sultan of Oman Air Force Strikemaster. It is riddled with blunders, but try and you might come to like it, as I have. I used the Bren Gun PE detail set, SAC landing gear, fishing sinkers for nose weights, decals from the box plus a couple of stencils from an Airfix Canberra and a Linden Hill Su-27 sheet. The kit isn't too bad, the resin parts rock. Painted with Humbrol, Tamiya and Model Master paints. My clear coating as confirmed by the photos was pretty disastrous; perhaps the communist rebels strafed by these planes in the 1972 Battle of Mirbat have finally got some of their own back. Anyway, it's something different, the desert road less travelled, even if it is a camel on a website full of prize racehorses, see you all soon.