B.O.A.C. De HAVELLAND COMET 1 - G-ALZK

RAF FAYID - JUNE 1951

This aircraft made the one and only visit of a Comet 1 to RAF Fayid whilst on loan to BOAC during a route-proving flight. It left London Heathrow on the 1st June 1951 arriving at Cairo Farouk later that day. A few days later, on the 4th June 1951 it left Cairo Farouk and arrived back at London Heathrow later the same day.

The visit to RAF Fayid from Cairo Farouk was sometime during those few days and was just to confirm RAF Fayid as a potential diversionary airport. However, when the BOAC Comet 1 service started on 2nd May 1952, it was initially flown via Beruit instead of Cairo, but after things settled down in Egypt it was re-routed back through Cairo

Parked up with the usual Hastings, Valetta's & Yorks

 

THE NAAFI & THE COMET

Things in the Canal Zone were a little quieter now and we had heard that the NAAFI would be opening again soon with the NAAFI girls returning. This was backed up by ‘Chiefy’ explaining that the next job for us at the yard a few days later; which was that we had to refurbish the girls quarters. We had two weeks to get this done which entailed some partition walls being built, windows replaced, all decorated throughout and new lino floor covering fitted. We managed to get the work done, except for a bit of remedial work to the decoration which we were to carry out this morning, so four of us went to the building, turned the key in the door and opened it. We were amazed at what we saw, all the beds with mosquito nets up and girls lying there! Some covered, some lying on the top of the beds scantily covered. So we just ‘about turned’ quietly and closed the door behind us. No one had told us the girls had flown in that night. I don’t think the girls knew what we had seen because they all seemed fast asleep. We had to carry out the work later on in the morning.

The NAAFI opened about a week later serving meals, drinks and selling useful items such as writing pads, envelopes, hair cream etc. This also gave us a different place to go in the evenings with a different choice of food, together with now bottled Stella beer that we had not been able to purchase in the YMCA.

We were just lying on our beds one afternoon, doing nothing in particular, when through the French doors we saw this different shaped plane coming into land, with a different engine sound. When it got closer we could see it was the new jet airliner, ‘The Comet’. We wondered “what was that doing landing at Fayid?”

Pete, Stan and myself made our way over to where the Comet was parked but it was being guarded by RAF Police so we could not get too close. I believe that most of the camp had made their way to where it was parked by the crowds of onlookers. But my, oh my, it did look sleek compared to the Hastings, Valetta’s and the old York’s.

We were told that it was on a proving flight but unable to land at Cairo to refuel and had to call in here at Fayid, but how true that was I do not know.. Mind you, it gave us a chance of having a close up look at this wonderful new plane. One of the crew told us that they were taking mail back to the UK and that it would be franked with a special postmark. I had posted some mail home that morning so it could be lucky enough to be going on the Comet (unlike me), so later I will have to write home to see if it had the special postmark. Later on we revisited the plane taking our cameras with us to see what photographs we could take. When we arrived we found that there were no guards so we were able to get a closer look and walk around it. There were only a couple of engineers working on it, who told us they were getting it ready for refuelling. So we took our photographs and left them to it. We found out that it would be taking off again later that same day.

After returning from our evening meal, we were sitting on our beds trying to decide what to do that evening when suddenly there was a terrific roar of engines at the end of the runway. We went outside just in time to see the Comet roll down the runway and make a steep climb into the clear evening sky until it disappeared out of sight.

Eventually we decided to visit the NAAFI to see what we going on there. When we arrived we found there were not many people in there. So we decided to have a drink, trying the Stella beer. Quite a reasonable drink and ice cold. We were told that it was a strong beer so not to drink too much of it, so we drank it slowly just in case they were right.

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