A Beautiful design. I only ever flew on one – a BOAC Comet from Kano to Lagos Nigeria in 1962. I remember when BEA put Comets on the Edinburgh – Heathrow route in the late sixties, they could certainly make a hell of a noise taking off.

Seems the whole world wants to fly to/from EDI.. 🙂

I would certainly second that – when I went LHR – EDI in April I thought it would be fairly quiet at lunchtime but it was chock a block and the following sunday morning (18th April) I thought an 11.05 Ryanair flight to Dublin would be quiet but again it was full up. Still – on a positive note – full aircraft is good business for my favourite airport and spotters. 😉

Won’t those religious police be able to smell that you had something to drink? If they do smell it, would that be sufficient grounds for arrest?

Actually on arrival the authorities are not too bad, I usually arrive ****ed out of my head as its the last booze I get for 6 months but I try and behave as sensibly as possible. If you are obviously falling around and being stupid you will draw attention to yourself. I think it fair to say that on some flights I have been on that most of the single blokes have been in the same condition as me. As far as I know the only dry (major) airlines in this area are Kuwait and Saudia and maybe Iranair?. I dont know about the North African arab airlines like Libyan arab. My work colleague once came back on BA sitting next to a Saudi national. He produced a bottle of Glenfiddich and asked my colleague if he wanted some and he had a small snifter. This bloke then proceeded to drink the whole bottle and was out for the count at Jeddah. Two paramilitaries came on the plane and carried him off in a wheel chair, looked in his bag for his passport wheeled him through immigration and customs and handed him over to his relatives outside. My colleague stayed with him the whole way as he was worried about him. The two paramilitaries said he was unwell and to come back for his luggage the next day to his relatives. So occasionally the wisdom of Solomon is practiced here.

I journalist colleague of mine swears that he once caught a Saudi flight to the Kingdom and the cabin staff refused to serve alcohol. However the cabin staff then offered complimentary bottles of whiskey to anybody who wanted to take one and drink at will, saying they were’nt against drinking, but simply their religion forbade them to serve it!

Anyone know if there is any truth to this?

I assume he was on Saudia which I fly from time to time backwards and forwards from here and I would say it is an absolute load of nonsense. There is a contingent of Religious police (called Muttawa) based at the international airports here who go on board aircraft to check for that very reason ie any evidence of alcohol. Furthermore many muslims on the Saudia flights know that the airline is supposed to be alcohol free and would report it on arrival which would result in the arrest of the crew. Even BA who serve booze say all traces of booze (empties) must be disposed of before landing and they are quite rigourous about it. That is not to say a crew member might not have acted on their own initiative but risking imprisonment and the loss of your job plus a possibe flogging seems a lot to risk just to be nice to your customers.
Good story but complete B******S 😀 😀

Originally posted by steve rowell
The RR tay’s were the culprit, one of the noisiest jet engines ever produced

I think they were RR Speys weren’t they?