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God-forsaken Places I Have Diverted Into thread

Posted: Tue Jul 09, 2019 11:19 pm
by Slasher
Fox3WheresMyBanana wrote:
Mon Jul 08, 2019 12:22 pm
I feel a God-forsaken Places I Have Diverted Into thread coming on.. ;)))

Window Rock, AZ would be my nomination.

Calcutta in my case yonks ago. The whole place was (and still is) literally one big humungus steaming pile of human sh!t. The stench could be smelled passing 10,000 ft on descent while diverting from Delhi. We all thought there was a leak in the upper deck dunny. Wasn't till we got to D1L that we realised it 'twasn't the onboard ablution. 😱 :ymsick:

We were stuck in that hell hole for 24h.

Re: God-forsaken Places I Have Diverted Into thread

Posted: Tue Jul 09, 2019 11:49 pm
by Fox3WheresMyBanana
I might add:
Kulusuk, Greenland.
The weather front failed to get over the icecap as forecast, and took out Narsarsuaq. Four and a half hours later, all on instruments and no autopilot, I just got over the icecap and made it to the patch of gravel surrounded by snow and ice that is Kulusuk. It is near the DEW line station that isn't there. It was manned by a Dane who communicated in grunts. I got away after three days, having to penetrate a band of icing cloud that took three hours at 100 feet over the Denmark Strait for it to melt off the aircraft. In June. But I couldn't stand another day there.
On the plus side, everything is always frozen, so no smells.

Re: God-forsaken Places I Have Diverted Into thread

Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2019 7:54 am
by Pontius Navigator
Thinking hard, not many bad but Wittering and Cottesmore deserve a mention. On a Pan Wittering said we would not be allowed in the Mess as we only had flying suits. We diverted from that diversion to Cottesmore. They said we could eat in a screened area of the dining room but have to stay in a room down the corridor, not the bar.I

This was when there were Brits, Italian and German there. The Brits were a jackets and ties, the Italians in shirts and sweaters, the Germans in fetching orange flying suits. We joined the Germans.

Re: God-forsaken Places I Have Diverted Into thread

Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2019 9:13 am
by Capetonian
Not so much a diversion but a fuelling stop on the old SAA Springbok routes between ZA and EU in the 70s.

A miserable island off the west coast of Africa, infested by rats, diseased dogs, wogs, and where catering consisted of very little apart from festering crayfish, warm coffee and warmer beer, tap water was brown and smelt of brown stuff, and the room of your hotel on stilts was over a stinking bog and rubbish dump with rats and dogs crawling over it.

I refer to Ilha do Sal, Cape Verde Islands. Apparently people go there on holiday now. The Cabo Verde people were very nice but spoke an impenetrable Portguese/Creole which even the Potchies battled to understand.

Re: God-forsaken Places I Have Diverted Into thread

Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2019 10:07 am
by ian16th
Capetonian wrote:
Wed Jul 10, 2019 9:13 am
Not so much a diversion but a fuelling stop on the old SAA Springbok routes between ZA and EU in the 70s.

A miserable island off the west coast of Africa, infested by rats, diseased dogs, wogs, and where catering consisted of very little apart from festering crayfish, warm coffee and warmer beer, tap water was brown and smelt of brown stuff, and the room of your hotel on stilts was over a stinking bog and rubbish dump with rats and dogs crawling over it.

I refer to Ilha do Sal, Cape Verde Islands. Apparently people go there on holiday now. The Cabo Verde people were very nice but spoke an impenetrable Portguese/Creole which even the Potchies battled to understand.
I have heard that it was site of some riotous parties by SAA crews that had to stop over there.

Re: God-forsaken Places I Have Diverted Into thread

Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2019 3:34 pm
by Ex-Ascot
Lisbon. Even when scheduled into there it is crap service. Try diverting with a medical emergency. If the chap hadn't been dead before we landed he would have been by the time the steps arrived.

F/O got dead drunk one night there. He was all over the place. Denided access to a club. Told the bouncer he was discriminating against a disabled guy with MS. We got in.

Re: God-forsaken Places I Have Diverted Into thread

Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2019 7:06 pm
by 421dog
Shamattawa, MB.

Truly the worst place in the world.

Spent 36 hrs waiting for parts sitting on a chair next to my plane on the Hayes river with more flies than I have ever experienced, so that the fetal alcohol syndrome urchins didn’t punch holes in my wings to huff my 100LL...

Re: God-forsaken Places I Have Diverted Into thread

Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2019 10:54 pm
by Undried Plum
****. Makes Calcutta look like Switzerland.

Re: God-forsaken Places I Have Diverted Into thread

Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2019 11:04 pm
by Woody
Invercargill on South Island, mistakenly went there, when I had a couple of spare days, locals watch traffic lights change for entertainment :(

Re: God-forsaken Places I Have Diverted Into thread

Posted: Thu Jul 11, 2019 2:17 am
by Slasher
Undried Plum wrote:
Wed Jul 10, 2019 10:54 pm
****. Makes Calcutta look like Switzerland.
Only went to Banglaville during transits in Dhaka. Those were bad enough. And that was just the terminal!

Re: God-forsaken Places I Have Diverted Into thread

Posted: Thu Jul 11, 2019 5:40 am
by G~Man
Tonopah, Nevada.... Gotta be right up there....
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Re: God-forsaken Places I Have Diverted Into thread

Posted: Sun Jul 14, 2019 6:23 pm
by Stoneboat
421dog wrote:
Wed Jul 10, 2019 7:06 pm
Shamattawa, MB.

Truly the worst place in the world.

Spent 36 hrs waiting for parts sitting on a chair next to my plane on the Hayes river with more flies than I have ever experienced, so that the fetal alcohol syndrome urchins didn’t punch holes in my wings to huff my 100LL...
Did said urchins steal the rubber balls out of the float pump-out wells? :D

Late in the fall of 1968 I was sent on a gamma ray scintillometer survey with a 185 on floats. The company leasing the airplane supplied a navigator!! and a technician to operate the instrument that was located in the baggage compartment behind the seats. A nav because the lines had to be flown very precisely, a quarter mile apart and I seem to remember the lateral tolerance was only a couple hundred feet. He'd call out corrections in two or three degree increments. The flying was what passed as nap of the earth for a 185, not below 400 and not above 500 feet. The terrain was lumpy - on the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence - and some lines couldn't be flown their full length because the airplane couldn't outclimb the hills. In that case we'd break off the line and come down the hill from the other end. I'd stayed in the village were we were based - a place called La Tabatiere - before, but at the guest house at the local fish plant. This time there was no space available, so our agent found us a place to stay at some guy's house that had rooms to rent. He had fashioned a little hand written sign outside that said Bording House. There was no running water or anything but a dunny out back. Drinking water was brought in buckets from a local well. The place was clean and the guy's wife was an excellent cook, so we ate like kings, if you liked fish and wild game. One morning I went to get some water from the bucket to brush my teeth, and there were little fish swimming around in it. Made a beer drinker out of me, it did. :))

Re: God-forsaken Places I Have Diverted Into thread

Posted: Sun Jul 14, 2019 8:21 pm
by ian16th
Stoneboat wrote:
Sun Jul 14, 2019 6:23 pm
One morning I went to get some water from the bucket to brush my teeth, and there were little fish swimming around in it. Made a beer drinker out of me, it did. :))
In Karachi we used Gordon's Gin, and we still got dysentery.

Re: God-forsaken Places I Have Diverted Into thread

Posted: Tue Jul 16, 2019 4:15 pm
by Ex-Ascot
I have used gin many times to clean my teeth.

Re: God-forsaken Places I Have Diverted Into thread

Posted: Thu Jul 18, 2019 11:57 am
by om15
Marham

Re: God-forsaken Places I Have Diverted Into thread

Posted: Thu Jul 18, 2019 12:11 pm
by ian16th
om15 wrote:
Thu Jul 18, 2019 11:57 am
Marham
Didn't have to divert, I lived there for over 4 years. In 2 sessions, the second time by choice!

Re: God-forsaken Places I Have Diverted Into thread

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2024 2:38 pm
by reddo
I've been to Marham. Had to pick up pax who were spending Xmas at Sandringham.

Re diverts? Birmingham. Yesterday. Too windy at Oxford. Actually, to be fair, the airport did let us in and the FBO guys were extremely helpful.

Re: God-forsaken Places I Have Diverted Into thread

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2024 3:37 pm
by Boac
If you go to EGBB again, Reddo, look out for the CL1/2 ρ V2 S =))

Re: God-forsaken Places I Have Diverted Into thread

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2024 4:42 pm
by Rossian
Argentia in Newfoundland. To be fair we didn't "divert", we went to visit the Class 6 duty free store on our way back to Ballykelly. The refuel was a grunt and done . The bus driver grunted and took us and waited. We made our purchases and went back to the a/c thanked the driver who grunted and went.
Requested clearance, "clear take off" I swear he grunted it. We went and 14 hours later we arrived home. I felt really sorry for the folks that were posted there. I think it was a sneaky beaky terminal.

The Ancient Mariner

Re: God-forsaken Places I Have Diverted Into thread

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2024 5:20 pm
by Fox3WheresMyBanana
I think it was a sneaky beaky terminal.
There was nothing there.

I was on a base on the other side of the Atlantic that also had nothing there, and was therefore not connected to Argentia.
It also wasn't connected to Iceland...because there was nothing there either.

Reminds me of those occasions being #2 to land at Akrotiri despite being the only aircraft in the circuit, but that was a different kind of Nothing There =))