In article ,
"Mike Kanze" wrote:

Don't forget that Brunei sits over a large pool of crude and that having a
guy like the sultan on our side in a very unstable region (then and
especially now) might be considered by Washington as a plus.

Yeah, I get all that. I just found his military uniform with an
impressive array of ribbons to be comical.


We used to do the same firepower demos for Marcos when he was "president" of
the Philippines. Detestable little runt, but it preserved Subic/Cubi and
Clark during a time when we really needed those bases.


I don't recall doing any airshows for him, but my PI visits were at the
tail-end of his "reign." We did do a show for Mohammad Zia ul-Haq
(former president of Pakistan) though.



--Mike


Navy helo pilots plan tactical training in multi-phase exercise
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?...;article=31087

{EXCERPT} Stars and Stripes, D.C. - 4 hours ago SUBIC BAY, Philippines
US Navy Lt. jg Amy Sadeghzadeh was the first woman to ever fly a Royal
Brunei Air Force helicopter. When......


The link is broken (BTW, do copyright laws really prohibit reposting of
articles to not-for-profit FYI areas like Usenet?) , but the thought of
Brunei having a Royal Air Force brings a chuckle.

Just a tiny country with a filthy rich sultan/dictator ruling it. On my
1987 world cruise on CV-63, I remember the captain announcing the Sultan
of Brunei was going to be aboard. We all kind of looked at each other
thinking the same thing: where the f*ck is Brunei? After consulting an
atlas, we then pondered why a major US war ship should care about caring
about such a country...until we further read up on the sultan being one
of the richest people on earth.

He trapped aboard on one of VS-33's Hoovers, and a red carpet was rolled
out for him (literally). He wore an olive drab uniform bedecked with
ribbons and pins (despite the fact that he was non-military) and every
squadron in the CVW participated in an air show for his amusement (or
purchasing decisions). Even us lowly HS types were part of the show and
jumped a swimmer (me) abeam the port side. Maybe we impacted his
purchasing decisions after all. What sort of helos does the article
(w/broken link) you're citing refer to?



--Mike