Great, thanks for clearing that up. Next time I'm flying in to Cairo over 10 years ago I'll tell the captain and all the airport staff to stop being such drama llamas because Bounce on the internet said so.
He who dares: Egypt holiday
- Thread starter RedvGreen
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Great, thanks for clearing that up. Next time I'm flying in to Cairo over 10 years ago I'll tell the captain and all the airport staff to stop being such drama llamas because Bounce on the internet said so.
Associate
Pyramids where absolutely awesome went in them , sphinx and and some other stuff was cool, problem we seen kids fighting for scraps of food outside the coach tour the area around looked like a nuke bomb had gone off 1 week before. Coach stops on main road and drops the contents of the toilet on the road lol.
We just missed out by 6 days on the coach getting hijacked and all the tourists killed on the main road we went on same tour.
That was 25 years ago I am guessing it's a lot better now lol
We just missed out by 6 days on the coach getting hijacked and all the tourists killed on the main road we went on same tour.
That was 25 years ago I am guessing it's a lot better now lol
Soldato
I went to Luxor in 2008 and it was amazing. We stayed in a great hotel on the Nile and the people working there were fantastic.
I would not go back at the minute, the self fulfilling nature of the lack of tourism makes it more likely that if something does happen, it will be you. As others have said, there are alternatives that are safer.
I would not go back at the minute, the self fulfilling nature of the lack of tourism makes it more likely that if something does happen, it will be you. As others have said, there are alternatives that are safer.
Man of Honour
I went to Hurghada a few years ago, it was lovely...if you stayed in the hotel or the high street just outside. I always felt really unsafe apart from that.
I remember getting a taxi back to the hotel about midnight after staying at some local bars...we seemed to go the wrong way and drove through some dodgy run down looking area...I was pretty sure he was going to kill us
I remember getting a taxi back to the hotel about midnight after staying at some local bars...we seemed to go the wrong way and drove through some dodgy run down looking area...I was pretty sure he was going to kill us
Soldato
In 1996, we went for a trip down the nile. Started in Luxor
Whilst walking down the road one property away from the docks, my Mrs and I had a rifle pointed at our heads as all of the locals scarpered. Only the act of an older man stood next to the rifle holder (only a teenager from looks) saved our lives!
A year later the Luxor Massacre happened
I would not be going back to Egypt personally
Whilst walking down the road one property away from the docks, my Mrs and I had a rifle pointed at our heads as all of the locals scarpered. Only the act of an older man stood next to the rifle holder (only a teenager from looks) saved our lives!
A year later the Luxor Massacre happened
I would not be going back to Egypt personally
Soldato
Nothing to stop them setting up a ZU-23 on the approach path to the airport. For those not familiar with Soviet era AAA, these are the 23mm twin barrelled auto cannons you see mounted in flat bed trucks in every single conflict in the Middle East. Very easy to use and very effective on a big, slow target such as civilian airliner coming into land.
My wife and I went to Egypt just before Christmas, there were plenty of armed police and checkpoints around but we didn't feel unsafe, though we moved pretty much from one tourist spot to the next and didn't wander off.
Loved seeing all the sights, would happily go again.
Loved seeing all the sights, would happily go again.
Great, thanks for clearing that up. Next time I'm flying in to Cairo over 10 years ago I'll tell the captain and all the airport staff to stop being such drama llamas because Bounce on the internet said so.
For what it is worth, I was on a flight to Bahrain, then over Indian Ocean - and for around 1hr of the flight over the UAE we had total blackout.
Soldato
My ex work colleague out there at the moment she having blast always posting photos on facebook everyday it looks amazing especially all the temples she traveling all over.
Without wanting to be anal about what you said, aircraft are anything but slow! What they are however, is hugely predictable when they are coming in to land.
Yes and how many times has that happened in the last 20 years? in fact there has been no aircraft's shot down over Cairo by Egyptian Militia, so all this worrying about being shot down is just scaremongering.
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Soldato
Consider fighter aircraft on a strafing run to be Lewis Hamilton at top speed in his Mercedes F1 car and a civilian airline on final approach to be a double-decker bus going around Marble Arch. A weapon system that can shoot down a fighter aircraft is going to find shooting down a passenger jet as difficult as hitting Jo Brand at 5 feet with a shotgun.
Soldato
That a thing hasn’t been done isn’t a guarantee that this thing won’t be done in the future. No-one’s tried to use a MANPAD against aircraft at a British airport, but CO18 still carry out regular antI-MANPAD patrols every day.
If you're talking advanced anti-air then yes, I would expect a child to be able to push the right buttons and take down a civilian jet. What I thought we were discussing were not TOW, Laser-guided or Stingers but your standard high-calibre machine guns and cannons that frequent militia cells scattered around the Middle-East and Africa from Russia (with Love etc).
Civilian aircraft are travelling at around 150MPH at landing (vastly losing speed though), so some target leading, and perhaps elevation - depending on positioning - would be required. Take-off is highly predictable too, with the added effect of potentially accelerating into the projectiles - they would be utterly catastrophic against a civilian aircraft and it would tear itself apart or lose lift long before it reached an altitude where pressure, temperature and oxygen would be a consideration.
Civilian aircraft is rarely targetted though - they have no idea who is onboard and the impact on their region can be horrendous in terms of escalation events.
That's a shame. I've met several Egyptian people who are great and a colleague is one of the kindest, nicest people I've ever met. That said, not so much in Egypt itself. My Egyptian colleagues in Dubai aren't letting their families visit home at the moment.
The nicest egyptian people I’ve ever met were my employers when I was 16 and delivering pizzasafter school. They were both great people to talk to and knew each other for years but one was always looking for ways to take the mick out of his staff and the other was heavily influenced by him. In isolation I think he was a lovely guy but the two of them together was just a big nono.
Well nobody’s flown an aircraft in to London ever, shall we just get rid of all the AA batteries and hope for the best, or play it safe and leave them there for peace of mind?
Did you also think that parking the HMS Ocean in the Thames during the 2012 olympics was stupid? I mean it wasn’t needed either, yet it was there and I certainly felt safer for it.
And it will be at night and you don't have much time and if you don't hit first time as soon as the pilot sees the tracers she is going to apply max thrust etc and jink and get the hell out of there. Note that this is actually a better result for the scrotes as no one dies so there are no reprisals.
Take-off is a far better time if you want to actually down the plane as the plane is heavy being full of fuel so cannot manoever rapidly.
I can’t see a passenger airline out manoeuvring a decent gunner regardless of fuel load
While there isn't a shortage of ZU-23 and even ZSUs floating around the middle east the chances of one being setup on the approach at one of the major airports in Egypt is pretty low.
Obviously you get all sorts but my brother in law is Egyptian and I've met a few and mostly they are good people - sometimes they can seem a bit standoffish, especially as a Brit, until you get to know them though and I suspect they feel the same the other way around so it can make the ice a bit difficult to break initially.
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