How flying took off in the fledgling UAE
The UAE’s first flying school did more than train pilots—it helped strengthen the bonds of a newly formed nation.
By Charles Shafaieh
On October 5, 1932, an Imperial Airways plane took off from Gwadar, in modern Pakistan, and landed on a rudimentary airstrip in Sharjah. No aircraft had touched down on land in the Trucial States before. They couldn’t: no airstrip existed until then, in part because the rulers of Ras Al Khaimah and Dubai had rejected the British government’s requests to build one. His Highness Sheikh Sultan bin Saqr Al Qasimi, then Ruler of Sharjah, capitalised on the opportunity and offered land on the outskirts of the main settlement. His foresight would bring in more than money. It launched a series of aviation firsts for Sharjah and the UAE.
The air station would not remain the reserve of foreign pilots. His Highness Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, then Ruler of Abu Dhabi and founder of the UAE, felt strongly that local pilots should have the opportunity to learn to fly, at home. On May 16, 1971—seven months before the union itself, and adjacent to where that inaugural flight had arrived 39 years earlier—the nation’s first flying school opened.
The school materialised thanks to Sheikh Zayed’s vision. Its success, however, depended on the late Captain Adel Al Deeb, an intrepid and charismatic Lebanese engineer who led the school until the day it closed. Al Deeb passed away in Ajman in 2015 at the age of 88, but he is a central presence in Al Mahatta Museum’s exhibition Sharjah, The First UAE Flying School, organised by the Sharjah Museums Authority and on display until September 2.
Al Deeb’s biography seems almost too full for one lifetime. “He was like a wolf,” says Nora Al Deeb, his daughter. “He was not scared of anything.”
Captain Adel Al Deeb.
Growing up in Kfar Matta, in the mountains southeast of Beirut, he earned pocket money running errands for a retired British army officer who lived nearby. When World War II began, the officer asked Al Deeb if he wanted to serve in the military. He agreed and soon found himself parachuting from a plane into the Libyan desert, where he began his army training. His father believed he had died in combat, because his name was on a list of the deceased. When his father went to the Port of Beirut to retrieve his body he instead found his son, very much alive, disembarking from a ship.
After the war, Al Deeb trained as a civil engineer and accepted work in Saudi Arabia, where he built the first ice factory in the city of Mina, near Mecca. He moved later to Kuwait and from there, in 1957, boarded a British ship bound for the Trucial States. There he started an engineering firm, building roads, schools and homes, and a defensive coastal wall, making an impression on the emirates’ leaders. Professional opportunities followed: he served the Fujairah government both as chairman of civil aviation and as secretary of state.
He built a strong relationship with Sheikh Zayed. One day on a beach in Abu Dhabi in the late 1960s, Nora recounts, the two men watched a plane pass overhead. “Adel, I wish we could teach our children to fly,” Sheikh Zayed said. “Give me the order and consider it done,” Al Deeb replied. His response was characteristic, Nora says—he lived in the moment and accepted any challenge.
In 1970, Al Deeb went to England, earned his pilot’s license and bought six small planes. Sheikh Zayed, Sharjah’s then-Ruler His Highness Sheikh Khalid bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, and British diplomat Julian Bullard reached an agreement to establish the school, and chose a location close to Al Mahatta Airport in Sharjah. Al Deeb returned with the planes, and, still an engineer, led the construction effort.
His Highness Sheikh Khalid bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, the late Ruler of Sharjah, at the helm of the De Havilland. Fatinah Al Bitar, right, then just 15, became the youngest woman in the Arab world to earn her pilot’s license. She added two years to her real age to meet requirements.
The Trucial States Flying Club & School became the United Arab Emirates Flying School, following the formation of the union in December 1971. Flying courses took three months, with classes in the morning or the evening, and drew students from across the region. Those who needed accommodation stayed either at the RAF base or in the Sheba Hotel opposite the school. On graduation, new pilots could join the members’ club that Al Deeb established.
Most students were from wealthy families, but “my father encouraged everyone to fly,” Nora says. Sheikh Zayed also supported many students with scholarships. Al Deeb particularly encouraged women to enrol. Sheikha Lubna bint Khalid Al Qasimi, the UAE’s first female minister, is among the school’s prominent attendees.
In 1973, another woman made history there. Fatinah Al Bitar, then just 15, became the youngest woman in the Arab world to earn her pilot’s license. She added two years to her real age—a relatively easy alteration in the UAE at the time—to satisfy regulations.
“I like to do everything that is against the odds,” says Al Bitar, who, now 62, is the headmistress of Sharjah’s Al Bayan School. While still attending secondary school, she flew hundreds of hours and travelled across the UAE as well as to Bahrain and Pakistan. “I had a strong personality,” she adds with a smile.
The late Sheikh Khalid bin Mohammed Al Qasimi and Captain Adel Al Deeb attend a flying show at the school.
Her skill as a pilot became evident early, during her first solo flight in a Cessna. When the plane touched down, it bounced up again. “I was frustrated and scared. I tried to contact the control tower, but it didn’t respond,” she says. She decided to climb and try landing once more. This time she succeeded. “My father was there. When I landed, he went down on his knees.” Al Deeb was relieved that she had avoided a potentially deadly crash. “He told me, ‘You’re not a pilot by learning, you’re a pilot by birth.’”
The school did more than train pilots. It helped strengthen the bonds of a newly formed nation, spread news to citizens far from the new capital in Abu Dhabi, and connected the country to its neighbours with flights throughout the region. “My father transferred medical aid and patients, royals, businessmen, and journalists from one emirate to another,” Nora says. “My cousins would go with him and, in deserted areas, throw out pamphlets with news. If a supermarket opened, he’d do an advertisement in the sky.” She recalls that her father also transported a woman in labour, despite the plane’s lack of emergency medical equipment.
The school closed in 1982, having trained hundreds of pilots. Al Deeb would soon join the UAE embassy in London, leaving behind this chapter in aviation. But the imprint he and the school made on his students and those who visited remains. “For many children, to go on a plane and experience the skies was a dream come true,” Nora says.
Today, Al Bitar supports her own students’ dreams by sharing the wisdom imparted to her by Al Deeb, whom she calls her “second father.” “I tell my female students that there is no difference between men and women,” she says. “In the early 1970s, I was a pilot. They can do whatever they want, and I encourage them.”
Top image: Fox Photos / Hulton Archive / Getty Images. All others courtesy of Nora Adel Al-Deeb
