* * * * * Early in the morning of 18 th April, 1981, I had the pleasure of rocketing out of Jeddah in my 707 - beginning an eight hour flight to Casablanca in Morocco. After our first five airborne hours, we planned to make a one hour stop at Tunis, Tunisia, on the north coast of Africa – then commence a three hour flight to Casablanca. In spite of tankering fuel, our load was light so we climbed straight away to 39,000 feet - found not much in the way of headwinds - allowing us to make good time. Since the Kingdom possessed an abundance of oil, along with the facilities to refine it, the Saudis subsidized their fuel at the pump. Whenever I rolled into a gas station at Jeddah, I underwent a flashback to 1958 - making me feel I was i...