I am a former Merchant Navy officer and in 1968 my company chartered a complete Dan Air Comet to fly a total change of crew and engine room spares from Gatwick to Bahrain. Flying overseas to join and leave ships later became very common but it was fairly unusual in 1968. We gathered and overnighted at a Gatwick hotel and flew out the next day stopping to refuel in Nicosia. For many on board this was their first experience of flying, but I was experienced and it was my second flight! It was much warmer in Nicosia than Gatwick and the Captain said we were taking the maximum distance for take off due to our weight and the rise in temperature. We went roaring down the runway and suddenly aborted with Captain coming on the PA saying we had to have another go as we were unlikely to have cleared the end of the runway. One or two people looked mildly nervous at this stage. Off we went down the runway again and aborted again. By this time many were starting to think that this flying lark was not such a good idea. The Captain now said we are going to have one more go but if that fails we will have to off load some weight. I can only presume we must have been right up against the grass at one end of the runway as we prepared for take off and this time we made it to the substantial relief of everyone on board. We duly arrived in Bahrain Airport which as I recall it was pretty much Nissen Huts in those days and we were left outside the building in the sun waiting for the transport to our tanker. The main event was the arrival of two Gulf Air DC3's (from memory) and the very attractive GF air hostesses walking across the tarmac. Just in passing our flight home was from Hong Kong over 8 months later and this time it was a chartered Brittania Airways Brittania aircraft flying to Luton. We stopped to refuel at Bangkok, Calcutta, Karachi, Istanbul and somewhere in Europe I cannot remember and the flight took a stately 27 hours. We picked the crew that had been left outward in Karachi so we had plenty of time to socialise with the first crew and a couple of dates resulted. It remains one of the best flights I have ever taken.