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TRIP REPORT With the knowledge of having some rain that passed over UAE the last couple of days, I was a bit worried of how the FAQA area would be upon arrival. I had been making some contingency plans but in any case not one involved heading back home @Shamil and @Emmanuel were both well on time and we were all looking forward to a beautiful morning. @Javier M was probably still snoozing in his little nest. We missed you buddy. After dipping our toes in the sand it confirmed that the sand in that area was very compacted so we decided to deflate to 12-13 psi instead of the regular 10psi. After a quick chat we headed into the dunes and started exploring the area. We kept a steady pace and all managed well. At one point I attacked a small dune from the front but found a nasty pocket on the other side, that surely woke me up. Thanks to @Emmanuel for quickly reacting on the radio and notifying @Shamil to not do the same thing. A bit later we came across some old farm fences with barbwire still exposed and laying in the sand. Rerouted a little bit by heading deeper southwards into the dunes. Definitely an area to be careful with during night drives. 24.70738, 55.53992 Because the convoy was so small and we made quick progress, after a quick break and a smoke we decided to leave Faqa and start heading north direction Maktoum Solar Park. I've been there camping before and Emmanuel spotted some nice dunes up ahead. So suddenly this became an exploration drive. Having spotted a group of cars parked on the plain sands we noticed these were falcon trainers. After seeing the "creamy" dunes as Emmanuel called them, we entered and enjoyed the medium sized dunes with odd formations, but some areas became muddy holes at one point and soon @Shamil found himself stuck a few times. We met some friendly locals that also got stuck at some point with their Super Safari. But all was quickly resolved and the shovel saved us a few times that day. We will definitely be coming back to this area, which we now called "Little Sweihan" 24.67943, 55.36813 Throughout the morning we had a nice combination of side-sloping, ridge crossing, and attacking dunes of different shapes and formations. @Shamil you drove good, but keep working on getting that confidence level up. Around noon, we reached the Solar Park Tower. A great spot to inflate and have a chit-chat before heading back home via Al Qudra. 24.76008, 55.35989 For a first official lead drive, I found myself thoroughly enjoying, and the small convoy gave us the possibilities to explore new grounds. Thanks guys for joining, I truly enjoyed it and hope you did too !

Congrats @Frederic for your first intermediate drive and I am looking forward to join your drive soon. All the best miss you all.

Very well done @Frederic. Just found that the real name of what we called Little Sweihan is “Al-Oshoosh”, which I guess means in local arabic dialect “the nests”, but probably it has another meaning here. Anyway it was so fun this morning. @Shamil keep it up, I’m sure you will feel more comfortable next time.

@Atif thanks for your nice photos but it’s better if you post them directly in the gallery.

Congrats Frederic on your first wonderful lead, 64 kms in 2 hours seems rocket pocket dancing a lot with velociraptor. Shamil kudos to you for keeping pace between the two and seems you are almost there with Intermediate drive level challenges and pace, keep it up.

We all miss you too @Asif Hussain !

Yes I couldn't locate it😀

We already have rovers on the surface of Mars for years. It's really not worth going there, specially considering with current technology it's a one way trip. Bring back even a kilo worth of anything Martian back to earth is still going to cost 1000 times more than the most expensive and rare mineral or metal on earth

This whole Virgin space flight thing is a big crock of s*%t. In fact, these idjits with lots of money to waste won't even leave the atmosphere proper, and all they'll get is the experience of falling at the same rate as the aircraft- i.e., weightlessness for a few seconds. Nonetheless, it is a marginally smaller crock of s*$t than the business of colonising Mars. Nobody of any consequence is really considering it, and the only people who stand to make money out of it are a), the scammers who are offering clueless idiots an "opportunity" to be the first colonisers of the planet, and b), the makers of documentaries about how difficult it would be to live on Mars. SpaceX is planning a manned mission to Mars sometime in the next 15 years or so, but whether that actually happens or not remains to be seen.

I’m deep into sons of anarchy now but I will definitely give Mars a go when I’m finished. “The Martian” is a decent movie to watch to kill a couple of hours.

This is exact shit you will see in MARS series. It's not a show off business, but real business in a quest who will strike a gold first, as towards end another chinese explorer make there way to colonize too and things start getting dirty with no boundaries, no rules, no ownership etc as space treaty signed in 70 -80 is very vague and meaningless. Btw only way to survive on Mars is inside huge lava tubes to place a dome and colonize, as outside radiation is too bad.

I think the whole mars conquest is a waste of time and money. It’s just a competition to see who has the biggest di.. umm.... spaceship? There might be frozen water on the poles of mars but the soil is barren and the atmosphere isn’t breathable. Anyone who goes there and tries to colonise it will end up living in a plastic bubble and they can’t go outside unless they have a goldfish bubble on their head. It’s like the moon landings. It’s a competition to get there first and try to make a foreign country spend their defence budget before you spend all of yours. Better just to move to the desert. At least you can breathe the air.

So all the space lovers here do watch MARS both seasons on netflix and you will love it. I'm almost at the end now and it shares hell of a things what an average Joe cant think about mars, distance, time, challenges and big disasters. Sadly in end its turning out that space exploration is never been a scientific discovery but purely a business. Same way humans exploited earth, now they are in need of another planet to exploit. Overall it's an interesting watch with little bit of drama and lot of thrill.

If I had the money I would do it. I always dreamed about being an astronaut.

Just thought I would share my story of using scrapped/ second hand parts. Last week my 2006 Camry with over 270k KM started jerking. At first I thought it was my choice of music! Upon diagnosis it turned out that one ignition coil was faulty. The closest mechanic to the place installed a new one for AED 235. Next morning my Camry was still out of beat! Was suggested by the one mechanic to get second hand ones from scrap. The scrap guy had hundreds and tried out at least 10 before identifying ones that were working. Took AED 50 each for 3. A week goes by fine and then slight jerking makes my kids leave the car in their work place. Had to drive it back from business bay to Ajman with slight jerks when starting to move. This time around I got better price from Samira Ajman AED 175 each and changed the three. Appears to have solved the issue. Car is humming and hope it wasn't any other issue. I am sure the experienced guys in the forum will find quite a lot of errors in my inexperienced ways but from now I will take advice prior to taking decision on second hand parts.

I worked in a scrapyard in Ireland for 5 years and 99% of the time never had a problem with used parts as long as they were stored properly. One of the biggest problems is people like to complain when things go wrong but when things go right, you rarely hear anything. When it comes to things like electrical parts, I would rather have used genuine parts than no name new parts. At least you know what you’re getting. Here’s another way to look at it. When people ask me if it’s ok to use used parts, I tell them every part on your car is used and it’s still working. However, I’ve been in plenty of scrapyards in uae and see how some of the guys work, so it’s understandable not to have any faith in them.

You people need to stop thinking like broke ass ******* Like I said if was loaded up to my eyeballs I wouldn't mind. And if I was loaded up to my eyeballs I'd already have all the toys I would want So going to space would surely be worth it. At least when you are imagining things. Think big, doesn't cost a dime!

I say it's still worth it with the HUGE price difference. Ironically my range Rover just started to cough as well. A quick scan showed cyl no 5 was misbehaving. Having a spare part shop in the trunk of your car helps. So I dug through and found a good-looking coil I had taken off my free Range Rover donor vehicle before I scrapped it. Two 10mm bolts later the replacement coil was in place and car purring like a kitten once again. Infact taking of the blasted plastic decoration engine covers was a bigger hassle than changing the coil itself. I have no where to store them otherwise I wouldn't have put them back

Coils and sensors (electrical stuff) are always better OEM or aftermarket (if pressed for pricing). Reason is electrical scrap part get bad by mishandling very fast (by dirt, water, moisture etc) and there is no easy way to check before buying. You might get lucky once in a while, but 90% you are shooting in the dark. Again if its low price, worth a try to test your luck. I got my Trail blazer headlight SSD relay from scrap for 50 dhs, because liberty need 30 days for ordering and priced at 350 dhs and my wife cannot drive car with one headlight off. Thank fully its still working fine after a year and half, so electrical scrap depends on your stars positioning tbh. If I have a chance to buy OEM, ill stick to that as my first choice. I changed my Pajero coil 6 years back and they burned a 1000+ dhs hole but thankfully they havent failed as it was OEM. Another point is if you are using scrap electrical parts for any reason, then try to see if that part is already in the scrap car or component then chances are its safe to try to great extent. If its kept on shelf, boxes or floor then its worth nothing.

Then you just have to tell them that some fat moves up to the face for them to change their mind😀. Also there are some who wouldn't mind a one way ticket to the moon for their wives🤣.

This is exactly how offroader mind works. I was thinking same of telling desertdude that in 250K USD imagine how many Range (for road, as he love it) and other capable offroaders you can buy........? After little bit of offroad experience, I like to split eggs in different basket so I can have a backup of backup even.

Congrats @Frederic for posting your first drive. Many more to come with me trying to catch up with our favourite Saluki.