Britain's Desert Air Routes: Recent Surveys in Eastern Jordan

A free evening lecture by archaeologist Alexander Wasse on recent surveys recording Britain's 1920s-30s desert air-route heritage across eastern Jordan and the Middle East.

Alexander Wasse of Yeditepe University Istanbul presents a PEF lecture on the desert air corridor pioneered by the RAF in 1921, linking Cairo and Baghdad across eastern Jordan and western Iraq, later extended by Imperial Airways. He explains how ground markers, emergency landing grounds and tracks were built to keep pilots safe over featureless terrain, and how the route evolved in the early 1930s. Since 2024 the Desert Air Routes Project has been recording the surviving infrastructure and exploring local sentiment towards this heritage in Palestine/Israel, Jordan and Iraq. The talk showcases the results of these recent ground and aerial surveys.