Thanks to the wonderful work of British Caladonia.
I owe them my life.

Meanwhile, the Irrifrance copied a Lindsay pivot and sold 15 or 20 to the project. They were such a poor copy and the workmanship was so bad, that as fast as they were assembled, they fell down. Lockwood (President Fred Schneider) entered the picture and was asked if Lockwood could fix the Irrifrance machines and install them. Fred and I visited the site and surveyed the project. While climbing over the pile of Irrifrance pipe, I accidentally kicked a pipe flange and the weld broke.

Since Mahmoud was well programed by Ayres, he also wanted us to supply some new machines of the Ames design. So, we bought the Ames company – not just for that reason, however – and set out to produce the Ames design. I have absolutely no recollection of sending anyone to AZ with a mock up for testing.

Anyway, we did send a crew – 20 – 25 men as I recall – and did fix the Irrefrance machines and install a dozen or so of our Ames design. I managed the project from Lockwood. The on-site manager was Keith Rogers (see RAAFT.COM).

This successful enough that we were able to supply a quantity of pivots of the Lockwood design. This machine used 120 foot spans. The irrigation pipe was the structure of the machine. However, since the water was acetic and would consume the zinc coating, we lined the pipe with a thin stainless tube. It was explosive formed inside the finished pipe. As far as I know, these are still running after 30+ years.

We used drop spray nozzels to lower the distance that the water had to travel from the pipe to the ground and to control the fine particles inhearant with impact sprinklers. These fine particles would evaporate before hitting reaching the surface. Besides using stainless steel liner, we applied our experience with Ames and Irrifrance to use specially designed motors, controls, etc.

Dylan: Water was not discovered by oil will drilling. The Kufra had long been irrigated with hand move pipe using the brackish standing water in the oases. The Nubian aquifer was well known long before Occidential Oil started drilling for oil. It is a huge aquifer running from Sudan through much of Libya and into Egypt.

Sarir project was setup approximately at the same time run by the French government.

In 1973, the Lockwood Corporation sent two men to the ASU research farm over Christmas break and we worked together building a small demonstration center-povit sprinkler system identical to the Kufra machines. The idea was that if problems came up in Libya our researchers could workout a solution without having to travel to Kufra.

In the end, the machines had steel joints/couplers between sections of aluminum pipe that rusted severely causing leaks, while rust particles clogged the fine mist sprinkler nozzles. We grew alfalfa under the sprinkler at the ASU research farm. In the Arizona summer, I ran the irrigation system as fast as I could 24 hours a day and could just barely keep the alfalfa alive. The nozzles put out an extremely fine mist which was totaly wrong for desert conditions. Evaporation and volume of water dispersed were the biggest issues. Modern L.E.P.A. systems would have solved these problems.

At the Kufra Project, they grew wheat and alfalfa. I believe most of the wheat was shipped by truck back to the cities on the coast, while the alfalfa fed sheep and maybe goats that were brought into Kufra. The sheep grazed the irrigation circles and excess alfalfa was baled sent to the coast.

The Kufra is an oasis. There is standing water at the heart of the oasis, but it is extremely brackish. The entire southwest and west of Libya and the eastern part of Egypt is above a very large underground water lake – the Nubian aquifer. This aquifer is stagnant. There is no flow. The elevation of the water table is the same through out the aquifer. An oasis is where the level of the land (sand) dips down to expose the water at the top of the aquifer. Since the water at the top of the aquifer is very brackish, there is a well at each circle that goes down some 1500 feet. While the water artesians to within a few feet of the surface, the irrigation water is actually drawn from a depth of 1500 feet. Since the water is stagnant, and under a great deal of pressure (nearly 700 psi) at this depth, it contains dissolved CO2. As the pressure is reduced, this goes to a week carbonic acid. This acid will eat through the conventionally galvanized steel machine is a few short years. This is why Alsa attempted to use aluminum. The Lockwood machines were constructed with steel, but lined with stainless steel.

I have pictures of the installation if one would like to see them.

Clif