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Martin Kimm's Scotland Tour

I am 60 years old this year so basically felt compelled to do some form of "late mid-life crisis boy's own solo flying adventure". I also combined this with a visit to my son and grandaughters who live in Aberdeen.
I ended up doing a total of about 20hrs flying with about the same number of takeoff/landings. I deliberately flew to all sorts of challenging and varied places.....ranging from the North of Scotland, Orkneys up to the North of the Shetlands, to the Western Isles and West and East Coast of Scotland.

I visited/flew over a lot of interesting places and took a lot of photos but rather than bore you with too many i thought i would just include a small varied selection.
The first photo of the Fair Isle shows me circling whilst the airfield man cleared a 'tame' sheep from the runway!

1 Fair Isle(1)
2 Fair Isle(2)
3 Papa Westray

(Left) Papa Westray (Orkneys) which is a very small, delightful and serene island...well worth a night stop.

4 Old Man of Hoy (Orkneys)

Circling 'The Old Man of Hoy' (mainland Orkney) on my way to Wick (mainland Scotland).

6 Beach at Barra(1)
7 Beach at Barra (2)
8 Beach at Barra(3)

The trip to Barra in the Western Isles was quite challenging. It was not the beach landing that was the problem but the fact that i went into IMC (fog banks) both on the flight in and the flight out! Notice the fog bank rolling over the aircraft in the second Barra photo...i was so concerned i might have to stay the night that i started investigating ways to drive the aircraft off the beach when the tide came in! (there is a ramp which would assist in this endeavour).

Oban

Finally, if any of you fancy flying to Barra (or Sollas) to experience a beach landing it is prudent to wash the aircraft thoroughly afterwards (due to salt corrosion etc)...a timely request to Oban Airfield resulted in a very obliging Firecrew doing the business!

Comments

  1. I can confirm a PA28 can overnight at Barra - pull it up the ramp and park it in the car park! Did that about 3 years ago with the aid of the really helpful fire/baggage/FISO team

    (Posted on 2010-09-16 09:34:00 by Chris Pickles)
5 Glenforsa

I have include a photo of Glenforsa (Isle of Mull) as i know Simon is oganising a 'fly out' there on 1st August 2010.