Today saw the 50th anniversary of the inter island air service where the first flight of the day to Sanday was exactly 50 years to the day of the first inter island flight to Sanday in 1967.

The Golden Islander appeared just after nine to take representatives of Loganair and OIC to all six of the North Isles airfields and it was a pleasure to meet William Hynett again who owns Britten Norman who manufacture the Islander Aircraft.

Once both aircraft were back in, the pipes were ably played by Davie Miller who was the Senior Pilot for the inter island service until he retired from the duty and was replaced by Captain Colin McAllister who flew the aircraft this morning with local born pilot Captain Duncan Peace.

Speeches followed by Jonathan Hinkles, Managing Director of Loganair, Harvey Johnston, OIC Convenor and Scott Grier OBE who is President of Loganair and became Managing director of Loganair in 1983 and later bought the Company.

A presentation was made to Bryan Sutherland who recently retired after 50 years service and a plaque was ubveiled by Scott and Jonathan comemorating 50 years sevice to the islands.

This was followed by a fantastic buffet organised by the Airport and provided by Deb’s Cafe where visitors, VIP’s and the public were invited to join in.

Meanwhile music was provided by the Orkney Strathspey and Reel throughout the proceedings.

Overall a very busy day enjoyed by all and here’s to the next 50.

Thanks for reading and all the best

Neil 😉

Today I had the pleasure of meeting Claire Birch and Rachel Foyle, 2 pilots who are on a round Britain Flight to promote women in aviation through the British Women Pilots Association.

https://eviegrandtour.wixsite.com/taysideaviation/pilots

They are flying in G-EVIE, an aircraft donated by Evie Saunders and her family to Tayside Aviation for the benefit of helping young people to fly.

More information can be found here:

http://bwpa.co.uk/evies-grand-tour-of-britain/

They headed off this morning to Oban, then to Inverness and finally back home to Dundee.

Safe journey and hope the weather holds.

Thanks for reading

Neil 😉

Today saw a first in my nearly 16 years at Kirkwall Airport, namely Loganair flying their routes in their own right and Flybe continuing their Aberdeen routes with flights operated by Eastern.

The concourse has had a minor change as has the FIDS (Flight Information Display System) screens

There has been a lot of work leading up to today and it seemed to work very well.  The first passengers arrived very early, however, all the staff were in early in their new uniforms and I have to say that Loganair, has nailed it.

Correen and Lauren were stunning on check in and the ground handling uniforms are very smart.  The new livery on the Loganair Aircraft, in my opinion, is one of the nicest I have seen.

I already like the Flybe livery and I have the luxury of being unbiased, not working for an airline.

All flights departed fairly close to time and were pretty much to capacity.

I have just discovered that G-EVIE is in Kirkwall so a few more pictures tomorrow.  If you want more information, please click on this link

https://eviegrandtour.wixsite.com/taysideaviation

In the meantime, here are some of the photographs I took to share with you.

Thanks for reading

Neil 😉

cof