My last post on the blog?

Who would have believed its over 6 months since I posted here.  Doesn’t time fly when you are enjoying yourself.

The blog has served me well for over 10 years but after some deep soul searching it is clear that Facebook has the monopoly on current events whether aviation or not.

There are over 3000 photos here and I will keep them right where they are but sadly it is time consuming and it seems to be something I have very little of.

I may use Facebook for day to day and this for special events, would be interested to hear your thoughts.

2018 has been a very busy year with one thing or another and the better weather has meant more and more interesting aircraft are visiting.

There are a number of pictures here not aircraft related but worthy of inclusion, in particular, Grimsetter becoming the first airport in the UK to honour the 100 years of the Royal Air Force with the presentation of a plaque to RAF Grimsetter by Air Marshal Scotland.  Also February saw the retirement of Marion MacLeod from the information desk and a total airport career of 30 years.

In the meantime, the photos need no introduction and thanks for reading.

All the best

Neil 😉

 

 

 

Happy birthday Loganair inter island service

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 😉

Evie’s Grand Tour

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 😉

1st September and 2 airlines at Kirkwall :)

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 😉

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Caldale Air Station has first landing since 8/8/44

It has been a long winter and the saying Orkney has 9 months of winter followed by 3 months of bad weather seems very accurate.  I haven’t seen as many unusual aircraft over the last couple of months but I was looking through my photos tonight and thought there were enough to write a new post.

We had a short visit from ZE708 but it parked at the far end of 14 so it is just a long distance shot.

Last week saw me ticking a box for the first Russian registered aircraft at Kirkwall even though it was an american built helicopter.

The World Around 2017 team stopped off at Kirkwall while circumnavigating the globe.  They are a russian/polish crew and you can find their adventures on Facebook by searching World Around 2017.

G-LGNN has come out of the paint shop and is now operating the mail service for Loganair in their new colour scheme, it is certainly unmissable and looks very professional, in my opinion.

I managed to get a decent picture of the Saab 340 owned and operated by Polish Airline, Sprint Air who have been doing the afternoon mail run since Loganair won the contract.

And finally where the post title comes from.  I live on the site of RNAS Caldale which was an airship base and engineering site until just after the Normandy landings and, to my knowledge, no aircraft has landed on the site since closure.  That was until today when looking out my back door I noticed that an aircraft was about to land in the field around 50m from my house.  A quick look see saw G-EOIN heading up the field to Carisbrooke along the road.

It transpire it was 2 local pilots, Tony Scott and Erling Flett who had just stopped off for a quarter of an hour or so at Tony’s house.

Erling is well known in Aviation circles as a commercial pilot flying for Virgin and is a regular visitor passing through the airport.

That’s it for now and thanks for taking the time to read

All the best

Neil 😉

Let it snow

Quite an interesting day today with going to work in frost, 10 minutes after arriving we get a winter wonderland and I leave in brilliant sunshine with warmth from the sun.  Tonight we expect the snow moon and it is clear as a bell outside just now so may get a few snaps.

I took a couple of pictures today as it was very busy for everyone both inside and out.

Remember, if you have any pictures you want to share, please send them to me neil@spotters.blog

Thanks for taking the time to visit

All the best

Neil 😉

 

 

A mystery is solved

Thanks to Everett Garson from Eday.  I have a vague memory of landing at what I thought was a beach in Eday, probably in the early 70’s.  I have asked many people if there was a beach strip but the answer was inevitably no 🙂

Until the golden islander arrived where I had good fortune to meet Everett at the airport.  Through having a chat with him, I discovered that I wasn’t going mad as he told me that while the runway was being done up in the early 70’s, the loch was drained and became a temporary airfield for the islanders.

Not only did he tell me about it, he gave me a photo showing an Islander aircraft on/in the loch.

Many thanks for letting me share.

Thanks for reading

Neil 😉

Domain at last

After over 10 years of blogging and keeping the Spottersblog name going started by Tommy Mogren, I have finally managed to secure the domain I have been waiting on.

http://spotters.blog has been a long wait but was worth it as  waiting for other domains with the title was proving to be too expensive although I did own spottersblog.uk.

I have resized a number of pictures taken over the last couple of months ranging from lovely sunrises at the airport to the new NLB helicopter now operated by PDG.

It was nice to see the return of Jim at the helm but we thought Kenny the engineer was gone.  Gladly we were wrong and Kenny appeared back in the terminal a fortnight ago so welcome back.

Anyway, no long spiel and hope you like the pics.

Thanks for taking the time to visit

Neil 😉

 

Caldale as it was

This was a picture scanned from an original given to me by the late John (Jock) Harcus of Heathfield cottage.

All the billets down the right hand side and the workshop roughly about the middle are where my dads land is now.  The only thing that remains is the concrete base where the workshop was.

RNAS Caldale 18 September 2016

I have started collecting information on RNAS Caldale and thought I would go and take some photos today of what it now looks like.  You can clearly see the blocks the wind deflectors were attached to from the air.  Still looking for a plan of the site as it was but one step at a time.

A big thaks to Jim Eunson who sent me scans of original photos and Ian Brown from The National Museum of Flight who sent me his images and presentation.

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Thanks for taking the time to visit

All the best

Neil 😉