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Dimàirt, 05/Apr/2011
Come fly with me to Islay
Another long day in the office, so not as much time as I would like to write a detailed entry. So I'm going to send you away to discover for yourselves a few links about the interesting part Islay played in Scotland's aviation history:
The first ever scheduled air services in Scotland were to Campbeltown and Islay. Midland and Scottish Air Ferries Ltd. was owned by John Cuthill Sword, son of the Airdrie bakery family and by then general manager of Western S.M.T. buses in Kilmarnock - [..]
On the Thursday, April 20, 1933, one of the Fox Moths, piloted by Johnny Rae, flew on from Campbeltown to land with newspapers at Bowmore on Islay, the best landing field was to turn out to be at the Duich Farm, just north of the now Glenegedale airport.
Those two snippets come from a fascinating essay Come Fly With Me about the history of scheduled air services in Kintyre by Kintyre On Record (the same essay can also be found on the Kintyre On Record website in two parts, Air Service - 1 and Air Service - 2). Very interesting to read!
I didn't have time to do a lot of detailed research, but even just a short search brought up some interesting links I thought I'd share with you:
The Glasgow Story mentions flights to Islay in 1933, which is closely linked with services to Campbeltown Airfield, which in turn has links to Islay flights. Also in 1933 the first Air Ambulance journey for the Highlands and Islands Medical Service was to take a very ill fisherman from Islay to Glasgow, also mentioned in the book Air Ambulance: Six Decades of the Scottish Air Ambulance Service. For some old timetables try the Midland & Scottish Air Ferries timetables from 1933/1934. And finally an aviation magazine from 1933 mentioning S.M.T. and Midland & Scottish Air Services with the flights to Islay.
For £3 to Islay…
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