Sunday observance and a flight to Barra in Scotland

This little story about one of the world’s strangest areas has been doing the rounds and appears in several newspapers. It concerns Sunday observance issues in the Western Isles of Scotland. But first some background.

Here is a map of the area showing the Outer Hebrides and the Inner Hebrides.

If it wasn’t for the weather, which can be very challenging, this would be one of the world’s great travel destinations. The scenery is stunning, the beaches as white as any Caribbean beach, the atmosphere magical and in many ways an area that time has passed by.

That time has, more or less, stood still shows through in many ways and unlike the rest of the ‘modern’ world where Sunday is just another day, in the Western Isles Sunday observance has been strongly rooted in these island societies.

With that background, reading about the start of a Sunday ferry service from Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis to the mainland will give you an insight into feelings about this issue. Moving on.

Another oddity about this part of the world is that the Island of Barra, almost the most southern island of the Outer Hebrides, has a licenced runway that is a beach! Believed to be the only licenced runway that is a beach in the world.

Thus landing times are subject to the tide; the runway is only uncovered at low tide!

In 2002 the airport authorities decided to organise a Fly-In, in other words welcome any aircraft that was properly briefed and had made a prior booking to participate.

Inevitably, that was too good an offer to refuse even though my home airfield of Exeter was over 700 km away (465 statute miles/400 nautical miles).

We left Exeter and flew non-stop to Oban, in Argyllshire, Scotland (just off the bottom right-hand edge of the map)

ready to stay the night there and be well positioned for the last leg to Barra in the morning.

In the morning, while the weather was suitable for the flight to Barra it was being changeable (the weather in these parts can close in quickly) so we selected as an alternate the military airfield at Benbecula, north of Barra. And filled the tanks to the brim, giving the TB20 nearly 7 hours of flight endurance!

As the aircraft was prepared, the wind strength started to increase and the hills behind Oban were covered in low, grey clouds, as the picture below attests. We were ready to go and a final check on weather conditions at both Benbecula and Barra gave us no reason to abandon the next leg.

Preparing G-BPAS for the flight to Barra — Preparing G-BPAS at Oban for the flight to Barra

We set off and with the brisk tailwind were making a very good speed over the ground, in this case water! Soon we were engulfed in cloud but in good radio contact with the Tower at Barra Airport. All running well. Perhaps too well! There was an ‘All Traffic’ broadcast from Barra. “The airport is now closed.”

Ho, hum! Benbecula it was then. We arrived in torrential rain conditions, with an ugly wind blowing across the runway having used the instrument approach to Runway 24 (magnetic heading 240 degrees) that let down over some tough mountains.

Having worn survival suits for the flight, a necessary precaution in those latitudes, it seemed sensible to keep them on as we battled through the wonderful Scottish weather to the local eating house. One of the other pilots who was already there, Rob, recalled recently, “Wasn’t it you and your crew that splashed along the half mile walk from Benbecula, the least welcoming airfield in Scotland, to the gourmet macaroni pie restaurant still wearing your survival suits to fend off the deluge?”

After ‘lunch’ it was then a case of catching the local bus all the way down the Island and across on the ferry to Barra and yet another bus to Castlebay, the main residential part of Barra. We stayed at the Craigard Hotel shown here in suitably

The Craighard Hotel, Castlebay, Barra, Outer Hebrides — The Craighard Hotel (white building), Castlebay, Barra, Outer Hebrides

appropriate Hebridean weather.

As soon as a weather window presented itself we caught the British Airways flight from Barra to Benbecula, all 15 minutes, and at last was able to fly G-BPAS and land on the white, crushed-shell beach that is Barra runway.

Barra airfield with the British Airways flight on the ground

By Paul Handover with thanks to ‘ZOGman’ for the pics of Barra airfield.

UPDATE: After finishing this Post, someone pointed me to a Swiss forum that had a description of a journey from Zurich to the UK including a stop at Barra. If you read German then you can read the details here. But even without speaking German one can only admire the beautiful photographs.

I have ‘borrowed’ some of the ones that really catch my eye because they beautifully capture the essence of this magical part of the United Kingdom. I don’t know the name of either the author of the article or the photographer (assuming they are not the same) so hope that forgiveness is offered for re-publishing these pics without formal permission. Those of you who haven’t been to the Western Isles of Scotland, don’t die without doing so!