Grice Ness
GRICE NESS: Regional airport
Note: The two maps and second and third pictures were kindly provided by Mr Michael T Holder.
The fourth and sixth pictures were obtained from Google Earth © by the author.
Operated by: To date (2020) I cannot be at all certain. It is quite possible that Highland Airways, Allied Airways and Aberdeen Airways used this 'airport'.
Note: This picture was found on the Orkney Library web-site. Hopefully there aren't any copyright issues and permission to use it has been sought.
Location: E of Whitehall at the northern end of Stronsay
Period of operation: 1930s
NOTES: Clearly the amount of people in the picture above cannot possibly be carried in the Dragon. Presumably family and friends wishing the passengers a fond farewell. A picture more than enough to give a modern Health & Safety official today severe conniptions!
Mike Holder tells us that E E Fresson of Highland Airways based at Inverness surveyed three islands in his DH60G Gipsy Moth (G-AAWO) on the 1st September 1933. These being Sanday, Stronsay and Westray. At Stronsay he selected a field to the east of Whitehall village at Grice Ness. The field was owned by the Balfour Estates and farmed by Mr Thomas Pottinger.
He returned on the 3rd December 1933 on an inter-island hop and decided the field at Grice Ness was a suitable spot for an airfield and needed only levelling and a bit of stone picking. He returned again on the 11th April 1934 in his DH84 Dragon (G-ACIT) with some stone masons. He made a final survey on the 19th May 1934 before instituting scheduled* services to the airfields at Sanday, Stronsay and Westray. On the 5th July 1934 he flew the Moderator of the Church of Scotland to Stronsay in his Monospar ST-4 Monospar (G-ACEW).
*In those days scheduled services were nothing like we regard them as being today. Regular and usually on-demand they were very much influenced by the weather which, in these regions, could easily prevent flying for days on end. By the same token of course, really bad weather would also have prevented passengers from travelling by boat. Being 'locked-down' by storm weather, especially those arriving from the Atlantic, would have been perfectly acceptable to the locals.
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