Departure
95%
vs 95%
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Kirkwall Airport is the principal gateway to Orkney, sitting on the Mainland a few miles southeast of Kirkwall town and tracing its origins to a Second World War RAF and Fleet Air Arm base. Today it is a busy Highlands and Islands Airports Limited field handling Loganair's mainland and inter-island services, with a control tower, an ILS-equipped main runway and a network of shorter cross runways reflecting its wartime layout.
Kirkwall Airport serves as the main air link for Orkney, an archipelago off the north coast of Scotland, and is operated by Highlands and Islands Airports Limited. It began life in 1940 as a wartime airfield built to defend the naval anchorage at Scapa Flow, and it retains something of that character in its multi-runway layout even as it now functions as a busy regional airport for Loganair's mainland and inter-island network. For a visiting VFR pilot the field offers a control tower, an ILS approach and a genuinely historic setting, making it an interesting destination as well as a practical one.
Kirkwall Airport lies on the Orkney Mainland, about three miles southeast of Kirkwall town, close to the shores of the bay from which the old RAF station took its name, Grimsetter. It sits within Scottish airspace served by air traffic control at the field itself, with the former satellite station RNAS Hatston having been located about a mile northwest of Kirkwall.
The airfield has three physical runways. The main runway, 09/27, is hard-surfaced and lit, equipped with an ILS, and measures approximately 4,168 ft on the 09 threshold and 4,533 ft on the 27 threshold. A second hard, lit runway, 06/24, runs 3,835 ft in each direction. A shorter hard, lit cross runway, 14/32, offers 2,203 ft on the 14 threshold and 1,815 ft on the 32 threshold. Field elevation is 39 ft.
Kirkwall Tower provides service on 118.305 MHz, which also serves as the approach frequency. The main runway, 09/27, is equipped with an ILS for instrument approaches.
Kirkwall Airport was built and commissioned in 1940 as Royal Air Force Grimsetter, taking its name from the farm over which the airfield was constructed, and was established to help defend the Royal Navy's anchorage at Scapa Flow. In 1943 the Royal Navy took over the station, which became Royal Naval Air Station Grimsetter and, from 15 August that year, was commissioned as HMS Robin, operating as a satellite to RNAS Hatston (HMS Sparrowhawk) a mile northwest of Kirkwall. During the war the base hosted numerous RAF squadrons, including Nos. 129, 132 and 234 Squadrons and RAF Regiment units, as well as a long list of Fleet Air Arm squadrons operating under the Royal Navy. Control passed to the Ministry of Civil Aviation in 1948 and to Highlands and Islands Airports in 1986. The airfield's wartime heritage is still commemorated in the terminal's roof signage, written in runic script spelling 'Krimsitir' or 'Grimsetter', the name of the adjoining bay, the former base and the farm on whose land the airfield stands. In October 1979 a Vickers Viscount, G-BFYZ, operated by Alidair, was damaged beyond economic repair at Kirkwall when a propeller struck the runway during departure and the nosewheel collapsed at a runway intersection.
Kirkwall Airport is now operated by Highlands and Islands Airports Limited and serves as Orkney's main air link, used by Loganair for scheduled services to and from the Scottish mainland as well as inter-island flights to Eday, North Ronaldsay, Papa Westray, Sanday, Stronsay and Westray. The airport has also been the subject of a green energy initiative examining the use of hydrogen combustion for its heating systems, as part of a wider Scottish government plan for the Highlands and Islands to become a net zero aviation region by 2040.
