Departure
96%
vs 95% ▲ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Benbecula Airport (EGPL) sits on the low, flat island of Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides, at Balivanich on the island's north-west corner. It is a small but well-equipped Highlands and Islands Airports Limited (HIAL) field with a long military history, offering visiting VFR pilots a remote island destination with lit runways and an air traffic service.
Benbecula Airport lies at Balivanich on the island of Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides, off Scotland's west coast. It is a small rural airport owned and operated by Highlands and Islands Airports Limited (HIAL), serving the interlinked islands of Benbecula, North Uist and South Uist, which are otherwise more than two hours from the mainland by sea. For a visiting sim pilot it offers a genuinely remote Hebridean destination combined with a surprisingly capable set of lit runways and an air traffic service, plus a rich wartime past.
The airport sits on the north-west corner of Benbecula, within the Outer Hebrides island chain. It is a small, self-contained aerodrome with its own air traffic service rather than being embedded in a large complex of controlled airspace, making it a straightforward island approach for visiting VFR traffic once clear of the surrounding open Atlantic and Hebridean terrain.
Benbecula has two physical runway pairs. Runway 06/24 is the longer of the two, with the 24 threshold offering 6011 ft and the 06 threshold 5634 ft of hard, lit surface. Runway 17/35 is shorter, with 4268 ft available on 17 and 3948 ft on 35, again hard-surfaced and lit. There is no ILS at the field. Field elevation is 13 ft.
Benbecula provides an Approach and Tower service on 119.205 MHz, with ATIS broadcast on 113.95 MHz. Pilots should expect to work Benbecula's air traffic control on the common frequency for both approach and tower phases of flight.
An airfield has existed on Benbecula since 1936, when Scottish Airways began operating to what was then known as Balivanich Airfield on the island's north-west corner. Between 1941 and 1942, during the Second World War, it became RAF Benbecula under the Royal Air Force's No. 15 (GR) Group, Coastal Command, hosting aircraft that flew Atlantic patrols protecting shipping convoys from German U-boats. Aircraft types operating from the station included the Lockheed Hudson and, later, the Boeing Fortress and Vickers Wellington. At its peak the station held several thousand personnel across sites around the islands, and numbered among its resident units No. 36, 179, 206, 220, 279, 280 and 304 (Polish) Squadrons RAF, No. 455 Squadron RAAF, several Fleet Air Arm squadrons (814, 819, 838 and 842 Naval Air Squadrons) and No. 2841 Squadron RAF Regiment. After the war the airfield served as the control centre for the nearby Hebrides Rocket Range before becoming Benbecula Airport. The site also holds a place in Scottish Gaelic literary history: war poet Dòmhnall Ruadh Chorùna, who served in the Home Guard during the Second World War, composed the song Òran a' Home Guard, poking fun at an exercise in which a North Uist platoon was ordered to simulate retaking Benbecula Airport from invading Germans.
Benbecula Airport is owned and maintained by Highlands and Islands Airports Limited and continues to provide scheduled air links vital to the Uists and Benbecula, with passenger services to Glasgow, Stornoway and Inverness and cargo flights to Inverness and Stornoway. The airport also supports emergency air ambulance flights and operations associated with the nearby missile test range. It remains a small, quiet field well suited to visiting light aircraft, with lit hard runways and an active air traffic service.
