• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • Contact

Golf Hotel Whiskey

Golf Hotel Whiskey: for pilots and aviation enthusiasts

The pilot for the world’s shortest scheduled flight is set to retire

The BBC has reported that Stuart Linklater, 59, who has completed the world’s shortest scheduled flight more than 12,000 times, is set to take to the skies over Orkney for the last time as he plans to retire.

As you can see from the map and this video, the world’s shortest scheduled flight takes only about two minutes to complete (including taxiing, meaning less than a minute is spent in the air) as its only 1.7 miles, about the length of the runway at Edinburgh Airport, between Westray and Papa Westray:

image

So forget taking in a movie or a meal while aboard! BBC also has a short video segment about the flight and Stuart:

Moreover, Stuart, a pilot with Loganair, has spent 24 years flying the route along with other inter-island routes such as flights to Stronsay, Sanday, North Ronaldsay and Eday. In fact, he has flown more than 1.3 million miles (enough miles to circumnavigate the globe 50 times) in the single-manned, eight-seater Britten-Norman Islander aircraft used for this inter-island service.

Stuart has worked for Loganair for 25 years (16 on an air ambulance service contract) after gaining his private pilot licence in 1982 and his commercial pilot’s licence in 1988. So naturally Stuart has had his share of turbulence and challenging weather conditions over the years.

Stuart will continue working part-time for Loganair operating aircraft out of Glasgow to places like Barra, Tiree and Campbeltown.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Matthew Stibbe
Matthew Stibbe is CEO of Articulate Marketing and Turbine, the easy, online way to deal with office paperwork. He has an FAA CPL/IR and an EASA PPL/IR and sometimes flies a Cirrus SR-22. He also writes about wine at Vincarta and being a better manager at Geek Boss.
Bureaucracy must die eBook
Subscribe via RSS

Recent Posts

  • IATA Airport Abbreviations
  • Upcoming Concorde and Apollo documentaries
  • Lie Back And Think Of England: London To Austin On BA’s New 787 Dreamliner
  • Video: Parachuting from the edge of space
  • Hilarious preflight safety video for GA aircraft
  • San Francisco Airport at night – beautiful time lapse video
  • A practical jetpack (finally) takes off
  • A man in a hot air balloon realises he is lost
  • Pegasus House: The former HQ of the Bristol Aeroplane Company is restored
  • Vintage British aviation posters from the 1920-1930s

Copyright © 2023 Golf Hotel Whiskey. All rights reserved.