FOULA HERITAGE

Foula - The Edge of the World

FOULA

From The Scotsman 16/07/1948

One lonely island seems fated to be left outside the scope of the air ambulance service which is being planned through various official channels. This is Foula, separated from the main group of the Shetland Isles by 20 miles of sea. A surveying party landed from the sea and explored the island. They also flew over it, and their verdict is that it will be impossible to have a landing strip there.

Foula will remain accessible only by sea communications, and these are always at the mercy of the weather. Thus being ill there will be attended by more than the usual hazards, which the sturdy islanders must cope with as best they can.

AIR AMBULANCE SCHEME

From The Scotsman 18/09/1948

Two famous specks of land in turbulent seas, Foula and Fair Isle, remain outside the scheme. It is impossible to put an air strip on Foula. In Fair Isle the existing strip is unusable, and an official estimate is that it would cost £7600 to repair. Although authority might consider the cost to be insuperable, that is a viewpoint not likely to be shared by the islanders. An air strip would be both an insurance and a subsidy to them, and they well deserve both.

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Despite the above Foula does now have an airstrip. It was built by the islanders themselves, and they are rightly proud of their achievement. Many tons of peat and soil had to be removed and carted away, and replaced by countless tractor-loads of quarry material. The great motivation for all this work was the knowledge that in the event of serious illness there were very many days in winter when an evacuation by sea was impossible. As a teenager I had an unexplained high fever and was unconscious for two days. Fortunately for me the island’s resident nurse had a supply of penicillin. Even so it was a fortnight before I was judged well enough to be taken to hospital in a five hour journey by Lifeboat. Nowadays, in a serious emergency, a patient from Foula can be flown to the Lerwick hospital within the hour, quicker than from many other parts of Shetland.

Foula's first introduction to the possibility of a plane service was when Captain Alan Whitfield landed Loganair's Islander on the smooth grassy South Ness. A great display of the aircraft's abilities, but with its cliffs the South Ness was no place for a permanent airstrip.

Loganair's Islander on the South Ness

Over the following winter much thought was given to possible airstrip sites. Under Alan Whitfield's guidance the decision was made to build one in the area known as the Santoo. The work was done in three stages. First a rough strip on which a plane could land in a medical emergency.

The first landing in 1969 of a Loganair Islander on Foula's, then, very rough strip.

Two years later, after having demonstrated that an airstrip was feasible, further work was done. A 150 yard length of rough grass at the northern end was stripped of soil and coated with hard core.

The final work was done in 1976. The 250 yard southern section, from which in 1969 the peat had been removed down to the clay subsoil, was coated with hard core. Both the north and south ends were extended by a further 50 yards, each being hardcored. This gave the strip a length of 500 yards, with a breadth of 20 yards - the size recommended by the Civil Aviation Authority for a Britten Norman 8 seater Islander aircraft.

The Airstrip is owned by the Foula Estate and day to day management is carried out by Foula Airstrip Trust supported by the local unit of the Highlands & Islands Fire Brigade. Two fire-crew members attend all aircraft movements with the fire engine, and monitor and report weather conditions for the pilots.

Coming in to land on Foula's airstrip.

Shetland Islands Council's Islander run by Direct Flight. Fire Engine on left.

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