1 hop means in flight12/6/2023 ![]() Takeoff, following a succinct over-the-shoulder safety briefing from the pilot, is a flurry of switches, dials and radio squawks. Allocation is based on evenly distributing weight around the airplane. But you don’t get to choose where you sit. It’s in Kirkwall they first climb into the boxy cabin of Loganair’s diminutive Britten Norman BN-2 Islander.Īviation fans, especially those who manage to snag the first of the four rows of passenger seats, will appreciate being able to watch a pilot at work. From here, it’s a quarter-hour flight to Westray before the final record-breaking hop. The real start of the journey for visitors is at the airport that serves Kirkwall, the cheerful capital of Orkney on the archipelago’s largest island, known as Mainland. ![]() ![]() In summer, it also brings tourists, mostly day-trippers, seeking to experience the plane ride and discover Papa Westray’s numerous delights. Year-round, it’s a lifeline for the 80 or so people who call the four-square-mile island home. The journey, made two to three times daily, connects Westray, an island on the edge of Scotland’s northerly Orkney archipelago, to the smaller, even more remote island of Papa Westray. On a good day, with favorable winds and light luggage, it takes 53 seconds. This, according to Guinness World Records, is the world’s shortest scheduled airline service, a trip that covers just 1.7 miles (2.7 kilometers) in less time than it takes most passenger airplanes to reach cruising altitude. Because two minutes into the journey, it’s very unlikely that the plane will still be in the air. Except there’s no room to cross your legs.Īnd yet there’s something very special about this flight that, if you didn’t know it before, you’d realize about two minutes into the journey. And there are no inflight facilities – if you need the toilet, the only option is to cross your legs. Loganair flight LM711 isn’t the most comfortable experience.Įight passengers squeeze into a cabin the size of a VW camper van. Below, the ground slips away, to be replaced by aquamarine waters. Then, as the pilot pulls back on the yoke, it skips into the air and begins banking to the right in a wide turn back on itself. The little aircraft sprints down the gravel for a few hundred meters. Two propellers, visible through the windows on either side, spin noisily into life. The pilot, who is just inches away from his passengers, reaches up and flicks the metallic toggle switches that fire up his engines.
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