The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Teacher’s flying visit to school
Boring morning commute? Not for the Orkney teacher, who travels to work on the world’s shortest scheduled flight. Acting head teacher Karl Simpson has been commuting to Papa Westray School from his home in South Ronaldsay for the past two years.
He flies out on Monday morning and back on Friday afternoon, staying on the island during the working week.
Karl starts his week with a 12-minute flight from Kirkwall to Westray, where any other passengers are picked up. Then the eight-seater Earl Thorfinn the Mighty takes off again for the two-minute flight – including taxiing – over to Papa Westray.
At 1.7 miles, the Westray to Papa Westray flight is recognised by Guinness World Records as the world’s shortest scheduled flight.
The quickest flight with Karl on board was just 87 seconds. The all-time record is 53 seconds.
He has a car on Papa Westray that he leaves at the airfield on Fridays and picks up on Monday morning on his way to school.
Karl admits to a sense of boyish excitement at the start of each week ahead of his out-of-theordinary commute.
However, although he avoids the drudgery of bus stops and gridlock traffic, the island weather can make for some hairraising journeys.
“If the weather’s particularly bad and it’s a very bumpy flight,
you do think, oh crikey, why do I have to do this again?,” said Karl.
“When it’s windy and you’re taking off sideways, landing sideways, bumping your head on the roof as it bounces. But otherwise, it’s a bit like a flying bus service really.
“One time, because of snow and squalls, instead of taking 12 minutes to get in to Westray, it took us an hour and 20 minutes – which is quite a long time in the air in a very little plane.
“Over the last couple of years I’ve seen the windsock at the airfield getting gradually shorter as the wind destroys it.
“I once asked one of the pilots ‘at what point do you stop flying because of the wind?’
“And he said, ‘well, when we get to the point where we’re scraping the wing tips along the runway, it tends to affect people’s confidence in the service’.
“But I think the pilots can land anywhere in almost any weather.”