Unst/Baltasound Airport | |||||||||||
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Summary | |||||||||||
Airport type | Private | ||||||||||
Owner/Operator | Shetland Islands Council | ||||||||||
Serves | Unst | ||||||||||
Location | Baltasound | ||||||||||
Elevation AMSL | 62 ft / 19 m | ||||||||||
Coordinates | 60°44′49″N0°51′17″W / 60.74694°N 0.85472°W | ||||||||||
Map | |||||||||||
Runways | |||||||||||
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Unst Airport also called Baltasound Airport is an unlicensed airfield near Baltasound, on the island of Unst, Shetland Islands, Scotland. The airfield has effectively been mothballed since 1996 and is now only used by the emergency services. Unst Airport is the most northerly airfield in the United Kingdom.
Unst Airport opened in August 1968 although its official opening happened in 1970. The airport was built by the 15 Field Squadron (Search) RE of the Royal Engineers.
In 1996 the oil rig operators decided to concentrate their resources at Scatsta Airport on the Shetland Mainland. The last scheduled flights to the airport were withdrawn on March 29, 1996, and the airport was mothballed. After the airport was mothballed the airport's control tower and terminal building were subsequently demolished.
Currently Unst Airport is only used by the emergency services for occasional Air Ambulance flights. There are no scheduled flights operating from Unst Airport.
In 2013 it was reported that the American oil giant Chevron was looking into the possibility of re-opening the airport for use with the Rosebank oil and gas field. [1] The Shetland Space Centre intends to incorporate it into a local space industry hub, and in 2019 a space balloon has been launched from it. [2]
Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is an archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands, and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom.
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The North Isles are the northern islands of the Shetland Islands, Scotland. The main islands in the group are Yell, Unst and Fetlar. Sometimes the islands in Yell Sound are included in this group.
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Scatsta Airport, was a commercial airport on the island of Mainland, Shetland in Scotland located 17 nautical miles north of Lerwick and 5 mi (8 km) southwest of Sullom Voe Terminal.
Baltasound is the largest settlement on the island of Unst in Shetland, Scotland. It comes from the Old Norse man's name Balti (Baltisund). Unst is the most northerly inhabited island in the United Kingdom. The village lies halfway along the island's east coast on a sheltered bay called Balta Sound.
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Dr. Thomas Edmondston Saxby, Esq. (1869-1952) was a Scottish medical doctor, working on Unst, the most northerly of the Shetland Islands, and an ornithologist.