Pilot reviews of Scilly Isles Airfield

Nice place to visit. Up hill landing could catch you out, ATC very good. Quite busy. £15 landing fee.

My first visit to the islands since the extensive upgrade to facilities (C172). Runway 09/27 is now all tarmac and this together with the new tarmac apron and taxiways gives the airfield a very new feel. The uphill slope at the thresholds can be a bit of a shock if you haven't been there before but are perfectly ok with a little adjustment to your approach technique. ATC are very helpful and will usually let you do a practice fly through if you ask and traffic permits. The Terminal is now very new and modern with good café and facilities. Taxis are available at the terminal for the trip to the town or if you prefer their is a nice walk down a footpath to the old town and beach with nice café and restaurant.

Visited on 3rd May from Bristol. The landing is a bit tricky but ATC was friendly and happy for us to have a fly around the islands on departure before we headed back to the mainland. This is an attractive place, both from the air and if you walk into town. The only shame was the fees - £33.12 for a PA28 and around 5 hours parking is a lot, especially when you consider that for most people it would have already been an expensive flight just to get there. Still, this is a fantastic place to visit and definitely one I will return to.

I flew in on 5th March 2012 in a PIPER PA28 at F.L.060 on Culdrose LARS who passed me to Lands End tower for clearance along the Transit Corridor,(see separate plate for this), and made a gradual descent to the airfield. The runway in use was 32 with a surface wind of 300 15knots. Owing to turbulence below 1500 feet I added 5 knots to my approach speed. I rounded out over the numbers but floated somewhat being shielded from the wind by the "hump" in the runway. On touchdown I applied moderate braking and then passed over the hump in the runway to see precious little asphalt left, but did stop in good time to turn off left onto the grass parking area as instructed by the tower.

CAUTION, try to land on or close to the numbers and apply moderate braking immediately! This also applies to runway 27 which I used for take off three days later (when the wind was more westerly). When lined up on the threshold of runway 27 you can only see about 200 metres ahead owing to the "hump" in the airfield, and the surface becomes grass after crossing runway 32. Braking action on this grass section may be poor especially when wet, and because there are sections of fibre matting to bind the surface.

Landing fee was £18.10 and parking £8.15 per night all plus VAT. There is no avgas available here! They provide concrete blocks with tie down ropes. There is a very nice airport cafe serving cornish pasties etc and all of the airport staff were very friendly.

This was my second visit, but the first time my wife and our greyhounds had been and we were all totally smitten by this charming island and its wonderful airfield.

The flight from Perranporth is easy - follow the Land's End, LND VOR to St Martin's lighthouse VRP and then to the airfield. You will get a service from Culdrose, Lands End and Isles of Scilly for the whole crossing.

Whichever runway you land on, expect to land uphill at about 1 in 13, and go over the top to a similar downhill! The airfield is on top of the main hill and is actually easier than it sounds - most "tricky" airfields are because you concentrate that much harder.

Grass parking adjacent to the terminal and a charge of about £22 for landing/parking is very reasonable, but don't forget, there is no Avgas available at the airfield. Lots of commercial flights (S61 helicopters, Twin Otters and Islanders - about 18 movements/hour whilst we were there) so you can be entertained whilst eating at the outdoor tables of the super cafe with magnificent views over the island. Good food at a very reasonable cost.

A short walk takes you into town and you can feel the relaxation as you seem to go back in time.

Definitely one of my favourite UK airfields - just wish it was closer to our base in Blackpool....!

Superb destination in good weather. Helpful ATC who were most accommodating. Landing fee on the PA38 was steep at £18 and more than 2 hours parking was another £8. There is no fuel at St. Mary's so take plenty with you. We took too much and struggled to get airborne on departure!

The runways are short and humped in the middle making both landing and take off interesting.

ATC kindly allowed us to make a wide circuit of the islands on departure to take in all the views.

It only takes 10 minutes to walk from the airport down to the town centre where there are plenty of eateries.

The coast path makes a pleasant way of enjoying the views on the main island.

A grand day out, definitely looking forward to going again!

This was a brilliant venue for the PFA Devon Strut's fly-out. 15 a/c made the trip, for which a group discount on landing fees was arranged. Some visitors from East Devon staged through Lands End for fuel; others went direct from Bodmin. It was very busy with commercial holiday traffic - twin Otters, Islanders and Sea Kings transiting at low level (ca 1,000 or 1,500ft) and GA being routed at 2,500ft or above (so plenty of opportunities for being spotted & picked up if anyone ditched. No-one did!). Scilly ATC were very helpful, offering inbound & outbound site-seeing routings round the islands. Other than Nayland, St Marys' runways must be the closest we have in the UK to altiports. Be ready to open the throttle over the thresholds to avoid the "clutching hand"!

A single day doesn't do justice to the islands, that offer restaurants, pubs, walks, bird-watching, boat trips to view seals, basking sharks, turtles etc and sub-tropical plant life. No a/c movements on Sundays (other than with additional insurance excemption) so plan for long weekends...