History
The airport was built and commissioned in 1940 as RAF Grimsetter for the defence of the Scapa Flow naval base. In 1943 the Royal Naval Air Service took over, as RNAS Kirkwall then HMS Robin. Control passed in 1948 to the Ministry of Civil Aviation and in 1986 to Highlands and Islands Airports.
Read more about this topic: Kirkwall Airport
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into the shade.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“While the Republic has already acquired a history world-wide, America is still unsettled and unexplored. Like the English in New Holland, we live only on the shores of a continent even yet, and hardly know where the rivers come from which float our navy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The principal office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.”
—Tacitus (c. 55–c. 120)