Into the blue

Today was Baird of Bute Day - the annual celebration of Andrew Blain Baird, the Rothesay blacksmith who built and flew the first all Scottish heaver than air machine at the island's Ettrick Bay in September 1910.

I have pictured Chris Markwell before - the  founder, driver and inspiration for the event (the first of which was held in 2010)  , the society that grew from it and the awards and student scholarships which are a wonderful contribution to the island , to Scotland and to the prospects of young  scientists.  This year the studentships, now supported by Education Scotland, were open for competition across Scotland and a new space scholarship was launched last night in tribute to William Leitch, a Rothesay man, who envisioned the use of rockets for space travel in a book he published in 1861.  

Leitch was given, posthumously, the innovation award last night and the aviation award went to Prof Iain Gray, who leads the Airspace Department at Cranfield  and was the UK Managing Director of Airbus.   Lord Smith of Kelvin spoke  as Patron of the Society and  the dinner was presided over by Chris and his wife Hazel , a distinguished scientist and ethicist who mentors the students  when they come to Canada for their study period.   

In previous years the Saturday after the dinner would have been given over to an air display with planes gathering at  the Kingarth airstrip  in the south of the island before flying over the site of that first flight.   

However the Shoreham Air Show tragedy has made it much more difficult to arrange such events so whilst Chris puts in place a new structure including an arms length events company which will be responsible for future days featuring actually flying we (I am now a Trustee of the charitable organisation set up by Chris ) had to cancel this year’s display. 

However a number of pilots  from various places including Prestwick wanted to come for their own gathering, so a small group of us went out to the air strip in superb clear weather and watched the planes landing and then met up with those had had come to honour Baird in their own way including this pilot who was practising aerobatics high up in a perfect blue sky.  

Chris gave each of them a photograph of a previous event here,  which I took in 2012,  to thank them for their tribute and to encourage them to come back next year, when we hope the formal flying events will resume. . 

My extra picture is of the marshalling area at the end of the grass strip, which looks over to Arran.