Strathaven Airfield

A small grass airfield located at Couplaw, 1½ miles (2.5 km) west of Strathaven in South Lanarkshire. Strathaven Airfield is privately-owned and specialises in recreational flying, for small aircraft and microlites.

The Scottish Flying Club bought Couplaw Farm in 1964 for £7000 to replace their base at the former Renfrew Airport. The farmhouse was re-purposed as a club-room. In 1979, on its demise, the Flying Club gave the airfield to the RAF Benevolent Fund to ensure its continued use for flying. In 2005, now being very little used and costing the charity money, the RAF Benevolent Fund sold the airfield to Colin MacKinnon, whose microlight flying school had been based at Cumbernauld Airport. Later MacKinnon transferred Strathaven to a revived Scottish Flying Club, now operating as a not-for-profit company.

Over the years several flying clubs have been based here including the Scottish Parachute Club, West of Scotland Flying Club, Glasgow and Strathclyde University Gliding Club, the Rutherglen Flying Group and the Strathclyde Gliding Club.

In 2019, Mackinnon and his partner Marta Briongos built a startlingly-modern corrugated aluminium-clad house next to the airfield, designed by architect Richard Murphy (b. 1955).


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