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FOR more than half a century Bahrain has been an important aviation hub, from the flying boats of the 1930s to the first flight of Concorde in 1976.
Now a book commemorating this impressive history is being planned to coincide with the island's first international airshow and organisers want GulfWeekly readers to come up with pictures, mememtoes and stories of flying in Bahrain.
Way back in the 1920s Imperial Airways, forerunner to BOAC and later British Airways, was making unscheduled test flights sometimes carrying passengers, throughout the Gulf.
The first Imperial Airways flight to Bahrain is recorded in April 1927 when a local pearl merchant chartered a De Havilland plane to fly to the island from Baghdad, Iraq.
And the first commercial flight was reported in October 1932 when a Handley Page HP-42, Hannibal, touched down en-route between London and Dehli.
The plane carried just 24 passengers and the journey from London had taken several days but it was enough to mark the beginning of the establishment of Bahrain as the Gulf's first international airport.
Flying boats arrived on the island in the late 1930s operating from a 'landing strip' which ran from the present day Marina Club across to Mina Salman and dominated the local airways until the early 1950s with BOAC running several services a week through Bahrain including Karachi and Sydney.
The year 1950 saw BOAC return to flying more conventional aircraft out of the ever-growing airport at Muharraq and, just as importantly for local travellers, the formation of new local airline, Gulf Aviation company which was later to become Gulf Air.
Bahrain was soon established as an important international staging post and in 1954 came the installation of modern navigational equipment to cover much of the Gulf followed a few years later by the advent of the jet age which made Bahrain even more important as a stopover point and led to the expansion of the airport with a new passenger terminal opened in 1961.
To hold on to its position as a leading regional airport, Bahrain expanded further in 1971 which brought in many major international airlines.
And in 1976 there was that historic occasion when BA's supersonic Concorde travelled to the island on its first official flight.
Over the years there have been several further expansions and the airport can now handle millions of visitors per year with the latest overhaul currently under way.
And Bahrain is not just important for commercial aviation.
The island has also welcomed British and US Air Force aircraft with much testing being carried out around the island and from humble beginnings in the late 1970s the kingdom's own air force is now a force to be reckoned with.
The air branch of the Bahrain Defence Force was organised in the late 1970s and began flying helicopters in the early 1980s before the force was reorganised into separate Army, Navy and Air Force wings in 1987 and is today battle-capable to defend the island should the need arise.
The planned book, brainchild of Shaikh Hamad bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa who was involved in the birth of the Royal Bahrain Air Force, will tell the story of flights on the island through pictures.
And Julian Clarke-Jervoise, who is managing the project in Bahrain, wants to hear from island residents who have memories of their early flights and pictures and memorabilia such as menus and flight timetables.
He can be contacted by email on Julian.cj@histoav.com or by telephone on 39541003.
