Microlight Island Hop

EVENT REPORT - 6th-7th & 8th July

Friday evening around 4:00pm, 4 microlights set off from Letterkenny, a C42, a Rans S6, an X-Air Hawk and an X-Air Falcon to make the trip south to Birr. The cloudbase was about 2000 feet and after flying through some light showers we broke through to quite a good afternoon and made the first leg of the journey and stopped off at Connie Kiernan’s strip at Granard in Co.Longford. Quite a strong wind was apparent on arrival and some heavy showers blew through, we refuelled some of the aircraft and after a call to Kevin at Birr we took off again.

Showery conditions prevailed until we were south of Abbeyshrule and it was good from there down. We arrived at Birr and at this point we had one aircraft there, that was Mike Birchell and his wife who flew their immaculate Pioneer 300 over from Cardiff. We tied down for the night and made our way to Birr, had a look on the internet at the weather for Saturday and it did not look too bad with a high ridge coming through.

On Saturday morning we were greeted with Damien in the X-Air and soon afterwards some more aircraft began to appear, including the real hero's, that was the flex-wing guys from Newtownards. The weather had taken a turn for the better and was looking very good. After a hectic couple of hours we had set up the booking in and the briefings. At this point in time we had over 20 aircraft and crews from all over enjoying Breakfast courtesy of Birr flying club. After the initial briefing was

over I took off on a direct route for Innishmann, flew around one big shower and from that point on we had wall to wall sunshine for the rest of the event.... fantastic !..

Aircraft were dispatched from Birr in groups and made their way along the route, trying to work out the ETA for the Aran Islands, this was the first stage in the competition. Our lads were on the ground in Spanish point before the first crews arrived and had the re-fuelling underway as required. Shortly after 11:am the first aircraft appeared on finals on 33, Innishmann... Mike Birchell in the Pioneer and done a touch and go and off to Innishmore to do likewise and returned to Innishmann about 40 minutes later. By this time we had three Sambas landed on the Islands and duely parked up on the Grass runway at the top. The sun at this point was very warm and it was a beautiful summers day and the general chatter was of an extraordinary flight to the islands with stunning views... many of which we saw later on in the many hundreds of photographs taken by the crews. A rest followed and then a phone call stating that the 2nd batch had left Spanish point and were routing north for the Islands... we must at this point thank Shannon Low level controllers, they were absolutely fantastic and helped us in every possible way. C42's,Skyrangers,Hawks,Lambadas and more Sambas followed in and all arrival times taken for the competition.

Most crews made their way to the local hotel and had a meal. The 3rd,4th and 5th batch of aircraft made their way to the islands and the last aircraft arrived slightly after 4pm..

33 Aircraft and 1 helicopter had made the Island hop trip and one Air Aran flight in the Islander landed when we were all parked up. It was quite a sight to behold, all aircraft parked up on the Islands. Alan & Mark Dwyer were among the crews and taking many pictures for the Flying in Ireland magazine and they were the first to depart to obtain aerial shots of all the planes on the ground. We presented 445 euro to the Aran Island lifeboat appeal before departing, the first aircraft departed the Islands at 5:00pm and each crew did their own thing after that.... many did touch and go at Innishmore and routed overhead a spectacular Galway bay across to Spiddle and routed down the coast to Galway airport for either touch and go or a full landing. Others routed directly back to Birr.

At 17:50 the first aircraft entered the circuit at Birr for phase 2 of the competition, an accuracy landing, a glide approach followed by a proper landing, no engine power, no bouncing.... well that was the brief in any case !.... good fun was had watching that one. Some excellent landing were made, some not so excellent & some bloody terrible !...

At 19:05 the final aircraft touched down at Birr, all safely back home or home to their base strips. We began calculating the timed route element and awarded points according to the judges for the landings and then introduced part 3 of the competition, write a Limerick to be read later that evening at the prize-giving on the theme "Island Hop".

We all departed Birr airfield to go and have a well deserved meal before all meeting at Pilkertons bar and lounge for the prizegiving and evenings fun.

We all met up together that evening and set up the projector and all pictured from all the crews were downloaded to a laptop and viewed during the evening. The Limerick's were read by their authors, some great rhymes were presented and the winners read out. First place went to Tracey Birchell with a 3 verse limerick which was brilliant.
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The timed event was very close in fact the top 3 were within 5 minutes of the projected ETA.
3rd place was Liam Black from Netownards in his Flexwing
2nd place was Michael Tolan from Crossmolina in the X-Air
1st place was Peter Sheehy from Letterkenny in the X-Air Falcon
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The Accurate landing competition was also quite close, but a worthy winner
3rd place was Michael McCrudden from Newtownards in his Skyranger
2nd place was Robert Dunlevey from Donegal in his X-Air Hawk
1st place was Richard Skelton & student Ray McLaughlin from Derry/Armagh in their C42
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Furtherest traveled 2 stroke was Kevin Kelly from Letterkenny in the Rans S6 503
Unusual Arrival was also Kevin Kelly in the S6, excellent x-wind made it interesting !!
Furtherest travelled aircraft was Mike Birchell in the Pioneer 300
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The Top Gun trophy was won on the collective points gained in all 3 disciplines of the event, the winners were
Richard Skelton & student Ray McLaughlin from Derry/Armagh in their C42

Other small prizes were also awarded on the night, it was a great social night to end what was a great event and all crews that took part expressed a great satisfaction and enjoyment they got from participating. We have been left in no doubt that the event will be an annual fixture from now on and we have learned many things by staging it. This review of the event would not be in anyway complete without expressing our thanks to a few people.
First of all thanks to Birr airfield for hosting it, to Kevin Glynn & Damien Minnock my other 2 main organizers, for really pulling out the stops and doing a hell of a lot of ground work to facilitate it, thanks to Shannon low level controllers who worked with us all the way and treated us with the up-most respect and professionalism, and I think we replicated that sentiment, all crews radio work was impeccable. Thanks to the lads at Spanish point for the re-fuelling duties and the use of the airfield, thanks to the residents of the Islands, to Air Aran who really worked with us and helped us in every way, to the staff at Connemara airport who's controllers were excellent. We must mention all the staff at Galway airport who not only waived all the transit fees but all the landing fees too and were extremely helpful when transiting the zone. To the event sponsors, without them this would not have happened, to the NMAI for sponsoring all the prizes and we now have the NMAI annual shield to award each year. To everyone at Birr airfield on duty at the fuel pumps, the fire tenders, for the cooks for breakfast, for ferry cars getting everyone to and from the town. We wont thank anyone else, we will definitely have forgotten someone... you know who you are..in a word THANKS !

This review is being written the day after the event, we are still on a high, its a way too early to begin thinking about
"Island hop '08"... or is it... I think it wont be too long before plans will be laid down for it. All crews that took part this year have requested we do it again and no doubt they will take part, the weather really made it difficult leading up to the event, some UK guys were stranded over on the mainland and could not make it across, what started out with over 70 registrations resulted in a 50% drop, still very worth-wile considering the weather we had leading up to it... next year will be better.
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Regards,
Island Hop Team
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Write up courtesy of http://www.irishflyin.com/
Many thanks

Photographs and Video will be put up very soon for you all to see