Places to visit in Ireland
 

Hi All,

Thinking of planing a flying trip to Ireland later this summer; should be about 5 days and will originate in the South West of England (about 1:45 from Dublin). Aeroplane will handle grass or hard runways over 600m long, has a range of 450 Nm and I'd like to see the countryside and stay in some nice hotels along the way. Any suggestions or relevant experience to offer?

Many thanks

3 Point

Firstly, plan the trip bearing in mind fuel is not 100LL is not available at all airfields. Where it is, it is very expensive.

Coming from SW England and heading for Dublin, think about Newcastle - lovely 900m grass N/S runway right on the coast south of Dublin. Marriots Druids Glen Hotel & Golf Course on the doorstep. Easy to get into Dublin. John Nugent will give you a warm welcome and has 100LL fuel.

Kilkenny is a lovely 900m E/W grass runway. No fuel. Beautiful compact ancient city. Good shopping, plenty of top rate hotels.

If you can get up north don't forget Enniskillen - certainly in the top 5 most picturesque circuit in Europe. You can also purchase duty free fuel as you head back into the republic. Then Donegal or Sligo for the wild west.

Hotel prices are quite competitive at the moment.

Further info can be found here : Home | Flying In Ireland Magazine

The Arann Islands off the west coast might be a nice one to visit, you could catch the Cliffs of Moher on the way out as well. However, the runways are a little shorter than you've specified Inisheer and Inishmore being 520m and and Inishman being 545m.

Don't go near Galway - you'll need a mortgage to get out after the fees and fuel cost !

Some great suggestions here, thanks to all. I'll try to post a report after I go if anyone's interested.

Thanks again and happy landings

3 Point

Inishbofin Island of Galways west coast. Beautiful Island with a BRAND new airport. Not sure if anyone has even landed on the newly laid 550M tarmac runway.
www.inishbofin.com www.inishbofin.ie

The airport has been built in conjunction with another airport on the main land (near alcock and brown landing site in Clifden) in order to supply a much needed air service to the people of Inishbofin Island and tourism.
The tender has yet to go out to find an operator for this new service.

Send an email to this address to get your PPR and permission to land.
Enjoy, Connemara is a beautiful place. :ok:
[email protected]
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Any Helicopter Pilots reading this and are visiting Ireland I would Highly reccomend staying at renvyle house hotel or Abbeyglen(which has JET A1 for sale). www.renvyle.ie www.abbeyglen.ie

G-Hale
 

Are you saying that Inishboffin is open for visitors?

If so, can you regive the email address for PPR...it hasn't come out in your post correctly.

A number of people on the Flying in Ireland forum tried to get PPR from the Dept of Transport last year without success.

dp

And if Inishbofin is open does that mean Clifden is open too ?

PPR details for Clifden would be appreciated (if it is open).

Holyflyer,

I very much doubt that Clifden is open. I over flew it earlier this year, and it seemed a long way from completion (unlike Inishboffin which looked complete apart from runway markings and a terminal building).

dp

Thanks DP - I'm off to the wild west and sunny south east this Friday. Would have been nice to put a new field in the book.

If you ever decide to stop on the east side of the country, let me know ;)

I live about 10 minutes from Weston Airport.

When you're in the west, don't forget to pop across the border to Enniskillen for some duty free fuel. It's just £1.19 pl at the moment, so certainly a lot cheaper than in the Republic!

dp

G-hale,

I tried that email address, but it bounces back as a failed email address. Does it contain a typo?

dp

Send request for PPR for Inishbofin to both of these emails :
Fill in the spaces. at = @

gaeltachtnaforbacha at pobail . ie
eolas at pobail . ie

Goodluck & Runway markings / Taxi way markings are complete on Inishbofin and terminal is under construction. Its a fine place.

Clifden not ready for landing's yet!

I got a reply from those email addresses stating that Inishboffin is not open to aircraft yet.

They state that work is now starting on the terminal at Inishboffin and as such they do not want aircraft landing there, which I think is understandable.

They expect it to be open in the later half of next year.

dp

Did a touring holiday around Ireland in 2003 - in a 182 which needs a little less space than you stated, and as has already been pointed out would mean the Aran Islands wouldn't be possible.

The route is as follows....with night stops being annotated with *

Waterford*
Cork*
Shannon*
Innishsheer
Innishmaer
Innishmore
Conemara*
Galway*
Abeyshrule
Weston* (For Dublin)

Always double check ahead to make sure that where you're going has fuel available. Nearly got caught out by planning to go somewhere they said they had fuel only to discover by NOTAM than 100LL wasn't available.

Can't comment on prices now, but back then they were reasonable. (Including Galway). Accomodation wise, nothing was booked in advance. While I sorted out the aeroplane and paid fees, Mrs Duchess got the guidebook out and sorted out the accomodation. In August, I think the only place we didn't get our first choice was in Dublin - but what we ended up with was very nice anyway.

IIRC, you are required to file a plan for every flight in Ireland, though this is usually very simple to do with a phone call.

All the times I've been I've found the controllers and airfield staff very helpful and courteous.

Had a great time. You'll love every minute of it.

Dont bother with Inishboffin (YET)
 

Asked as suggested and ....

refer to your application for permission to land your private aircraft at Inishbofin Airstrip. While work on the airstrip itself is complete, the Department is now proceeding with the next phase of the development, i e. the construction of terminal buildings at Inishbofin and Cleggan. In the circumstances, permission to land private aircraft at either of these locations is not being granted at this time.

I regret therefore that I am not in a position to accede to your request.


Yours sincerely

Irish

Thanks to all for the continuing suggestions. I'm now at the stage of poring over charts and putting together an itinerary. The aeroplane will be a Gardan Horizon which I have just bought and I set 600m as an initial minimum field length before I had actually flown the thing; I still don't have many hours on it but I will be addressing that before I go anywhere; it's already cleat that it can handle significantly shorter runways so I have more flexibility than I thought at first.

Thanks again to all who have offered suggestions.

Happy landings

Hoping to visit the west of Ireland this spring. Does anyone know the latest situation re Inishbofin and Clifden Airfields.

I went to Weston (Dublin) a couple of weeks ago. A very friendly, convenient and civilised place.

A gentleman there introduced me to the "Sister in Law Principle" - a very sensible Irish approach to dealing with officialdom.

Bill