A Trip Report Across North West Ireland

As most of you will know by now I acquired a, new to me, aircraft last month. A Dyn Aero MCR4S. It arrived back in Ireland on 9 December, and I was looking forward to doing lots of flying in it over the Christmas break.

I’d managed two short flights (about 1 hour each) during the week that I brough it home. The weather wasn’t good, but I managed to do those two low level flights to help me get more used to the aircraft. But I was look forward to some time during my two week Christmas break to go a little further. I’d managed to find another small gap on 30 December where a short local flight was possible, when the rest of the country was under a low cloud base and rain.

But finally on 2 Jan, things were looking much better across the country, so I decided to reach out and see some sights in the north west that I’d not seen before. So hopefully this report has some sights that you’ve not seen in my trip reports before.

Departure was from EIKH Kilrush where the aircraft is now based.

It was a cold start. Minus 2 C on the ground. It was the first time flying it where I wasn’t restricted by cloud base nor complicated airspace. So I decided to take it up to FL80 just to make sure that there were no surprises when flying high. Best to do that over land rather than when crossing the sea, just in case something strange happened. Yes, I know it’s unlikely, but I’ve read “Fate is the Hunter” and he had just such an incident across the Pacific Ocean. Best to learn from other’s ‘mistakes’ ! I’ll expand my boundaries over land!

Unfortunately FL80 turned still wind on the ground into a solid 40kts head on headwind! Still I decided to stick with it to properly conduct my ‘test’. All worked perfectly.

Anything over FL75 is Class C in the Republic of Ireland.

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Just some random photos of the frosty Irish countryside.

I decided to wear my coat for this. It was cold and the ground (minus 2 C) and climbing to 8K feet wasn’t going to help! The heater had proven good on previous trips, but it never had to deal with this before and my experience of the 912ULS heater in the Savanah had me cautious. And I was right! Even with my coat, gloves and full heat, it was cold!

As I cross the border into Northern Ireland, some clouds started to appear. Whatever it is about the terrain here, I often find clouds here (particularly low clouds) when they aren’t a problem in the rest of the country. It was where I’d planned to start my descent in any case, and they didn’t prove too much of a problem just requiring a small bit of weaving.

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Emery Celtic Cross
https://www.irishhistory.com/ulster/liam-emerys-celtic-cross-killea-co-donegal/

Now, down to low level, I reach my first waypoint, right under the Derry Eglinton CTA. It’s Emery Cross. It’s a Celtic cross in a forest, that is only visible from above. It was made by a man called Liam Emery by planting Larch trees in the shape of the Celtic cross in a forest of evergreens. During the summer they look the same as everything else, but once autumn comes and the leaves of the larch change colour and fall off, so the cross stands out.

Unfortunately Liam died in 2011, five years before his cross first became visible to others.

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This is Burt Castle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burt_Castle

Constructed in the 1600 century.

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Some random photos of the north coast.

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Mallon Head

This is Mallon Head, the most northerly point of Ireland. I didn’t think I was going to make it as there was a very heavy shower here. Thankfully the head was just outside the worse of it and it was all heading south. So I could get where I wanted.

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EIRE 80 Marker
http://eiremarkings.org/about-the-coastal-watch/

Where I wanted to be, the most Northerly tip is this “Eire 80” sign. “Eire” is the name of Ireland in the Irish language, and 80 is the unique number attached to the location. They date back to World War II. The locations were watchout points to warn about possible German invasion from the sea, and the signs were later added as navigation markers.

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Some more random photos

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Fanad Head Signal Tower – A light house
https://www.irishlights.ie/safety-navigation/our-lighthouses/fanad-head.aspx

In 1812 the frigate Saldana was wrecked on Fannet Point, as it was called then, and became a total loss except for the ship’s parrot which bore a silver collar inscribed Saldana. So it was decided to build a light house and it first shone in 1817 and was subsequently expanded on a number of occasions.

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Doe Castle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doe_Castle

This is a fifteenth castle on a small peninsula. A little harder to find that I expected. I had to circle the spot in EasyVFR before I saw it. Many of these points, I don’t think I’d ever find, if it wasn’t for GPS.

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Glenveagh Castle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenveagh_Castle

This is a castle built between 1867 and 1873. It was not easy to photo and this photo obviously isn’t great and is taken from too high an altitude. The reason for that is because it sits in a small valley which steep sides. It’s also a short valley. So once I’d pass the castle, I’d need to climb rapidly to exit the valley. If some reason I wasn’t able to out climb the rising terrain (maybe a downdraft?) then I’d only find out near the end of the valley where it narrows, leaving too little room to comfortably turn. So this was taken from higher than I’d like. Ideally I’d enter the valley from the other end, which would allow a straight through exit without any climbing, but that would mean taking a photo from the other side of the aircraft. Really I’d need a passenger to take that to have any chance of a good photo. So this one will have to do!

To be honest, looking at the photos, it doesn’t look that tight, but in the moment it didn’t feel right to descend, so I didn’t! If my gut tells me not to do something, then I tend to listen! A photo isn’t worth taking a risk over!

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Some random photos on my way to Tory Island

It’s not just Dan that gets to take photos below the peeks of mountains, though this one isn’t as impressive as his!

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Tory Island
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tory_Island

This is a location that I’ve never been to before. It’s a small island off the north west coat of Ireland. 141 people lived here in 2022.
Coming out here is the main reason that I’m wearing a life jacket (as the eagle eyed among you might have spotted in an earlier photo) and carrying a raft.

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And this is its lighthouse.
https://www.irishlights.ie/tourism/our-lighthouses/tory-island.aspx

It was built in 1832.

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Random Tory photo

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I had to pick my way through the weather and terrain here. Most of the country was gloriously cloud free, but the north west seems to have a fair few showers and low cloud, including some large CBs. So these are just some random photos as I pick my way back.

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Drumskinny Stone Circle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drumskinny

The site was excavated in 1962 and is believed to have been built around 2000 BC.
It’s quite small and therefore quite hard to photo from the air.

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This is Castle Coole, an 18th century house.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Coole

I’ve included it in some of my previous trip reports, so it might be familiar to some of you (along with the remaining two sights).

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Belle Isle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_Isle_Castle

It’s an 18th century house, on an island in a lake.

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Crom Castle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crom_Castle

This castle was built in 1840, though a castle has existed on the site since 1611. Sorry for the poor photo. It was a last minute ‘spot’ that wasn’t on my original plan.

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Crichton Tower

This is a stone folly, built as a famine relief project in 1947 to serve as an observatory.
Not a great photo I admit! The diversion to photo Crom Castle left me less than well set up to photo this one.

So this was my first ‘scenic’ flight in my aircraft. It was great to actually get to use it and to see quite a number of places that I’d not seen before. Flight time was a little over 3 hours. I’m starting to become quite comfortable with the aircraft and finding that I need to think less and less about using the rudder to coordinate turns. More practice is needed for PFLs, but I practice east time I fly, so that is getting better too.

As always, I used EasyVFR to both help find the interesting sights to see, and then navigate to their location. It’s surprising just how many interesting sights I used to cruise over, oblivious to their presence beneath me, before this EasyVFR feature.

Also as always, apart from cropping and rotation, the photos are as they came off my phone, a Samsung Galaxy S22. Some are taken with the 1:1 lens and some with the 3:1 lens, thought the 3:1 lens tends to take worse photos than 1:1 cropped. Reflections are a problem now that I don’t have an openable window to take photos through.

I hope you guys enough the photos of my home country.