Geoff McMahon's record breaking HG XC flight 9/04/2006

The whole chain of events leading up to me achieving this flight started by me making a significant error of judgement. On Sunday, the 9* of April there was a hang gliding competition at Ml leinster but after looking the 9 o'clock forecast the previous night and worse again, believing It, I decided to avoid the 3-hour drive because I thought it would be blown out. Bad mistake. As it turned out the day was the best day of the year thus far and many of the guys got really good XCs in. Needless to say I was gutted. The forecast for the following day, Monday was more promising and I was absolutely determined if at all possible to go XC. So much so that I hardly got any sleep Sunday night Monday's forecast was looking better with South Westerly winds forecast I had everything prepared the previous night with Vario and GPS batteries fully charged. I arrived at Arra at 11 with the wind coming from a northerly direction and light but I rigged the glider anyway in the hope that it would come around as forecast.
By 13.00 the wind had come around to a more westerly direction and it was still very light. However there was good Cumulous over the hill at that stage and I decided to give it a go. It was still early at that stage and I had decided that even if I bombed out I would have time for another go afterwards. I launched into a thermal around 13:30 and spent about 5 minutes scratching until I got a reasonable core and headed skyward. Once sufficiently high I headed in the direction of Nenagh.
At that stage the only area with cloud was Arra and downwind over Nenagh and beyond there was nothing but blue. But Nenagh had got me up on previous cross-country flight and I was willing to take the chance and fly over the town. Sure enough I got a thermal at the downwind side and I milked it for all it was worth and from then on the direction of my flight was dictated by cloud formation, which was beginning to show at this stage. There was never an abundance to choose from but by flying conservatively and not moving on until I had milked the very last bit of lift out of what I was in. I was able to stay reasonably high. I got quite low between Nenagh and Roscrea and I thought at that stage that it was over.
I unzipped early so as to fully concentrate of finding lift until the last minute and at about 800 feet I got a broken thermal which I kept annoying until it relented and provided me with enough height so I could move on. I continued north of Roscrea, over the south side of the Slieve Bloom mountains. South of Portlaoise and on towards Athy. Through most of the flight the sky ahead did not look the best but any bit of cloud I went to seemed to have some bit of lift And by the time I was high enough to move on there was usually something else that had formed that I could head off to.
As I progressed I was passing various personal milestones. I had the Goto function on the GPS set to Arra so I was continually able to see the distance I had covered. Between Slieve Bloom and Portlaoise I passed my previous personal best of 64k. Between Portlaoise and Athy I had beaten Daryn's 73k. which was the longest flight of recent years.
It was only when I had got to North of Athy and the GPS showed 100 Km covered that I started to allow thoughts of beating Eds' flight into my head. I flew extra conservativly from then on. Chances like this do not come around very often and I didn't want to blow it I didn't want a repeat of the slagging I got when I admitted to leaving a thermal and winding down after flying 40 miles in 2004 when I mistakenly believed I was over goal. (It was an open XC comp) It was after 5 at that stage and the sky was beginning to shut down. I got my last thermal about Halfway between Athy and Blessington Lake which got me to 5OOOft. After a long glide and a lot of buttock clenching I landed at Valleymount near Blessington at I7:50. After a flight of 4 hours and 20 minutes my GPS was showing a distance of 130KM. Needless to say I was absolutely thrilled. I couldn't believe I had gotten so far.
I rang Ned Sullivan and Eimear Comerford who were on Arra when I took off. They were beginning to wonder where the hell I had gotten to at that stage. I rang a few more people to relay the news and the word went around very quickly.
Sure enough the phone was hopping after that and it nearly took me 2 hours to de-rig the glider.
Many thanks to Ken Hickey who collected my glider and to Eimear Comerford who drove from Arra to colect me.
Stats:
Glider: Aeros Combat L (Aeros. probably the best Glider manufacturer in the World)
Harness: Aeros Viper
Vario: Brauniger IQ comp Gps
GPS: GarminGpsl2
Distance: 80.43 miles / 129.52Kilometers.
Right time:4 hours, 20 minutes.

Eoin Hogan's 61km flight from Mt. Leinster to Blessington 25/04/2004

I arrived at launch with the HGs rigged and ready to fly and thermals
blowing in every few minutes. The wind was varying from SW to S as the
thermals hit.

Jason called the task at 14:15, a race to Ballon (14km approx). The
race window was opened at 14:30 and by that stage all the HGs had all
taken off and we're well on their way to goal. We all laid out at the
normal top launch site just NW of the mast itself. Jason and Finbar were
first in the air and seemed to be maintaining in a mixture of ridge
soaring and thermals. I waited for the next thermal to come through and
launched. By the time I launched, Jason was below take-off but Finbar was
maintaining in front of the mast on its southerly side. I ridge soared
in that direction and got a mixture of lift and sink getting to a
maximum of 500ft ATO and then loosing it all again! The thermals were
coming from the south over the saddle but I was afraid to circle in them
in case I got blown back into the mast so I faced into wind put the
brakes on and got as much height as I could and headed back across the
face where Charlie had just taken off from and was getting good lift in
front of take-off. Once I was a couple of hundred feet ATO I started
circling in a good thermal and got to base (1400ft ATO) I turned down
wind and saw Finbar had done the same and was ahead of me to the east. I
headed straight for the westerly car park in constant lift under the big
cloud that covered most of Mount Leinster. Once over the Westerly car
park the cloud started to break up and I headed for the next cloud,
losing a couple of hundred feet getting there but easily gaining it when
I arrived under the next cloud.

When I got to Myshall I was still at cloud base circling under a cloud
and letting myself be blown down wind. I didn't have a map with me but I
knew that Ballon was the next town after Myshall down wind so I headed
that direction. Over Ballon I again got another thermal which I circled
in right to base. I felt I had two options at this stage, either head in
the direction of Carlow or Tullow. I chose Tullow because the clouds
looked a bit better over that direction and there was less gaps between
them. The flight continued in this vain. I would arrived under a cloud,
thermal up to base and point down wind. Once I'd left the cloud I put on
speed bar and headed for the next decent cloud downwind. It was a bit
blue over Tullow so I headed for a couple of shiny roofs and then right
over the town towards a factory roof but got nothing. I was 1200ft below
take off now and had eyed up a GAA pitch as a possible landing field as
a back-up if the final cloud I targeted didn't work. I arrived under it
and there was minimal lift (0.5 metres per second) but I circled in it and
tightened up when the lift strengthened and again got to base.

Luckily I had driven the N81 home from Mount Leinster on Saturday and I
knew as the crow flies its pretty northerly so I decided to follow it as
best I could towards Baltinglass. I got at least 1 more thermal between
Tullow and Baltinglass and then picked a cloud to the east of the town
and went for it. This was another low save, I arrived 1000ft BTO and
slowly worked myself back to base. By the time I arrived at base I was
over the ring fort on top of Coolinarrig and could clearly see
Blessington Lakes. Next stop was Donard and a plane passed to the east
of me. I then altered my course to a more northerly direction because I
didn't want to have to fly over any of the Wicklow Mountains. I saw Naas
in the distance and headed that direction.

I got two more thermals and I could see Punchestown Race Course. It was
then I saw my second plane and it occurred to me that I must would be
heading in the direction of Weston and Baldonnel.

At this stage the clouds were thinning out and there we're no more
clouds north of me, there were a few to the west but I knew that I
wouldn't gain any distance by going west so I decided to get as close to
Blessington Town as possible. I knew there were a number of fields just
south of the town so I aimed for the nearest field to the Valleymount
turn off the N81. I arrived over the fields and choose one with no sheep
or power lines and landed at 17:45 approx.

I turned on my phone and got a load of text messages and a number of
missed calls from a concerned father who thought I was hanging from a
tree somewhere! I called Dara, confirmed my whereabouts, packed my gear
and headed to Hennessy's in Blessington Village for a well earned pint.

Finally I'd like to say a few "thank-you". Thanks to Dara for
encouraging me to go to Leinster and not to ridge soar around Lough Bray
for the afternoon, for lending me a jacket and for doing retrieve. I'd
also like to thank Jason for returning my call on Sunday morning and
recognising the potential of the day and telling me to get down there to
Leinster ASAP! I'd also like to thank Finbar for being the only one to
think that I could still be in the air at 16:30 and not stuck in the
boonies somewhere!

Congratulations to all who made goal and those who did their first XC.
All in all an amazing day and a great start to the season.