Geoff McMahon's 106km flight on 23/04/2011

At about 09:00 on Saturday Morning the sky over Ennis looked very promising even at that early stage & I made a decision to go flying. I rang the usual suspects over my way & the only Hangies heading out were going to the Galtees. I opted to go to the Devils Bit.
Despite travelling to the Bit for many years in search of a good XCs & coming home empty-handed, I knew this site had the potential. In the past Fran Denny flew 42 miles to
Baganelstown & Bernard Skelly few 63 miles to Hook Head. I thought to myself maybe
today my perseverance would pay off.

On arriving at the NW take off, the sky looked good & there were regular thermals
coming through but in between the cycles it the wind was light enough. After setting up
my glider, Dorin & Stephen arrived on the hill & as Cross Country flying was on all our
minds we exchanged phone numbers. (I was to do well from this exchange of information
as it turned out).

At about 13:00 I launched into what I thought was a good cycle & 2 minutes after
launch I was 80 feet below takeoff looking at the trees. The “Bit” isn’t a high site &
from a Hang Gliding perspective, if you get any more that 100 feet below take off after
launch then generally the landing field will usually be your destination. Flying out a
bit I made my first encounter with what was to turn out to be a House Thermal. This
got me comfortably above ridge height but after 20 min I was back down again to the
same location requesting a second save. And 10 minutes after that I was looking for save
number 3. But this time I got something a bit meatier & climbed to 1300 Meters. Happy
days I thought, I’m off.

The first thing the came very much to mind at the top of that first good climb was how
cold it was. It was about Zero degrees & I was only wearing a T-shirt under my flying
suit. Even my hands were cold & I was wearing good gloves. The second thing was that I
had no water with me & this could be an issue in the event that my flight was going to be
longer than usual.
Anyhow there was a reasonable amount of cloud about so I didn’t need to milk the lift
right up to Base. Thermals were roughish at took a bit of effort to work but for the first
hour of my XC progress was reasonably easy with a good source of cloud. However,
when I got to Freshford I was low. I picked out a landing field early so I could fully
concentrate on trying to get up. I was getting nothing from the town itself so I flew over
two adjoining tilled fields to the West of the Town & sure enough at 320 metres ASL I
got my first low save of the day.

Progress from Freshford to North of Kilkenny was easy enough but from that point there
was a sizeable blue hole in front of me which at the time I didn’t think I’d get the better
of. There was no indications in the sky for lift so I flew as efficiently as possible trying to
maximize my glide & also to fly over ground which might act as thermal generators. A

Couple of Kms North West of Gowran I was back down to 320 Metres Asl in search of
a save. As before at Freshford, flying over tilled fields provided me with the with the lift
source.

High again North of Gowran, I could relax a bit a take in the view. Leinster & the
Blackstairs were beginning to loom large in front of me. I knew that I had at least 45
miles in the bag at this stage & I progressed onward. For a while I was unsure what to
do. It was quite blue in front & I was considering trying to make it to the Bone setters
field for an easy retrieve. However I was soon tempted to deviate when I saw some cloud
forming west of the Diamond Field. Sure enough this worked & I milked the lift for all it
was worth. Whilst climbing I was looking out for anyone flying on Leinster & couldn’t
see anyone.

I then flew between Leinster & the blackstairs over the Scullogue Gap. I was still above
Mast Height as this stage & it was an amazing experience for me to make it to Leinster &
beyond on an XC without having to use either Leinster or the Blackstairs for lift. Smoke
from a fire indicated my next lift source & from then on progress was relatively easy until
I got near the river Slaney. I knew I could cross the river easily but there was nothing but
blue ahead & I would have to land shortly after that. It was also getting a bit turbulent at
this stage & I didn’t know it at the time but it was the sea breeze mixing it up with the
Higher Northwesterly airflow.

I picked out a massive field for landing & I knew the wind higher up was NW but
whenever I flew this direction over the field I was travelling far too fast. Then I realized
that there was a strong sea breeze & I would have to change my approach accordingly.
I picked the correct direction for landing but fatigue was a big factor as this stage due
being cold for a lot of the flight & having no Camelback. I didn’t flare hard enough I
came down heavy on the base bar. This type of landing would have made no impression
on an Aluminium Base Bar but alas, my base bar was made of Carbon. (The first question
a Hang glider pilot asks on meeting another HG pilot who flies with a Carbon Base bar
is “How many have you broke”). A rather expensive end to my flight but I wasn’t too
bothered. My GPS was telling me that I had covered 106KM.

Many thanks to Dorin who drove all the way from Templemore to pick me up. He was
thoughtful enough to pick up some fast food along the way. We didn’t get back to the hill
until 22:30 that night.

Record breaking flight 10/04/2011

The wind direction forecasted for the day and the reality were significantly different. So instead of SW we got SSE which meant we wouldn't be able to fly from Mt Leinster to Croghaun and a few other turn points as I'd planned the task the day before.
The new task consisted of the take off turn point and another one over Blackrock approx 3.5km away after which we had to fly the as far as possible. It was more like an XC task than a classical "race to goal".
Window opening was set up for 1 o'clock.
Big Mark - the CL leader - launched as the first one and bombed out few mins later. A bit later a few other pilots tried, of which Rafal "Vox" managed to stay in the air and after a long lasting fight he eventually regained the height and after getting into the take off cylinder headed towards the BR turn point. More pilots geared up and got in the air,
so did I.

I got in a strong thermal immediately. It was broken up and it took me a good while to ride it to the cloud base. I got quickly to the first cylinder and looked for the Blackrock where I could see Rafal Vox hovering pretty high. He left the hill way before I got there. On my way back I saw a few other gliders flying along the Blackrock ridge: Sebastian, Lubor, Greg and Big Mark who launched for the second time this day. It seemed like good company for a good XC.

It was my first time to fly with the lk8000 instead of my Garmin and I wasn't sure if I'd completed the BR turn point. I changed some settings and decided to fly into it again. That nearly grounded me as I couldn't make it back over the ridge. Then I noticed Seb around 100m away centering a thermal- that was my salvation!
While there was blue sky over the mast we had a pretty nice cloud street over Blackrock which worked excellently. I picked up a nice developing cloud and few mins later I could enjoy my favourite view: Mt Leinster mast from 1200m - gorgeous.

Now was the time for the most difficult decision: to leave the hill or not to leave? I left.
I stayed in one thermal until I passed Slaney river. Once it was gone I flew downwind under the cloud street coring every little lift and most of the time just 0m/s lift letting the wind push me further and further from Lenny.
I saw Lubor approx 200m below me and from now on we flew together for 20km helping each other in searching for any lift. Small gaggle is better than no gaggle.
While doing my best to stay in any lift I saw a hang glider (Jim Dowling) was approaching us from the south
and Seb to the north struggling hard along the small ridge. Jim caught up with us but was way higher. I tried to follow him whenever I saw him coring but Lubor kept searching on his own. Eventually Jim stayed in one thermal for a few more circles - it had to be a decent one. I got there quickly and availed of the same thermal - 3m/s to the base - sweet. I could relax a bit now. I couldn't find Sebastian. Jim disappeared somewhere in Keadeen direction. Lubor was at the base few kilometres in front of me. That gave me some comfort as I could just watch him and follow thermals that he marked. It worked just once.
While heading north I could see Lubor very low in desperate search for any lift in the Askanagap valley and before I caught up with him he was landed after 44.4km - less then 5km away from the TMT Award - what a pity!

I was getting lower and lower and when I got over Lubor I was below the tops surrounding the valley. I found a very broken thermal that I couldn't stay in. I got few collapses but managed to gain some height.
To the left I saw the Croaghanmoira hill that was just bathed in the sun. By its shape it looked like a classic collector and trigger point. I decided to chance it and after a while got in 3m/s sink and started accelerating significantly. "There must be something" I thought. And was indeed! 4m/s lift straight to the cloud base at more than 1300m. I had to run away from that as less than 100m above me the controlled airspace started. To the right I could see Wicklow and to the left Wicklow Mountains - the most beautiful view in Ireland unfortunately available to just view. I couldn't help staring at it but my GPS warned me: I'm heading towards Dublin CTA that starts from 3000 feet up. After quick assessment I decided to go towards the N11, avoid any cloud suck and stay below 900m - it was around 55km from Mt Leinster. The chance to break the official Irish record became a reality! I headed for the nearest bright field hoping for some bubbles, than another one.
I passed Ashford and in front of me had nothing but forest. I wasn't sure if I would make it to the big meadow behind it but got into a spike and gained a few meters - that was when I realised: Eoin is not the record holder any more - sorry Eoin...:)

Tom Cardas

30Km + XC from Keadeen to Glenealy and Wicklow 3 April 2011

                                        XC from Keadeen mtn to Glenealy and Wicklow town.
Pilots:
Tom, Rafal, Greg, Gerry and Lubor

Yesterday Sunday 03-04-2011 a group of IHPA  PG pilots met on Keadeen Mountain near Baltinglass Co Wicklow. There was a light W to WSW wind at the bottom of the mountain and it looked like we wouldn't have to climb too high to get enough wind to launch. We climbed for about 15 mins and waited for the wind to pick up a little as it was still light where we considered launching from up on the hill.

There were some dark clouds overhead and we could see rain approaching but it looked like there was some sunshine behind this weather front. We might just be trying on our optimistic hats yet again. Well rain it did and with no shelter all we could do was get behind our bagged gliders and wait it out. Looking to my left while trying to remain positive about the day I looked at Mount Leinster in the distance and it was in bright sunshine. I knew that there were HG pilots over there about to fly and of course I wised them well while they were bathed in sunshine and is was lashing down on us ( nearly true!)

Anyway the rain passed and I launched, I managed to get lift and I was holding my own well but it was very bumpy. I saw Tom launch and when next I looked his direction he was very high but I seriously thought of landing as I felt more than a little uncomfortable in the lumpy air.

Tom announced that the plan was to get to base and fly to the mountain behind Keadeen as it had a bowl which was in bright sunshine. The consensus was that the bowl might act as a collector and we could top up on height there if we needed to. Well that didn't work out too well and we tried to make it back to Keadeen but with strong wind and increased sink we lost quite a bit of height and it was nearly a hike out off the mountain.

Luckily we all managed to gain height again with the lift being a constant 3m/s or better sometimes  but while the lads made it to base and travelled about 5km down wind from me I was too low to head to the group so I stayed put and topped up my height and when nearly at base I turned and headed for the coast which at this stage was still over 30 km away.

I could see all around me for miles and I was nearly twice as high as Mt Leinster, just over 1500m with fantastic views. I was heading East across the Wicklow National Park following Greg, Tom, Lubor and Rafal in the direction of Wicklow / Arklow. The views from this height were truly breath taking and although we had broken thermals, cloud suck and sink air to contend with the air wasn't too rough at all.  I looked at the sky reflecting off a little lough in the middle of a mountain called Arts Lough. It looked so remote and lost  but I thought that it was a  little gem. Further to my left ( North ) was Poulaphouca reservoir with Lough Dan nearby and I could see the wind turbines about 10km off the Arklow coast.

Of course I was heading down wind for the coast and I hadn't caught up on the lads quite yet. I could hear the chatter on the radio and although it was in Polish I knew they were delighted at the distance covered and their current altitude. I could see them under a cloud getting higher. I unfortunately was getting lower and needed some lift fairly soon. I was on the speedbar trying to maximise my glide and get through the sink.
Eventually a few beeps on my vario but I turned the wrong way and they stopped. So I tried turning to my right and they started getting stronger and then the cloud called me and I went up like a rocket. My Vario said 17 m/s. I think that it had a moment but when I checked the gps log later it showed 8m/s which was nearly enough for a bowel movement.

Still I was awe struck by the views. There were many clouds but plenty of sunshine getting through illuminating the scenery below which was gorgeous. I was doing up to 84km per hour at times and  I had travelled nearly as far as the lads at this stage and I could see Raphal and Greg climbing under a cloud. I thought to myself that when I get there all I had to do was arrive and the cloud would call again but it wasn't to be. So I decided to continue towards the coast on my own and see if I could find another nice cloud or a thermal enroute. I fought with every bit of lift I could find and eventually followed the railway line that travells through Rathdrum and Glenealy.

The journey was nearly over for me at this stage and I chose the GAA field in Glenealy as a suitable place to land. It was tricky enough as there was some rotor from some nearby trees, hill and some thermic activity from the local graveyard.

Touchdown and before I could unclip some locals quizzed me about  "Whats that big yellow and purple thing."  :) Then someone else said there's another one of " those things" as Tom flew over me heading to Wicklow town.
The elderly gentleman  in the house beside the GAA field Donal, kindly offered tea and brought me to collect Tom and then on to the local Pub.

Ah the day was truly epic, there were five of us who had gone Xc and witnessed the beautiful views from over 5000 feet above one of Irelands real treasures on a beautiful day while managing over 30Km and ending up at a pub in Glenealy together for a pint. This is truly the stuff dreams are made of. The retrieve was also epic and we didn't arrive home until after 10pm but I would do it again in a heartbeat.
There are some videos being prepared. links soon


Rafal's video with his GoPro hd 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g70yCImOgfA

 Gerry


Now some important information about our Xc flight. We were using Lk8000 software with eire2008.txt Airmaps of Rep. Ireland on our flight computers.
The airmap seems incomplete and didn't advise us of controlled airspace other than Glen of Imaal which is not in use during the weekend. After the flight we realised that we had gone too high and entered CTR.
As a result I am withdrawing my flight from the Xc league.
Links to track logs
Lubor Kandera: http://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:kando/3.4.2011/14:03
Rafal Mac:http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/427917
Gerry Kennedy:http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/427918
Tom Cardas: http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/427891
Greg Pelikan http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/427943

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.