Ireland's Atlantic Coast

Ireland Atlantic Coast
For Wednesday August 14, 2024
Michael MacKuen

Today we fly down Ireland’s Atlantic coast – windswept, rugged and thinly populated. Beginning in the north’s Donegal, we pass steep cliffsides, mountainous valleys, salty islands, peat boglands, and the legendary Cliffs of Moher before going inland to Kerry. An organized tourist route along this breathtaking scenery is marketed as Ireland’s “Wild Atlantic Way.”


The impressive Cliffs of Moher

We depart from Donegal [EIDL], the northwest’s main commercial airport. Following the splendid seas-battered coastline around, we encounter the Cliffs of Slieve League. Though less famous than the Cliffs of Moher, these are three times higher. And the nearby mountainsides, and the cliffs themselves, attract hikers through the summer months. Then south to Sligo Airport [EISG], sited on a small spit that separates Sligo Harbour from the Atlantic. The city is the main seaport and cultural center of this part of Western Ireland.

We turn west over County Mayo to land at Lough Conn Airstrip [EIBL], a narrow sealed runway right on the lake’s eastern shore. And we continue westward over the water, farms, and bogs to the coast to fly along Achill Island’s dramatic Cliffs of Croaghaun which tower 2,257 feet over the sea. Then southeast along Keem Bay to the village of Gloghmore. There we turn south over Clare Island whose lighthouse and hotel were once popular spots. Passing over Inishturk, we land at Inishbofin [EIIB] (incorrectly labeled Clifden Airport). This remote island is a tourist draw even though it is a bit of a challenge to take the ferry this far west. (The airport was completed in 2008, just at the beginning of the Great Recession. Since that time, the financial picture has prevented government’s opening the airfield for business ... if it is officially opened, EU regulations require it be supported by subsidy and the governments have judged the traffic will not justify the subsidies. The runway remains well-maintained nevertheless.) After enjoying a bit of sea breeze, we head east over Kylmore Abbey (a functioning Benedictine Abbey and popular tourist attraction). We continue through the central mountains and then the low boglands of Galway to land at Connemara [EICA]. The airport was built in 1992 to maintain air service to the Aran Islands (now via regular Britten-Norman flights).

We take a quick hop to these Aran Islands. Now fed by tourism, this once poor and isolated region has become a an iconic symbol of the old Gaelic traditions of language and culture. First a glance of Dún Aonghasa, the ruins of a prehistoric circular fort perched on a cliffside. We then pass over a limestone landscape and the small dry-stone-walled fields to land at Inishmore Airport [EIIM], near the islands’ only village Kiloran. Though the locals speak English to tourists, they happily converse with each other in Gaelic. After a low pass over Inishmaan [EIMN], we make a quick stop at Inisheer Airport [EIIR].

It is only 7 miles across the sea to the famous Cliffs of Moher which are worth an extended look. (We fly from north-to-south and then circle back south-to-north to catch the changing afternoon light.) The dramatic cliffs are a major attraction (supported by a good visitor center) and the facilities allow people to get close to the stunning seaside drops. The cliffs are mostly safe – they attract something like 1.5 million visitors each year. (Yet, they can be dangerous. Over the last 25 years, 66 people have jumped or fallen to their deaths. The latest victim was a young student in July, just last month.)

After we get a good view, we continue northeast along the coast to the Ailladie Cliffs (100ft tall) and turn to the east over the Burren. The Burren is an extensive karst landscape of mainly high country. Much of the surface is covered by limestone (and sandstone) making it relatively inhospitable for normal agriculture. It turns out that the soil is fine, the climate relatively warm and rain plentiful. In the cracks between the limestone pavement grow a wild variety of plant life – with species from the Arctic and from the Mediterranean – that botanists find fascinating.

We turn south and continue on to land at Shannon International [EINN], Ireland’s second airport after Dublin. For aviation’s early years, Shannon was the primary refueling point for Atlantic flights. Nowadays, Shannon hosts major maintenance facilities, it serves the region with routes to Europe, and it remains a major link with Ireland’s North American diaspora.

Our final leg takes us westwards along the Shannon Estuary over Aughinish Alumina. This is Europe’s largest aluminum smelter but, because it is Russian-owned, it is losing money in the face of sanctions associated with the invasion of Ukraine. Nearby is the small seaport Foynes which was, in the 1930s and early 1940s, Ireland’s seaplane base for transatlantic flights via Imperial Airways and Pan American. We turn south at the Tarbet Power Station (also Ferry and Lighthouse) to cross into Ireland’s green interior County Kerry. We land at Kerry Airport [EIKY] which has developed from a small GA airfield into a regional commercial airport with passenger flights both within Ireland and beyond to holiday destinations in Europe. 

Documentation
The flightplan can be found here.

Aircraft
This is a flight of 305nm with 8 landings. Any GA aircraft capable of something like 150kts should do the job nicely. I’ll probably fly the A2A Comanche in the historic PH-EDH livery by Jan Kees Blom.

Additional Scenery
All of the airports are in the default simulator. That said, several addons will enhance the scenery appreciably. Thanks to these talented addon creators.

Sligo Airport [EISG]. amb7364
Shannon Airport [EINN]. boblimerick (Robert Byrne and Chris Klose)
    [Note the airport is now missing jetways that it once had.]
Kerry [EIKY]. JayFlySim

In addition, you want the following airports. They are no longer on the FSTO site. (You may have these already. Otherwise, please look at the scenery pack.)
Connemara [EICA]. JensPeter
Inishmore [EIIM]. JensPeter
Inishmaan [EIMN]. JensPeter
Inisheer [EIIR]. JensPeter

In addition you might consider the payware Shannon or Kerry.

Temporarily, you can obtain the full freeware package here (33MB).

Time and Weather
For takeoff on Wednesday, set the simulator at 2:00pm local for August 14, 2024. We typically prefer real weather.

Multiplayer Particulars
Date and time: Wednesday, August 14, 2024. 1800 UTC
RTWR Multiplayer Discord Channel
Microsoft Flight Simulator Multiplayer: United States East server.

If you want to help others enjoy the multiplayer experience, don't forget to enter your aircraft details on the multiplayer spreadsheet (linked here). Please be kind enough to enter the title exactly as it stands in the title=”xxx” line of the aircraft.cfg file. Your courtesy will save others a lot of time and effort. Thanks!