VFR Club
| Briefing | December 2009 |
| Introduction | The now traditional Club Christmas tour this year will feature Ireland. This beautiful and enigmatic country with the same population as London, offers a significant challenge to the VFR pilot. The most significant challenge is the weather - straight off the Atlantic ocean, so expect lots of cloud, drizzle, (soft rain) and tricky visibility. There is quite a lot of controlled airspace to avoid, several of the airfields have no fuel, and some are scarcely more than a field with a portacabin at one end. This is probably the nearest to real aviation exploring that you will find in Western Europe. Coupled with the weather, the fuel issue, short days and the occasional short runway, we guarantee this tour will be as much a challenge as last year's to the Artic north. | ||
| Start Time and Place | Start from the GA apron at Dublin Weston, EIWT, on or after 1st December. Not much after, though, as you have a lot of airspace to cover. | ||
| Touring with Plan-G | Featured strongly in this tour is Tim Arnot's new Plan-G flight planner. If you download and install all the scenery available in the download area below, all the airfields will appear in Plan-G once you have rebuilt the database. Also plotted in the Plan-G User Waypoint database will be a number of points of interest, such as the place where Alcock and Brown landed after their pioneering transatlantic flight. Divert to have a look at these, or just browse the web for information about them. | ||
| VFR Route to Weston | From the Irish Sea, track the Collinstown VOR (111.20) 270 radial. It is misspelled Collsintown in FSX! If ATC is on you may be asked to track the Killiney NDB (378.0) initially until you are visual with the two 680ft high Pigeon House Chimneys of Poolbeg Power Station which guard the entrance to Dublin from the sea. Now tune the Weston VOR (114.70) and track direct to the chimneys and be at 1000ft Dublin QNH before reaching them. You will pass the Howth Peninsula on your right ('Ireland's Eye'). Fly overhead the River Liffey at 1000ft . Phoenix Park will become visible straight ahead. If ATC are on, they will ask you to report at Heuston Station, which is right on the eastern edge of Phoenix Park You can see it very clearly in the satellite view of Plan-G . Now track the WST VOR direct to Weston, passing over the south eastern corner of the Phoenix Park restricted Area (SFC-1000ft). Dublin ATC don't seem to mind if you infringe this by a few feet. But be very careful not to track to the airfield you can see in your 10 o'clock. That is Casement Military Airfield, and you would not be welcome! Because of your altitude Weston's runway will not become visible until about 4 miles out, so don't panic. Maintain heading and make a left base join when you see it.. | ||
| Route, Scenery and Duration | Members Andrew Sambrook and Richard Sinclair have built models of almost all the small public Irish airfields whiich are not built into FS9 and FSX, or available from other sources. (Someone is bound to point out one we've missed). There are in fact a total of 129 landing grounds in Ireland, according to the Irish VFR Guide, currently out of print, unfortunately. We have designed a tour which visits every public airfield we have discovered, 35 in all, not including Dublin, Shannon and Aldergrove, where we would not, in the real world, receive the usual warm Irish welcome. You can follow the route described here, or make up your own. | ||
| Weather ...or not | Before starting any leg of the trip, check the weather en route. If it is unsuitable, then you can will fix it, something you can do in the simulator. Wouldn't it be nice if we could do it in real life, particularly in Ireland, where the weather, although often gentle, and in the south west positively Mediterranean, can change very suddenly, particularly in the west. To improve the weather: -
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| Maps and Charts | Airport charts and approach plates for the bigger airfields in this tour can be downloaded from the Irish IAIP.
From that page, select IAIP from the menu on the left. That opens the Integrated Aeronautical Information Package (IAIP) page. Click on the link upper centre of that page. Aerodrome details are at the bottom of that page. AD1.3 a bit further up the page gives a complete list of all licensed airfields, but that's all. For Northern Ireland (Enniskillen, City of Derry (Eglinton), Belfast City & Newtownards) consult the UK IAIP. A full official list of airfields is published by the Irish Aviation Authority. Only 10 of these airfields have official IAIP charts available and instrument approach procedures, and that includes the three we will not be visiting as part of the tour. For information on the others you will have to glean what you can from the linformation below. Where web information exists, we have provided a link. |
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| Rules | There are only four rules. 1) Visit all 35 airfields, either according to the route provided, or in any order you wish (including Shannon, Dublin and Aldergrove if you think you can afford the landing and handling fees!) 2) if you start off in a big aircraft to cross the water, or to fly the longer legs, and then "hire" a smaller aircraft to enable you to land at the shorter strips, you must return it to the airfield you hired it from. There are aircraft for hire at Weston, Galway, Donegal, Belfast City, Enniskillen, Cork and Waterford. 3) You must end up at Weston on 31st Decmber for the Club Christmas Party in their excellent restaurant. 4) For virtual Customs and Immigration (VCI) purposes, flying into Northern Ireland, You must plan your route to depart Eire from Donegal, and you must fly direct to City of Derry Airport (Eglinton). When leaving Nothern Ireland, the Club has arranged for VCI clearance to be available at Enniskillen, so you can depart Enniskillen for any Eireann VCI airport - Donegal, Sligo, or Connaught for example. |
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| Scenery for FSX | Dublin City : Dublin Airport : Weston : Medium Airfields : Small Airfields | ||
| Scenery for FS9 | Dublin City : Dublin Airport : Weston : Medium Airfields : Small Airfields | ||
| You can download the pre-planned route save it in your normal Flight Plans folder after download and either load it into Plan-G or straight into FS. There are two versions FSX Plan and FS9 Plan. Alternatively you can plan and fly your own route. | Some of Ireland's specialities are provided as Plan-G Points of Interest (yellow stars) in this csv format file. Click here to download it and copy it your your Plan-G folder and import it into the User Waypoint Database. To get an overview, zoom Plan-G to level 8, then go to map settings and click "Show User Waypoints) on the top ribbon menu. | ||
| Airfields in Order of the Optional Pre-planned Route (left to right) | |||
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Weston Airport - (EIWT) Runway 25/07 - 924M |
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Trevet - (EITT) Runway 05/23 - 650M / 18M Grass |
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Trim - (EITM) Runway 10/28 - 560M / 12M Grass |
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Ballyboy - (EIMH) Runway 11/29 - 400M / 18M Grass |
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Abbeyshrule - (EIAB) Runway 10/28 - 799M / 18M Asphalt |
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Galway - (EICM) Runway 08/26 - 1220M / 30M |
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Sligo - (EISG) Runway 11/29 - 1129M / 30M |
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Letterkenny Runway 25/07 -510M / 30M Grass |
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Donegal - (EIDL) Runway 03/21 - 1496M / 30M |
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Eglinton (City of Derry Airport) Runways 26/08 -1852 / 45M |
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George Best Belfast City Runway 22/04 -1826 / 45M |
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Newtownards Runways 22/04 -794 / 45M |
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Enniskillen Runway 15/33 - 1426 / 30M |
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Connaught - (EIKN) (Knock) Runway 09/27 - 2300M / 45M |
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Belmullet - (EIBT) Runway 07/25 - 450M / 18M |
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Connemara - (EICA) Runway 05/23 - 609M / 18M |
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Inishmore - (EIIM) Runway 14/32 - 520M / 18M |
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Inishmaan - (EIMN) Runway 15/33 - 546M / 18M |
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Inisheer - (EIIR) Runway 13/31 - 520M / 18M |
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Spanish Point (EISP) Runway 06/24 - 600M / 20M |
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Erinagh- (EIER) Runway 06/24 - 600M / 18M Grass |
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Coonagh - (EICN) Runway 10/28 - 416M / 9M Grass |
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Kerry - (EIKY) Runway 08/26 - 2000M / 45M |
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Bantry - (EIBN) Runway 07/25 - 450M / 15M Asphalt |
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Rathcoole - (EIRT) Runway 09/27 - 450M / 18M Grass |
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Cork - (EICK) Runway 17/35 - 2133M / 45M |
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Waterford - (EIWF) Runway 03/21 - 1433M / 30M |
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Kilkenny - (EIKK) Runway 09/27 - 930M / 23M |
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Moyne - (EIMY) Runway 02/20 - 355M / 18M Grass |
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Birr - (EIBR) Runway 18/36 - 570M / 18M |
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Clonbullogue - (EICL) Runway 09/27 - 770M / 18M Grass |
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Kilrush - (EIKH) Runways 11/29 - 650M / 22M Grass 01/19 – 750 / 22M Grass |
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Hacketstown - (EIHN) Runway 16/34 - 499M / 18M Grass |
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Brittas Bay (EIBB) 11/29, 620m, Grass Freq. 118.25 MHz |
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Newcastle - (EINC) Runway 18/36 - 690M / 18M |
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Weston Airport - (EIWT) Runway 25/07 - 924M |
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NDB and VOR Tracking |
The Instrument Flight document in the Training section of the club web site contains a section on NDBs and how to use them. If you are unsure how to track NDBs, download and have a look at this. The document also covers the use of VORs for direction and distance measurements. Remember though that most Irish airfields have no radio navaids but you can use VOR radial-and-distance tracking as a means of finding them. | ||
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Radio Discipline |
Take care not to let our Teamspeak chat cut across ATC. Stop any conversation immediately the R/T comes alive, then continue if "he wasn't talking to us". This is difficult because when transmitting on Teamspeak you can't hear the R/T. So be brief on Teamspeak, and be aware that ATC might be trying to get through. If anyone hears an R/T message which seems to be being ignored, just say "ATC is calling G-CIXN" if you have identified the callsign, or "ATC is calling us" which is a cue for everyone to be quiet on Teamspeak until ATC call again (which they will). Remember too that if asked to "Stand By" by ATC, you do not reply - not even "Roger", but simply wait until you are called again. Remember also that there are several different ATC frequencies in use, and you may not be able to hear when communications are taking place. Make sure you have set and know how to use a Teamspeak mute switch. |
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Version 1.5 - 10:10 ZULU 01/12/09 |