REPRO FREE
Shannon Group Chairman Rose Hynes (right) and Managing Director at Foynes Flying Boat Museum chatting ahead air shows over successive weekends at Shannon and Foynes, starting this Saturday with the Shannon Air Display to mark the 70th anniversary of the first commercial transatlantic flight at the airport. It will be followed by the Foynes Air Show on Sunday week, July 26th.
. Pic Sean Curtin Fusionshooters.
Authentic World War Two aeroplanes, Aer Lingus’s first aeroplane and one of the largest search and rescue (SAR) training exercises ever undertaken in Ireland are among the highlights of the second annual Foynes Air Show which takes place this Sunday, 26th July.
Hosted by Foynes Flying Boat and Maritime Mus-eum, the Air Show will also feature aircraft displays from across Europe, along with some of the world’s top aerobatic pilots.
The show will open at 1pm with the Irish Air Corps, Naval Service (LÉ Samuel Beckett), Irish Coastguard, and Search and Rescue teams from all over the country carrying out a massive sea, land and air exercise in front of the estimated 15,000 people expected to attend.
Among the aircraft taking to the skies over West Limerick and the Shannon Estuary will be a Russian Mini MiG, authentic World War II aeroplanes, a Hawker Hunter fighter, a P51 Mustang, and James Bond’s BD-5 Micro-Jet. Meanwhile, Aer Lingus’s first plane, the Iolar, will be flying in formation, in one of its first times ever at a public display, with three de Havilland Chipmunks in Air Corps colours.
The Air Show will also feature the world’s only formation wingwalking display team, the Breitling Wingwalkers, who will perform a sequence of formation loops and rolls while wingwalkers perform acrobatics on the wings.
The Air Show, which continues until 6pm, will also feature live music, food stalls and children’s entertainment. Organisers say that park-and-ride services will be provided throughout the event to enhance access to and from the Air Show site.
Foynes Air Show was first held in 2014 when the Foynes Flying Boat and Maritime Museum marked the 75th anniversary of the first transatlantic commer-cial passenger flight which took place to the flying boat base, located 23 miles from Limerick city.
“Foynes has a strong association with inter-national aviation and has the world’s only Flying Boat Museum featuring the world’s only replica of the B314 flying boat. The Air Show not only provides a wonderful day out for aviation enthusiasts and people of all ages but it also celebrates Foynes’s historic place in world aviation history,” commented Margaret O’Shaughnessy, the Director of Foynes Flying Boat and Maritime Museum. (See page 26)