The Galway Sun


Flying man smashes distance record
June 8, 2008, 9:02 pm
Filed under: Ireland, People, Places, tourism | Tags: , , , ,

A winged stuntman has completed a daring 17km unaided flight over the west coast of Ireland, beating local plane times.

Swiss flyer Ueli ‘Sputnik’ Gegenschatz, donned a specially designed wingsuit and glided from above the Aran Islands over Galway Bay to Connemara regional airport.

The dare-devil completed the journey in 5.45mins beating the average flight time by more than a minute.

Sputnik jumped from a skydiving aircraft 4,500m high and helped by a strong tailwind flew over the Atlantic at an average speed of 250km/hr.

An Aer Arann passenger plane, which travels the 17.6km route everyday with a top speed of 193km/hr (120mi/hr), took off from Inis Mor airstrip but landed at Inverin Airport, Connemara seven minutes later.

It is believed to be a new distance record for an unaided flight.

Sputnik has made a series of daring leaps in the winged-suit around the world including The Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps and Popocatepetl, the second highest peak in Mexico.



Galway now connected to Amsterdam
May 7, 2008, 9:36 pm
Filed under: Ireland, People, Places, tourism | Tags: , , , , ,

Aer Arann has launched their new Amsterdam route from Galway and Waterford Airport this month reports Galway Tourism. The launch was marked with celebrations hosted by the regional airports. The new Aer Arann route will provide its customers with the convenience of direct services between the West and the Southeast to mainland Europe and beyond.

Amsterdam Schiphol Airport is a global gateway for over 290 destinations with 50 million passengers passing through every year. Since the announcement of the new route in January, seat sales have exceeded expectation.

Garry Cullen, Managing Director, Aer Arann said, “Aer Arann is proud to be expanding its services from Galway and Waterford. We see this new route to Amsterdam as further evidence of Aer Arann’s commitment to the development of the regions. We are particularly delighted with the level of bookings on our inbound flights from Amsterdam. Aer Arann is showing that we can bring new untapped tourism markets to the South-East and to the West of Ireland.”