Irish Parachute Club
Clonbullogue Airfield Irish Parachute Club | |||||||||||
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| Summary | |||||||||||
| Airport type | Private | ||||||||||
| Serves | Edenderry, Portarlington, Rathangan, Kildare | ||||||||||
| Elevation AMSL | 190 ft / 58 m | ||||||||||
| Coordinates | 53°14′58″N 7°7′24″W / 53.24944°N 7.12333°W | ||||||||||
| Website | http://www.skydive.ie/ | ||||||||||
| Runways | |||||||||||
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No lighting, no fuel | |||||||||||
The Irish Parachute Club (IPC) is located in Clonbullogue, County Offaly, in Ireland. It was founded in 1956 by wartime paratrooper Freddie Bond and began operations at Weston airfield in Leixlip, training several teams for international competition. During the harsh winter of 1962, the IPC parachuted emergency supplies to snowbound farms in the Wicklow Mountains.
The club later operated from a number of locations before establishing a drop zone in 1974 at Tokn Grass, west of Edenderry. The first club aircraft, a Cessna 172, was bought in the same year. In 1983, a Cessna 206 was bought and, in 1988, the club moved to its current location at Clonbullogue Airfield.
There have been important developments more recently including the construction of hangars and other buildings, the purchase of a Pilatus PC-6 Porter turbine aircraft, and the setting of several Irish skydiving records including a 51 person formation in July 2008. The IPC operates on weekends and bank holidays, and offers tandem skydiving, accelerated freefall, and static line parachuting training programmes.
On the 13 May 2018 a man and a 7 year old boy died in a plane crash shortly after letting off 16 parachuters, as it was turning to come back it crashed in to the bog some 2km away near Mount Lucas wind farm. The boy is believed to be the son of one of the people who parachuted out shortly before it crashed.[citation needed]
Airfield
Clonbullogue Airfield has one grass strip runway running east-west which is 770 m long and 18 m wide.[1]
References
External links
Photographs and video
- IPC airfield (aerial photograph)
- IPC club house[permanent dead link] (photograph)
- An IPC aircraft (photograph)
- Entrance to airfield (photograph)
- View of airfield from road (photograph)
- 51 person formation at the IPC (video)
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