List of Irish Sea crossings by air
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is a list of notable first crossings of the Irish Sea by air.
First crossings
| Date | Crossing | Participant(s) | Aircraft | Departure point Arrival point |
Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 July 1817 | First balloon | Windham William Sadler[1] | balloon | Portobello Barracks, Dublin Holyhead, Wales |
Sadler's father, James Sadler had made an unsuccessful attempt in 1812. |
| 22 April 1912 | First aeroplane | Denys Corbett Wilson | Blériot XI | Fishguard, Pembrokeshire Crane, County Wexford |
An attempt by Robert Loraine, in September 1910, failed when his Farman III biplane came down in the sea 200 ft (61 m) from the shore.[2] |
| 1915 | First airship | Sub Lt T.W. Elmhirst + crew | SS-17 blimp | Luce Bay, Scotland Ireland |
Airship became disabled, drifted across the Irish Sea, and carried out a successful 'balloon' landing in Ireland.[3] |
| 5 July 1927 | First female aviator | Mary, Lady Bailey[4] | De Havilland DH.60X biplane | ||
| 9 April 1951 | First helicopter | Lt Richard Beechener[5] | Westland Dragonfly HR.1 VX600 | Anthorn, Cumbria Aldergrove, County Antrim |
|
| 3 February 1963 | First glider (E-W) | Charles Ross[6] | Slingsby Skylark 3 | Portmoak, Kinross-shire Toome, County Antrim |
|
| 27 December 1963 | First glider (W-E) | Fg Offr Dmitri Zotov[7] | EoN Olympia 2B | Ballykelly, County Londonderry Crianlarich, Perthshire |
|
| 1 February 1970 | First hot air balloon | Raymond Munro[8] | Canada 2 | Brittas Bay, County Wicklow Ennerdale, Cumbria |
Raymond Munro (1921-1994) was inducted to the Canadian Aviation Hall of Fame in 1973. Awarded the Order of Canada in 1974.[9] |
| 1987 | First microlight | Keith Reynolds | Pegasus XL weight-shift microlight | Achieved while undertaking a circumnavigation of Great Britain.[10] | |
| 13 May 2007 | First autogyro | Norman Surplus | AutoGyro MT-03 | Kirkbride, Cumbria Larne, County Antrim |
Norman Surplus went on to make the first circumnavigation of the world in an autogyro.[11] |
| 24 May 2025 | First electric aircraft | Chad Nichols and Chris Caputo | Beta Alia CX300 | Weston Airport, Dublin Liverpool John Lennon Airport, Liverpool |
Flight covered 153 nautical miles (283 kilometres) and lasted 1 hour, 18 minutes.[12][13] |