Rally Ireland Really Takes Off: With 60 Choppers Aloft

It won’t be just impressive on the roads this week as the World Rally Championships races into Ulster.

Although hundreds of spectators are expected to pack the grounds of Stormont Estate for the opening stage of Rally Ireland, it’s the air show that will be spectacular too.

More than 60 helicopters are on the way to fly between 50 separate cross-border landing sites.

It is being described already as an operation that will shade the air transport logistics of any major Irish sporting event - including the Ryder Cup.

Séan Pardy, aerial events manager for Celtic Helicopters, who also handled the logistics at the K Club last summer said: "There may have been more helicopters landing at the K Club but it was concentrated on a single site," he said.

The sheer complexity of aerial operations is dictated by the unprecedented number of sites involved, which will require full ground-handling facilities, including measures to deal with accidents and emergencies.

The major hub at Sligo will also require security, check-in, refuelling and maintenance facilities.

In-the-air and on-the-ground safety will remain the biggest priority. Air traffic control will ensure helicopters comply with mobile exclusion zones, designed to ensure chopper pilots don't distract the rally drivers in their desire to get as close as possible to the action.

The volume of sites and number of choppers concentrated in a relatively small area makes co-ordination vital: "We have had full support from Sligo and Enniskillen airports, where we have had meetings for the past eight months.

"We have also surveyed every site, which mainly consists of playing pitches and farmers' fields," said Mr Pardy.

Fixed wing aircraft also come into play in ensuring that the event runs smoothly, with Aer Arann set to transport all the top competitors from Sligo to George Best Belfast City Airport, just two miles from the Stormont Estate, next Thursday for the Super Special Stage and opening ceremonies.

An additional plane will fly over the rally route throughout the event, loaded with high-tech gadgetry that receives signals from the competing cars and bounces them back down to Rally headquarters, ensuring that timing information and the car's locations are tracked to within hundredths of a second.

The action starts with practice sessions in Sligo on Thursday with the drivers and cars transported to Belfast for that evening’s special stage in the grounds of Stormont’s Parliament Buidings.

Dubbed the Stormont Spectacular, this super special stage will see the 90-strong field, headed by world champion Sebastien Loeb and current series leader Marcus Gronholm, go head-to-head on two circuits which feature a fly-over bridge.

(BMcC)