http://www.ourairports.com/countries/IE/OY'/comments.html Comments left by OurAirports members who have visited airports in Offaly, Ireland. http://www.ourairports.com/comments.html?comment=1942 Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:04:04 -0400 http://www.ourairports.com/comments.html?comment=1942 <p>I visited Birr Ireland in summer of 2005. I was looking on the Internet for a flying club in Ireland for the possiblity of 'stick time' in the various countries that my wife and I visited. The Birr Aero Club was having a fly-in during our vacation so we researched the Birr area, discovering that Birr was a wonderfull base of operations for exploring central Ireland. </p> <p>Since we had visited the Oshkosh AirVenture fly-in a few weeks earlier, we thought another, much smaller, fly-in was a wonderful idea. There were two small rows of campers (caravans) that looked a little bit like Oshkosh. The Aero Club was doing 'donation flights' so that I was able to view and photograph Birr from the air.</p> <p>One of the attractions is the Parsons Estate. The Parsons family have been engineers and scientists for literal centuries. One of them invented the steam turbine about 100 years ago -- the heart of modern power plants and steam ships. Another Parsons built an enourmous telescope that is on display; in fact many of the family have been inovators in optics and photography.</p>