Hi Joe,
I have flown a couple of times myself from the Sugarloaf. There was a time years ago when there was a bunch of lads that arranged some gliding frequencies for the sugarloaf with our club. The prevailing wind is straight on the south west side of the mountain, facing our club. My own experience is that the lift is not brilliant. What I have found is that, due to the shape I guess, the wind is as inclined to go around the hill as it is to go upwards. What I mean is, when you find the lift, it is has a narrow sweet spot and is not all that much fun to fly off. There are much better hills with the better lift within 10-15minutes drive of the Sugarloaf.
Have you guys flown at Lugala, over lough Tay? (Spellings may be wrong) It is the area where the tourists look down on the "Guinness" family home on the West side of Djouce Mountain. I have flown from inside the wall dozenes of times, looking over the lake. I will say that once I got booted out by a ranger. He told me that the homes in the valley use radio to communicate and that I was jamming their signals. You and I both know that either he was using a phoney excuse to move me on or that the valley uses 35Mhz radios. . . I think not. It is a great spot to fly in westerly conditons and has a great card up it's sleeve. It is a natural bowl way down below where we fly. If it is a sunny day and the breeze falls off, just as you expect to have to scrounge for lift, the nice big thermal bubble that lives at the bottom of the bowl comes out to play :clap: .
One note, if you do get booted out, hop over the wall on the other side of the road and fly off the public right of way over the top of Djouce, right the way to sally gap and the source of the Liffey. The lift is even better all the way up there, it is a good climb for a chubby lad like me :oops:
Garry
