Ok heres the full story as I recall it.
Long long ago in community hall far far away!!! Ok sorry but I am a star wars freak, it was actually last September in Bushmills community centre during an indoor flying session a group of us huddled together to discuss an idea that Alan Wilson of Rathlin Fast Ferries had threw at us after the successfull crossing to Rathlin. Alistair Morgan, the stalwart behind all the organistation and scarlet pimpernel to the camera, layed out charts and at first it looked like we were going to a place near Campbelltown which I cannot either pronounce nor spell but used to have an airbase on. It looked like we would have to stop at Rathlin and take off again and we all went off and met up again a week later and Alistair had come up with Islay and the fact that there was a distillery there we could link up the Bushmills Distillery here with the Ardbeg Distillery on Islay. So lots of meetings for Alistair with the lifeboat people with Alan Wilson trips to Islay getting permissions from various organistations contacting the BMFA with plans of the beach and flightline crew etc etc etc, lots and lots of organising. Meanwhile we had to sort out the T240 so in about march we pulled it out dragged it screaming to the flying field and put her up, 5 or 6 minutes she cut and came down in the moss no real damage, so the next week we tried again and same thing happened, but we damaged the model, we had tried a lipo battery and regulator and this seemed to be giving problems, Andrew and Robert Wallace worked at the plane and replaced the battery with a big sub "C" system and the plug and was changed and a bit of fixing covering and painting took place, so eventually we got it out to the site and filled the 2.5 litre tank and flew the model for 1 hour and 55 minutes enough to do the job.
We will now skip a few months to the week prior to the flight, lots more stuff had gone on in between but I won't bore you with the details, anyway Thursday night before the flight and we are at the club site doing flag change over practices making sure all radios work and everything is honky dorey and well the engine starts playing up after an hour or so its sorted but the wing servos give up, now in all fairness they are ancient, so Stanley McKeown sponsored a new set and Bill Ervine opend the shop and gave them to Andrew Wallace. Friday night back at the club and last chance checks low and behold everything is perfect. The rest is history.
So as you can see it was quite a task and certainly not all plain sailing (excuse the pun).

Now my own personal view and I stress this is my personal view. I had my reservations about this project as the water to be crossed is usually very rough as two tides meet and most times its windy and although we flew in the rough to Rathlin last year that was a walk in the park compared to what our objective was this time around, I must say I was sceptical about the whole adventure but once I decided to get on board my commitment was unquestionable.
I am so proud to be a member of BMFC and so proud of everyone involved it was a mammoth task and we took it all in our stride and it was just like a walk in the park.
Now I don't know how far other models have been flown over the sea by remote control from a boat, I do know that the english channel was crossed last year but to me (and not sour grapes here) our effort was far more significant, they flew an electric plane, only went one way and crashed it in someones back garden in France, and in my mind that was irresponsible and unsafe, there trip was 22 miles I believe. I know a model flew from Newfoundland to Ireland but that was using GPS not the same. We flew a T240 which was petrol powered by a Kalt 22cc and using insight remote control from a boat, hardly the edge of technology, we did it using our own resources, we did it for a good cause, we did 33 nautical miles landed and flew back, we did it over some of the most hostile waters in the UK (although we were blessed with good weather), we enjoyed doing it and we completed our objective.

Well done all of you!!!!!
Tel