Replica flying boat ‘will be a spectacular landmark’

WORK will begin today to complete an aviation landmark in the port village of Foynes.

A life-size replica of a flying boat was unveiled there on July 2, and the 25ft-high tail section will be welded into position over the next few days.

After it is attached to the fuselage it will dominate the main street of the village where flying boats landed in the 1930s and 40s.

Bill Fallover, who makes film sets at his workshops in Kilbride, Co Wicklow, spent the past eight months building the replica of the Yankee Clipper flying boat.

His works include the giant horse in the Troy ad for Amstel lager.

He said: “Up to now most of my work has been demolished once filming has been completed. So the Flying Boat project presented a new challenge as I had to make something which would last and which will be visited by tens of thousands of visitors over the next 20 or 30 years in Foynes.”

He will bring the six sections of the tail section in trucks to Foynes today.

“We have a crane in place and we will then have to do a lot of welding work. I have been making all kinds of models for films and TV films over the past 40 years, and the Foynes flying boat was the hardest one of them all. After finishing it, I feel I am up to making a full-size model of the Queen Mary.”

The model flying boat has been a huge success.

Margaret O’Shaughnessy, director of the Foynes Flying Boat Museum said: “Visitor numbers this summer are up more than 300%. When the tail section is up in the next few days it will be a spectacular landmark.”

The museum expects to attract up to 40,000 visitors this year.

Actress Maureen O’Hara, who starred in The Quiet Man with John Wayne, attended the replica’s unveiling.

Her husband Captain Charles Blair flew the last flying boat out of Foynes.