F14 'tomcat' tail fin found washed up on Cork Beach

Akrasia

godfather69er wrote:

the possibility of it being used for target practice is also high as they have been mothballed, the us navy regularly blow up decommisioned ships

Hold on, there is a big difference between using an unmanned decomissioned ship as target practise, and using a fighter plane, that has to be flown by a pilot as target practise. Planes can't fly themselves.

godfather69er

Akrasia wrote:

Hold on, there is a big difference between using an unmanned decomissioned ship as target practise, and using a fighter plane, that has to be flown by a pilot as target practise. Planes can't fly themselves.

yes they can they can equip them to be flown via a simulator on the ground with a pilot in the simulator

Manic Moran

Akrasia wrote:

Hold on, there is a big difference between using an unmanned decomissioned ship as target practise, and using a fighter plane, that has to be flown by a pilot as target practise. Planes can't fly themselves.

http://sunnersberg.com/images/19980717-f-5385s-002.jpg

Look, Mom! No hands!

Or heads....

QF-4 target drone. Only full-sized drone used by the US these days, the Navy has gone back to small target drones.

The exemption of military flights is voluntary, and usually mutually beneficial (i.e. agreed by states to exempt each others flights).

Not to mention also, there's nothing Ireland can do to stop them: They're well able to fly around on their own with no ATC if they want, and Ireland lacks any ability to police its own airspace. (See Air Corps thread in After Hours)

NTM

therecklessone

Manic Moran wrote:

Not to mention also, there's nothing Ireland can do to stop them: They're well able to fly around on their own with no ATC if they want, and Ireland lacks any ability to police its own airspace. (See Air Corps thread in After Hours)

NTM

Theoretically yes, in practise no. To pitch up on the Western boundary of Irish airspace would involve a transit of oceanic airspace on the North Atlantic, which requires a procedural clearance (no radar coverage over the ocean). No procedural clearance would be issued to arrive at the boundary of Irish airspace if the Irish government had refused permission to enter our FIR/UIR, so to achieve what you're suggesting, the aircraft in question would have to leave US domestic airspace, enter oceanic airspace without a clearance, cross the Atlantic without said clearance, transit Irish domestic airspace unauthorised, then enter UK airspace (who would presumably allow their onward passage).

The most economical track across the Atlantic would be on one of the published NAT tracks, at an optimal level, which would put the military traffic in conflict with a large number of commercial flights over the ocean. The result would be chaos, with a sever impact on commercial operations (including a large percentage of US carriers), possibly even leading to the closure of oceanic airspace until the issue was resolved.

Of course, some might see the unauthorised entry of US military flights into the Shannon FIR/UIR as an act of war...;). Without a doubt, it would be an entirely reckless act, and certainly not worth the political/economic fallout.

Manic Moran

How many EU states charge the US military (or any military) for overflights? Assuming none, what's to stop a simple case of the US saying 'You are charging us for something that nobody else is? Fine, we'll not enter Irish airspace at all, even to stop at Shannon, and we'll go to Germany instead. Let's see your economy deal with that" I believe that the annual income at Shannon related to US movements at a stop-over is more than the 10m Euro claimed to be lost by not charging militaries for the airspace use, if my recollection of the figures is correct.

NTM

therecklessone

Manic Moran wrote:

How many EU states charge the US military (or any military) for overflights? Assuming none, what's to stop a simple case of the US saying 'You are charging us for something that nobody else is? Fine, we'll not enter Irish airspace at all, even to stop at Shannon, and we'll go to Germany instead. Let's see your economy deal with that"

Answer to how many EU states charge US military flights en-route charges? I've no idea, but an educated guess would say none (certainly none of her NATO allies)

Answer to your second point? Economics.

The most economical routes, east and west, across the Atlantic result in over 90% of oceanic traffic transiting Irish domestic airspace.

Due to fact that there is a major flow of eastbound flights from North America in the evening hours and an almost equal flow of westbound flights from Europe in the morning, the NAT airspace can become quite congested at peak hours. In order allow the majority of flights to traverse the NAT as efficiently as possible, a system of organized tracks is constructed to accommodate as many flights as possible within the major flows on or close to their minimum time tracks and profiles. With the ever-changing nature of the NAT weather patterns, including the presence of jet streams, eastbound and westbound minimum time tracks are seldom identical. The creation of a different organized track system is therefore necessary for each of the major flows. Separate Organized Track Structures (OTS) is published each day for the eastbound and westbound flows.

More here

In the majority of cases, the NAT tracks required for US-Western Europe begin/end at the western boundary of Irish domestic airspace, due to distance and time considerations. To avoid Irish airspace would involve selecting a longer route which may not take advantage of favourable jetstreams, meaning a longer flight at a slower speed, therefore higher fuel burn. And suddenly that €29 doesn't look so bad...;)

IAA Annual Report 2004

Control of NOTA extends the Authority’s responsibilities to a total block of Irish controlled airspace of some 450,000 square kilometres that will become the gateway for over ninety per cent of all air traffic between Europe and North America.

Map of Irish airspace

Manic Moran

therecklessone wrote:

Answer to your second point? Economics.

The most economical routes, east and west, across the Atlantic result in over 90% of oceanic traffic transiting Irish domestic airspace.

You're not looking at a large enough scale.

If the US military suddenly starts paying millions of dollars to Ireland, and only to Ireland, for the use of its airspace, a lot of other countries are suddenly going to go "Hey! Free money!" With all the countries in the world that the USAF flies over, you start hitting some pretty serious fees to counteract the extra fuel usage, with a rather nasty precedent set. Any old TPLAC could suddenly start looking at the US as a moneyspinner, and who's to say their charges would be as reasonable as Irelands?.

The US would thus avoid Ireland as much as a matter of principle, and the net benefit to Ireland for having attempted to make the charge, if the US pulls out of Shannon in protest, becomes a multi-million euro negative. I think the country's better off with the status quo.

NTM

therecklessone

Manic Moran wrote:

You're not looking at a large enough scale.

If the US military suddenly starts paying millions of dollars to Ireland, and only to Ireland, for the use of its airspace, a lot of other countries are suddenly going to go "Hey! Free money!" With all the countries in the world that the USAF flies over, you start hitting some pretty serious fees to counteract the extra fuel usage, with a rather nasty precedent set. Any old TPLAC could suddenly start looking at the US as a moneyspinner, and who's to say their charges would be as reasonable as Irelands?.

Not sure about worldwide, but:

Under a Eurocontrol (European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation) Multilateral agreement to which Ireland is a party, various categories of flights (Flights under Visual Flight Rules, flights performed by small aircraft, flights performed for the transport of Heads of State
and search and rescue flights) are exempt from paying en-route charges. In the case of other categories (military flights, training flights, flights performed to test air navigation equipment and circular flights), States have the option to exempt such flights from payment of the en-route charge. In common with most Eurocontrol Member States, Ireland exempts all such flights, including military flights of Member States of Eurocontrol, United States and Canada, from payment of the en-route charge and this arrangement has applied since Ireland joined the Eurocontrol en-route charging scheme in the early 1970’s.

Minister of State at the Department of Transport (Ivor Callely) 15 December 2004

From information received from Eurocontrol it is understood that Austria, Finland, Switzerland and Moldova do not at present grant exempted status to US military flights. However, my Department understands that invoices issued by the above States to the US authorities in respect of military flights have not been paid.

So other states charge them, they just don't pay. Nothing new there, ask the UN...

It could be argued that any NATO members would be unlikely to charge US flights en-route charges, which doesn't leave many Eurocontrol member states who:

1. don't already levy en-route charges in respect of military flights, or
2. aren't members of NATO

So the operational cost of avoiding Irish airspace on principle may seem less appealing given the relatively few countries that attempt to levy the charge (but don't get paid anyway) The Swiss have one of the highest unit rate charges in Europe FYI.

I can't speak for the situation outside of Eurocontrol.

Oh, btw...I'm not arguing in favour of levying the charges.

Victor

Manic Moran wrote:

My immediate thought is that as military aircraft are owned by a foreign government

And but for the damned Air Navigation Act, that airspace is mine!

lostexpectation

pete wrote:

It all adds up when you consider that "...close to 7,000 military aircraft flew over Ireland in the first nine months of 2002" (Irish Times), and that was before gulf war II even kicked off.... and all that cash is reimbursed to the Irish Aviation Authority by the Irish Government, i.e. the Irish taxpayer, i.e. me!

there was a little thing called afghanistan you know.. and the state subsidieses Shannon in it entirity so its gotta come out as a net loss overall, its a alot of jiggery pockery the 14m is only theoretically charged.