Why do we have an air corps

pm.

with planes like this http://www.military.ie/aircorps/index.htm i cant understand why they would invest in training people to fly these way outdated planes whats the point ????

cyrusdvirus

seconds out.....round 25

Ok, those way outdated planes are actually way new, only in service since 2004.

But your argument has been made here in various guises countless times, and it always comes down to the question, what do you think we need an air corps for?

pm.

gatecrash wrote:

seconds out.....round 25
what do you think we need an air corps for?

with planes like that i dont think we need an air corps at all, if we had 4 or 5 fighter jets i could understand having an air corps to protect our skies for one.

cyrusdvirus

Protect our skies from what? What sort of target do we make? Has someone declared a jihad against St James Gate without telling me??

The argument always come down to a cost effectiveness point of view. damn near everyone who frequents these boards would love to have a couple of shiny fast jets, but there is no need for them.

jmayo

Here we go again :rolleyes:

purple'n'gold

I for one would love us to have a proper air force with about 6 to 8 modern jets. But as it’s not going to happen we’ll have to content ourselves with the fact that the RAF is only 10 minutes away if we need them.

pm.

gatecrash wrote:

Protect our skies from what? What sort of target do we make? damn near everyone who frequents these boards would love to have a couple of shiny fast jets, but there is no need for them.

the type of lunatics that hijack planes. if there is no need for shiny fast jets why do we need an air corps ? what do we do scramble a propeller plane after a jet and arm the pilot with a .22 pistol ?

purple'n'gold

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/f111_1.jpg

About 8 of these would be cool.

pm.

purplengold wrote:

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/f111_1.jpg

About 8 of these would be cool.

at least then we would have a reason to waste fuel.

cp251

F111's are old bombers. Why would we need old bombers?

PM you are simply showing your ignorance. Most of the Air Corps aircraft are quite modern. Indeed it's safe to say the Air Corps is, in terms of aircraft age. The most modern it's been since the thirties, when it had modern aircraft of that era. Apart from the now retiring but endlessly useful Alouettes the oldest aircraft in service is the Super King Air which is still being manufactured because quite frankly the only real replacement for a King Air is a new King Air.

Why do we have an Air Corps? Well because we have an army and we've always had an Air Corps. To be fair the only really useless aircraft are the PC9's. Oh yes, they are trainers but that job could be done a lot more cheaply with a few light singles and a couple of twins. It's attack role is pointless because there is nothing to attack and if there was we would need modern attack jets. They are playthings really, a bit of a luxury.

The rest of the fleet are useful. The CASA has fishery protection and SAR roles with a bit of transport going on. The helis are needed to support the army and the MATS aircraft are there to support the government. The GARDA choppers and the Defender are really useful. The King Air has multiple roles, all useful.

The Reims Rockets have their uses too although it mainly seems to be to give young Lieutenants something to fly to build up their experience until they move onto something else. It is rather ironic that new pilots first posting is often the Rocket. They train on a modern training aircraft with a high performance, a 275 knot cruise speed and ejection seats, designed as a lead in to fast jets in most airforces. Then they are posted to fly an old Cessna that cruises at 110 knots.

Oh dear