Fighter jets for the Air Corps?

tjhook

I can see 3 approaches we can choose from:

- We do what it takes so we can control our own airspace.

- Let somebody else (the RAF) do it for us. And at the same time probably complain about "the Brits" and their military.

- Do nothing. So what if Russia sends bombers into airspace we control, through civilian aviation paths.


I see it as a responsibility of a neutral (nonaligned) country to have control of its land, seas and air. We're not part of an alliance (e.g. NATO) that can provide such a defense for us. But I suppose so long as there's a public sector union with its hand out, or the black hole that is the Irish health system, any spending on defending our sovereignty will be seen as money better spent elsewhere.

Perhaps at some point the EU will recognise the weak link that Ireland is, and the unwillingness of the country to control its geographic area from probing aggressors. So maybe they'll contribute to the cost. It would probably be in their interest.

banie01

donvito99 wrote: »

I'm not sure what the problem is? If we have a primary radar, we can see them? Are you planning on shooting them down or something?

A primary radar will tell you range, height and bearing.
Even if we go all out and buy an AEGIS type system that offers synthetic aperture capabilities, it will still not identify, not assess and not offer a visual Comms option with an aircraft that has a damaged/broken Comms system.
The only option available in this scenario, is shoot/don't shoot.

Hardly a helpful option is it?

Especially given if we follow your proposed path, it's a SAM or nowt.

donvito99 wrote: »

Are you sure it is coming from the Defence Forces?

Why do we need to assess aircraft, what is the threat?

Point defence would seem to be the only type of air defence that would be of use to us considering the likely threats e.g. identifying as disabling drones.

The threat could be anything across a huge range, the one thing the threats share is that a radar can only tell us where it is and a SAM can only potentially destroy it.
There is no flexibility or escalation path available other than shoot/don't shoot.
Let's ignore terrorism or Military treats.

Take an aircraft with a disabled flight deck after a bird strike (You would be surprised how high a goose can get) bird strike has occurred at 37000ft.
Now imagine that bird impacting directly on the cockpit area of a 767 or similar at 800kph?

Very likely at best to depressurise and disable the crew.
Plane is now uncontrolled, and approaching Irish airspace. What are the options?
Or the same situation but the strike disables comms/nav and transponder? What are the options?

Can a SAM waggle it's wings, establish visual Comms and lead the aircraft to a landing point?

Plenty of similar scenarios are all possible, determine the actual situation and offer assistance.
Not see a blip and shoot.

Blazer

banie01 wrote: »

Now imagine that bird impacting directly on the cockpit area of a 767 or similar at 800kph?

Very likely at best to depressurise and disable the crew.
Plane is now uncontrolled, and approaching Irish airspace. What are the options?
Or the same situation but the strike disables comms/nav and transponder? What are the options?

Can a SAM waggle it's wings, establish visual Comms and lead the aircraft to a landing point?

Plenty of similar scenarios are all possible, determine the actual situation and offer assistance.
Not see a blip and shoot.

If the crew is disabled won't nobody be able to get inside the cockpit?
So nobody can control it passenger /stewards wise?

Just curious as I thought all pilot cabins were now locked from inside?

roadmaster

Russian Bears or Brexit boris trying to re claim the British empire are no threat to us. The main threat is something like the link below. That is why we need intercept capability

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522

TheW1zard

roadmaster wrote: »

Russian Bears or Brexit boris trying to re claim the British empire are no threat to us. The main threat is something like the link below. That is why we need intercept capability

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522

A few SAM sites would sort that out

donvito99

banie01 wrote: »

A primary radar will tell you range, height and bearing.
Even if we go all out and buy an AEGIS type system that offers synthetic aperture capabilities, it will still not identify, not assess and not offer a visual Comms option with an aircraft that has a damaged/broken Comms system.
The only option available in this scenario, is shoot/don't shoot.

Hardly a helpful option is it?

Especially given if we follow your proposed path, it's a SAM or nowt.

Exactly. Let's just play along for a minute, if a Russian Bomber is being followed by the RAF or the French, and enters our airspace as verified by a primary radar, you could deploy a ground based system and shoot it down. No jet required. But we are never going to shoot down an aircraft so its all moot.

Let's ignore terrorism or Military treats.

Good, because the first scenario is only slightly less absurd than the second.

Take an aircraft with a disabled flight deck after a bird strike (You would be surprised how high a goose can get) bird strike has occurred at 37000ft.
Now imagine that bird impacting directly on the cockpit area of a 767 or similar at 800kph?

Very likely at best to depressurise and disable the crew.
Plane is now uncontrolled, and approaching Irish airspace. What are the options?
Or the same situation but the strike disables comms/nav and transponder? What are the options?

Can a SAM waggle it's wings, establish visual Comms and lead the aircraft to a landing point?

So +€1bn because geese?

The jet goes up, waves at some meek looking pilots, it waggles its wings and.... what exactly?

There are procedures for radio failure. It does not justify a 'QRA' or whatever.

Plenty of similar scenarios are all possible, determine the actual situation and offer assistance.
Not see a blip and shoot.

All that has been volunteered so far is:

1. Geese
2. The Helios flight that was crashing anyway.

This is all just absurd.

roadmaster

donvito99 wrote: »

Exactly. Let's just play along for a minute, if a Russian Bomber is being followed by the RAF or the French, and enters our airspace as verified by a primary radar, you could deploy a ground based system and shoot it down. No jet required. But we are never going to shoot down an aircraft so its all moot.




Good, because the first scenario is only slightly less absurd than the second.



So +€1bn because geese?

The jet goes up, waves at some meek looking pilots, it waggles its wings and.... what exactly?

There are procedures for radio failure. It does not justify a 'QRA' or whatever.



All that has been volunteered so far is:

1. Geese
2. The Helios flight that was crashing anyway.

This is all just absurd.

What if the helios flight had ran out of fuel over a populated area?

donvito99

roadmaster wrote: »

What if the helios flight had ran out of fuel over a populated area?

It is possible then everyone on board, as well as people on the ground, would have been killed.

Next question.

roadmaster

donvito99 wrote: »

It is possible then everyone on board, as well as people on the ground, would have been killed.

Next question.

If you have a way of taking the passenger jet down before its over a populated area you can at least save the people on the ground from dying needlessly

tjhook

donvito99 wrote: »

All that has been volunteered so far is:

1. Geese
2. The Helios flight that was crashing anyway.

This is all just absurd.

Most likely a country in a military alliance will have a modern air defense capability. What about neutral countries? Look at the other neutral countries in Europe. Here are the ones I can think of:

- Austria
- Finland
- Switzerland
- Liechtenstein
- Sweden


All except Liechtenstein* have modern jets to control their airspace. And most of those don't border as much non-European airspace as Ireland does. Yet we have no capable air defense. Do we think we know better than everybody else? It wouldn't be the first time...

(*Liechtenstein is a tiny country with a population the size of Dundalk - understandable that they don't have much in the way of defense)

Larbre34

donvito99 wrote: »

Exactly. Let's just play along for a minute, if a Russian Bomber is being followed by the RAF or the French, and enters our airspace as verified by a primary radar, you could deploy a ground based system and shoot it down. No jet required. But we are never going to shoot down an aircraft so its all moot.

Good, because the first scenario is only slightly less absurd than the second.

So +€1bn because geese?

The jet goes up, waves at some meek looking pilots, it waggles its wings and.... what exactly?

There are procedures for radio failure. It does not justify a 'QRA' or whatever.

All that has been volunteered so far is:

1. Geese
2. The Helios flight that was crashing anyway.

This is all just absurd.

None of it is absurd at all.

If it is absurd, as you claim, then explain why so many other nations, including neutral and non-aligned European states with a similar profile to Ireland, have invested at least to some degree in jet fighter capability?

Are their motivations absurd?

Dyr

Would we not be better off buying drones at this stage? More cost effective anyway.

ohnonotgmail

Bambi wrote: »

Would we not be better off buying drones at this stage? More cost effective anyway.

are there many mach capable drones capable of reaching 45000 feet?

Dyr

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

are there many mach capable drones capable of reaching 45000 feet?

I dont know, but I have a feeling drones would be more bang for the buck when it came to patrolling our territory and supporting the gardai/armed forces

Not sure we're going to get much value from sending the Air Corps up to chase after Tupelovs

California Dreamer

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/ireland-considering-purchase-of-jet-fighters/

Larbre34

Drones are of no value for what we need.

They are suitable for loitering to carry out reconnaissance and stand-off attack but at a max speed of 450 km/h, or 60% of typical airliner speed, they cannot intercept or perform QRA. You need pilots too to make a decision in an evolving close-quarters scenario.

TheW1zard

Dont the air corps have rockets on their planes? If they needed to shoot down a rogue easyjet they could

Oscar Madison

These would be 'donated' to the state and flown by RAF or USAF pilots.
Getting their foot inside the door in my opinion!

Dyr

Larbre34 wrote: »

Drones are of no value for what we need.

They are suitable for loitering to carry out reconnaissance and stand-off attack but at a max speed of 450 km/h, or 60% of typical airliner speed, they cannot intercept or perform QRA. You need pilots too to make a decision in an evolving close-quarters scenario.

Sounds like just what the Gardai need for certain areas, without the attack capability obviously.

sparky42

TheW1zard wrote: »

Dont the air corps have rockets on their planes? If they needed to shoot down a rogue easyjet they could

Just No.

TheW1zard

sparky42 wrote: »

Just No.

They do they have little firework screamers on their engine planes

ohnonotgmail

TheW1zard wrote: »

They do they have little firework screamers on their engine planes

Just no. The PC-9M has a service ceiling of 25,000 feet. airliners are generally around 30,000+ feet. the PC-9M can be armed with rockets. Rockets, not missiles. Unguided rockets. hawkeye from the avengers couldn't hit an airliner with unguided rockets.

TheW1zard

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

Just no. The PC-9M has a service ceiling of 25,000 feet. airliners are generally around 30,000+ feet. the PC-9M can be armed with rockets. Rockets, not missiles. Unguided rockets. hawkeye from the avengers couldn't hit an airliner with unguided rockets.

Ah i see, what a **** air force!

TheW1zard

TheW1zard wrote: »

Ah i see, what a **** air force!

Air Farce

punchdrunk

TheW1zard wrote: »

Dont the air corps have rockets on their planes? If they needed to shoot down a rogue easyjet they could

it's not just about lobbing missiles at something- a far larger part of interception is getting close to the aircraft, looking into the cockpit to see if the crew are incapacitated, performing aggressive maneuvers to warn off intruders and shepherding wayward aircraft out of our airspace. Firing missiles is a last resort and all the other things require you to have the speed advantage to get in front of the target aircraft if need- meaning subsonic aircraft are mostly useless.

Larbre34

Yeah lets not feed that. Reported.

Larbre34

I have a family member in Singapore. Obviously space is pretty tight there, so there actually two separate Air Force bases on the site of Changi international airport that utilise the runways of the civilian airport. There is also airport in Florida that has the same shared operation.

What are people's thoughts on selling up Casement and moving the Air Corps lockstock to Shannon? The sale could be reinvested in Air Corps equipment and an Air Corps base using existing infrastructure at Shannon would be an economic boost locally. The Government could keep a small operation at Dublin Airport, leased or whatever to operate ministerial flights and helicopter transfers etc....

I mean the Naval Service has no Dublin base, does the AC absolutely have to have one?

sparky42

Larbre34 wrote: »

I have a family member in Singapore. Obviously space is pretty tight there, so there actually two separate Air Force bases on the site of Changi international airport that utilise the runways of the civilian airport. There is also airport in Florida that has the same shared operation.

What are people's thoughts on selling up Casement and moving the Air Corps lockstock to Shannon? The sale could be reinvested in Air Corps equipment and an Air Corps base using existing infrastructure at Shannon would be an economic boost locally. The Government could keep a small operation at Dublin Airport, leased or whatever to operate ministerial flights and helicopter transfers etc....

I mean the Naval Service has no Dublin base, does the AC absolutely have to have one?

Given a chunk of the current fixed wing operations are West Coast and if we ever did have fighters so would their business, along with the fact that I highly doubt the Dublin suburbs would enjoy the increase in engine noise, yes it does actually make sense to move the AC out of Dublin, and not just for those reasons. The salaries of the AC members would go a hell of a lot further anywhere else than Dublin and it's commuter belt.


There's no reason why Shannon couldn't be used given some of it's mothballed runways anyway.

Manic Moran

TheW1zard wrote: »

Air Farce

[MOD]This is your one warning to cease trolling[/MOD]

roadmaster

sparky42 wrote: »

Given a chunk of the current fixed wing operations are West Coast and if we ever did have fighters so would their business, along with the fact that I highly doubt the Dublin suburbs would enjoy the increase in engine noise, yes it does actually make sense to move the AC out of Dublin, and not just for those reasons. The salaries of the AC members would go a hell of a lot further anywhere else than Dublin and it's commuter belt.


There's no reason why Shannon couldn't be used given some of it's mothballed runways anyway.

You could keep rotary operations on the east coast by reopening and upgrading Gormanston