F-5s available

irishsurfer

Just a note - It was the aircraft I suggested as a possible Irish Aircorps CAP aircraft in a previous discussion.

Norway selling off about 15 F-5 A/B

By about 2009 a further 6 or so E/F versionbs will be available from Austria

Manic Moran

They're either going to go to current F-5 users (There might be a few left in South America) or be sold demilled to private aviators. Militarily, they're pretty useless by the standards of today. Not least, I doubt the airframes have many flight hours left on them.

NTM

Steyr

irishsurfer wrote: »

Just a note - It was the aircraft I suggested as a possible Irish Aircorps CAP aircraft in a previous discussion.

Norway selling off about 15 F-5 A/B

By about 2009 a further 6 or so E/F versionbs will be available from Austria

Send the above to Willie O'Dea, C/O Dept Of Defence.

irishsurfer

The Airframes can be zero houred, Chile and Brazil have both done it, as did Mexico I believe.
Great plane, perfectly adequete for Air Corps - thats my opinion.

Got a note back from Willie saying, well, cant use profanity here now:D

cp251

There's no point in buying high maintenance sixties technology.

ambasite

irishsurfer wrote: »

The Airframes can be zero houred, Chile and Brazil have both done it, as did Mexico I believe.
Great plane, perfectly adequete for Air Corps - thats my opinion.

Got a note back from Willie saying, well, cant use profanity here now:D

zero houred??

Captain Chaos

ambasite wrote: »

zero houred??

Means, perform a complete rebulid of the airframe. Each airframe has a set number of air hours before it has to be replaced or to be more correct certain critical parts. Spars in the wings for example that are under a lots of stress during Gs. The engines aswell are good up to a good few thousand hours before overhauls.

An F-15E for example has a 9G stressed airframe at 9,000 hours. Some F-16s now are running out of air hours and the USAF is performing the STAR upgrade to give them about another 5,000 hours.

As airframes get older though they require more maintenance hours per flight hour. The new Superhornets require only 10-15hrs per flight hour, the retired F-14s were needing 35-40 per flight hour at the end of their lives. They were just costing too much to keep in service.

F-5s though while old, they are cheap and simple to look after, relativly. Plus there are companies that will upgrade them with modern HOTAS cockpits and decent radar sets like the APG-66V2. They could be used as basic BVR fighters with AIM-120s in a hunter killer role.

Steyr

Captain Chaos wrote: »

The new Superhornets require only 10-15hrs per flight hour

Isnt that mad though, all those IRAN* hours for 1 hour.










IRAN = Inspect and Repair As Necessary. ( Irish Air Corps Lingo )

muppet01

Can anybody tell as to why the air corps saw fit to invest in pcm9 trainers?what are they training for? why waste money training fixed wing pilots for a step up to fast jets for no reason.that money alone could buy the rangers their own chopper.typically irish.

Manic Moran

muppet01 wrote: »

Can anybody tell as to why the air corps saw fit to invest in pcm9 trainers?what are they training for? why waste money training fixed wing pilots for a step up to fast jets for no reason.that money alone could buy the rangers their own chopper.typically irish.

Just in case fast jets are acquired in a hurry, it's a lot less training time. A rapid military purchase is not unheard of in Ireland's history. Everything about the military is a 'just in case' issue, even just having a military is not exactly cost efficient.

It's like keeping the Scorpions around for the sake of having tracked skills. Ireland's got no immediate plans to purchase any practical AFVs, but they're kept around to keep the skills valid.

NTM

OS119

Manic Moran wrote: »

Just in case fast jets are acquired in a hurry, it's a lot less training time. A rapid military purchase is not unheard of in Ireland's history. Everything about the military is a 'just in case' issue, even just having a military is not exactly cost efficient.

It's like keeping the Scorpions around for the sake of having tracked skills. Ireland's got no immediate plans to purchase any practical AFVs, but they're kept around to keep the skills valid.

NTM

your views on both the potential efficacy of this doctrine (ie: maintaining a small force that could provide the nucleus of a much larger force) and the likelyhood it working in the real world given the enormous time delays in actually deciding to procure equipment and getting it operational? (i'm particularly thinking of fast jets and the lag between deciding that you need them and getting a 24hr, 365 day BVR cap over Dublin and closing - by force if neccesary - Irish airspace to allcomers, or deciding that a situation overseas in unexceptable to the Irish state to the moment Irish F-16's start using JDAM's to amend that situation).

i fear that - even with an open chequebook - any situation that develops in which the Irish government feels that a significant rearmament program is required will be decided long before whatever purchaces the IG has made can be brought to bear.

Gatling

The F5 is a very capable aircraft maybe not in terms of payload, but preformance wise it can take on the best and win ,i recall reading and watching videos where the F5 was beating most of the US frontline jets including the legenary F15 in dog fight s,as for muppets comments hmmmm yeah ,your point is,
by the way muppet the PDF is taking delivery of 3 isrealie made UAVs(unmaned aerial veichle) maybe there laying off the whole aircorp:D:D:D

Victor

Gatling wrote: »

The F5 is a very capable aircraft maybe not in terms of payload, but preformance wise it can take on the best and win ,i recall reading and watching videos where the F5 was beating most of the US frontline jets including the legenary F15 in dog fight

I ssupect an A-1 Skyraider could also do it as could many a helicopter - of course the trick is to shoot them down from miles away and some will never know what hit them.

Gatling

this wasnt fire and forget situations , i mean up close and personal close quaters dog fighting ,both with missiles and guns

Oilrig

Just who are we going to be dogfighting with?

Spend the money on tactical lift capacity C130/A400M type, some kind of as needed lease deal? better fits with our military strategy and foreseeable tasking, including humanitarian aspects.

The intercept stuff will be carried out by our neighbours if needed me thinks.

Buying ancient technology is a waste of money and is not DF/DOD policy in recent years.

Gatling

i know o dea said a while back he had the option of buying attack type fast jets ,but it costs around 5million a year to service 1 jet ,thats not including replacing any parts ,12 jets .thats a lot of money to spend on services not incliding any air time, it lloks like the eu rapid reaction force is dead in the water , mighnt see much more spending over the next year or two

muppet01

Gatling wrote: »

The F5 is a very capable aircraft maybe not in terms of payload, but preformance wise it can take on the best and win ,i recall reading and watching videos where the F5 was beating most of the US frontline jets including the legenary F15 in dog fight s,as for muppets comments hmmmm yeah ,your point is,
by the way muppet the PDF is taking delivery of 3 isrealie made UAVs(unmaned aerial veichle) maybe there laying off the whole aircorp:D:D:D

That israeli UAV is a very limited BVR camera platform which can be launched by one man,its not exactely a predator.My point about the fixed wing trainers was to illustrate that the aer corp should concentrate on their helicoptor force as we are not likely in the near future obtain any form of modern fast jet.