Air Corps to take over Weston???

Su Campu

I heard a rumour that there is a chance that the Air Corps may be looking at taking over Weston. That's all I heard - no other detail than that.

Any truth in it? Seems a bit ridiculous to me.

Delancey

Sounds highly unlikely to me - TBH I think they have enough difficulty justifying Baldonnel not to mention adding to it.

balkanhawk

Delancey wrote: »

Sounds highly unlikely to me - TBH I think they have enough difficulty justifying Baldonnel not to mention adding to it.

Why do they have a difficulty justifying baldonnel?

I agree that the takeover of Weston is highly unlikely. How many flying schools are out there? Could they group together and buy it?

Neworder79

And it's only a few miles from Baldonnel so wouldn't se any operational advantage for the Air Corps.

Only justification I could see is a cost cutting smaller scaled down service (if thats possible) moved to Weston to allow for a sell of of Baldonnel as a state asset. FG have proposed Baldonnel as a second commercial airport for the city before and it's 2 runways, one 1800m, proximity to national road convergence and Citywest Luas might make it attractive to a buyer.

Su Campu

Weston's not currently of any use to the AC as due to lack of nightime capabilities, and I can't see the neighbours agreeing to any change in that.

SNAKEDOC

if the state bought it the neighbours wouldn't have any say. besides it will never happen. the air corp stopped operations from fenner camp a number of years ago and that was in a good location for operations in the west and north of the country while shannon can accommodate SAR ops from there so why use weston when its only a few miles away from bal. It would serve no tactical or financial good and there is no extra ease of operations. seems to me its someones fantasy and someone heard it as truth. it would be better for spotting althought:D I happened to stop at weston a while back only for a pc9m to come in and do a few touch and goes but i hadn't brought the camera.:rolleyes:

newcavanman

Su Campu wrote: »

Weston's not currently of any use to the AC as due to lack of nightime capabilities, and I can't see the neighbours agreeing to any change in that.

I dont think anyone would be too put out by the amount of night flying the IAC would be doing . Anyway, Baldonnel is as near to major motorways as Weston, so no point in selling one to shift to the other .
I would suspect that they would have a lot of difficulty in justifying why they dont look to open up Baldonnel to more civilian traffic . I must be honest and say i dont know what the current situation is regarding civilain use, but it appears , at least, to be seriously discouraged . It would have to make sense to try to cultivate such use, ideally executive jets etc, as all the facilities are in place so there would be very little extra in the way of overheads .
Then again, government departments and and sensible money making decisions dont seem to be happy bedfellows

Buffman

Su Campu wrote: »

Any truth in it? Seems a bit ridiculous to me.

Highly doubtful, the government are closing military installations all over the place and reducing defence force numbers to save money, can't see them spending any money on Weston.

Plus there is no need for it that I can see. With falling passenger numbers at Dublin Airport, there would seem to little demand for a second civilian airport at Baldonnel, I can't see any private company being interested.

And even if Baldonnel were opened for civilian use, there's no reason the AC would need to leave, there's plenty of other airports/airbases around which are shared, I don't see why it would be a problem here.

marketty

I heard they're gonna base the new eurofighters and apaches out there ;-)

newcavanman

marketty wrote: »

I heard they're gonna base the new eurofighters and apaches out there ;-)

The Department must have just placed that big order with Airfix so !

Cessna_Pilot

MOL buys and gifts Weston to the IAC, thus allowing Ryanair to take over BAL and leave Dublin!

TW Mr Tayto

Cessna_Pilot wrote: »

MOL buys and gifts Weston to the IAC, thus allowing Ryanair to take over BAL and leave Dublin!

It's like monopoly in real life.

L1011

O'Learys business model relies on the bulk of his airports letting him pay below cost for facilities in return for getting traffic. Ergo he'll never own an airport.

SNAKEDOC

baldonnel would need a bit of a revamp before accepting civilian traffic don't you think. i know there is lots of room for expansion but the facilities don't suit civil aviation. for starters there isn't half enough ramp space to have normal air corp operations and civil aviation co existing safely. then there is the surrounding roads. quite alright to accomodate the locals and the small air corp personnel travelling to it but not many more cars and public transport. a new on off ramp would be needed on the n7 and a new road to bal at the least. that doesn't come cheap these days. or quickly.