RAF could shot down hijacked planes in Irish airspace

bear1

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/raf-tornado-jets-could-shoot-down-hijacked-planes-in-irish-airspace-414646.html

Lost for words that we can't defend our own airspace and rely on another country, and a country that will leave the EU, because the Government can't be bothered to replace the rotary yokes parked in Baldonnel.
The fact that they couldn't even keep up to a rotary Russian plane is a joke.
Feel so sorry for the crew who must be begging at this stage to have proper jets to patrol our skies in than something from the 80s.
Does the Government really not think that at this stage we should actually have a proper defensive budget put in place?
Embarrassing.

Smondie

Costs too much to run our own. This set up has been in place for years. What's the problem?

The lads in baldonnel are flying round in circles to keep thier flight hours up.

heebusjeebus

Imagine the cost of running a proper air force!

Timberrrrrrrr

bear1 wrote: »

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/raf-tornado-jets-could-shoot-down-hijacked-planes-in-irish-airspace-414646.html

Lost for words that we can't defend our own airspace and rely on another country, and a country that will leave the EU, because the Government can't be bothered to replace the rotary yokes parked in Baldonnel.
The fact that they couldn't even keep up to a rotary Russian plane is a joke.
Feel so sorry for the crew who must be begging at this stage to have proper jets to patrol our skies in than something from the 80s.
Does the Government really not think that at this stage we should actually have a proper defensive budget put in place?
Embarrassing.

Welcome to 2001

Ted111

Top hole. Bally Jerry pranged his kite right in the how's your father. Hairy blighter, dicky-birdied, feathered back on his Sammy, took a waspy, flipped over on his Betty Harper's and caught his can in the Bertie.

You know ... bally ten-penny ones dropping in the custard ... um ... Charlie Choppers chucking a handful ...

RobertKK

Well it is good to have friendly neighbours rather than hostile neighbours.

me_irl

Ted111 wrote: »

Top hole. Bally Jerry pranged his kite right in the how's your father. Hairy blighter, dicky-birdied, feathered back on his Sammy, took a waspy, flipped over on his Betty Harper's and caught his can in the Bertie.

You know ... bally ten-penny ones dropping in the custard ... um ... Charlie Choppers chucking a handful ...

Great sketch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myIB1TrPpTE

Del2005

bear1 wrote: »

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/raf-tornado-jets-could-shoot-down-hijacked-planes-in-irish-airspace-414646.html

Lost for words that we can't defend our own airspace and rely on another country, and a country that will leave the EU, because the Government can't be bothered to replace the rotary yokes parked in Baldonnel.
The fact that they couldn't even keep up to a rotary Russian plane is a joke.
Feel so sorry for the crew who must be begging at this stage to have proper jets to patrol our skies in than something from the 80s.
Does the Government really not think that at this stage we should actually have a proper defensive budget put in place?
Embarrassing.

Do you want the hospitals or schools closed to have a few fast jets that we will never need?

The Irish people don't support defence spending in the mistaken believe that by being neutral we don't need to problem is we aren't neutral we are militarily non aligned, neutral countries can defend their own boarders which we have never been able to do.

DEFTLEFTHAND

It cost millions to purchase and service fighter jets. In the unlikely event that we ever find ourselves in trouble Britain will deal with it.

razorblunt

Sure it's grand. We share the lifeboats too, if you were adrift in the Irish Sea I don't think you'd care if it were English accents or Irish accents on the boat that saved you.

BoJack Horseman

heebusjeebus wrote: »

Imagine the cost of running a proper air force!

The Czech's lease a squadron of jet fighters (12) for less than our cost of leasing just 4 S&R helicopters for the coast guard!

Affordability is not an issue.

Jawgap

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

The Czech's lease a squadron of jet fighters (12) for less than the cost of leasing just 4 S&R helicopters for the coast guard!

Affordability is not an issue.

we need an inflight refueling capacity though - the Czech's don't have any oceanic airspace to defend

12 jets are fine if you are landlocked.

Skylinehead

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

The Czech's lease a squadron of jet fighters (12) for less than our cost of leasing just 4 S&R helicopters for the coast guard!

Affordability is not an issue.

And how do you propose we a) run them and b) fly them with no prior experience or infrastructure?

Gatling

1-5 million per jet to purchase and another estimated 5 - 15 million per yer per jet to service and maintain .

Probably be a better idea of allowing armed friendly jets to be allowed stay in Baldonnell on rotation

BoJack Horseman

Skylinehead wrote: »

And how do you propose we a) run them

Run them?
By making them go into the sky probably.

fly them with no prior experience

Luckily people can be trained.... as the Czech & Hungarian AF's were

Duff

BoJack Horseman

Jawgap wrote: »

we need an inflight refueling capacity though

That's debatable when you look at other small maritime nations like Norway & Denmark manage without.

Luckily though if one was needed there are pooled European tanker assets that Ireland can avail of without massive capital outlay.

Ted111

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

Run them?
By making them go into the sky probably.

I hear them jet fighters are heavy on the auld oil.
Check every few weeks see if she needs a top up.

BoJack Horseman

Ted111 wrote: »

I hear them jet fighters are heavy on the auld oil.
Check every few weeks see if she needs a top up.

They keep a bottle of 10w40 in the cockpit just in case.

none of your semi-synthetic nonsense!

Skylinehead

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

Run them?
By making them go into the sky probably.


Luckily people can be trained.... as the Czech & Hungarian AF's were

That's where affordability may just come into the question. Having fast jets would be nice, I'm a little bit of a military buff, but lets be realistic. There's far greater problems to solve than this.

smash

It's time to buzz the tower!

bear1

Del2005 wrote: »

Do you want the hospitals or schools closed to have a few fast jets that we will never need?

The Irish people don't support defence spending in the mistaken believe that by being neutral we don't need to problem is we aren't neutral we are militarily non aligned, neutral countries can defend their own boarders which we have never been able to do.

I cant see how leasing a few jets would results in hospitals ot schools being closed.
As for the rest of your post id agree with.
Yes we may never need to call on the raf or need to use our own craft for such a scenario but I find it baffling that we need to go to another country and ask.them to fly over to us and help cause we don't have the tools for it.
I believe I read that the swedes leased the czechs jets and the mechanics for a very reasonable sum, so why couldn't Ireland get the same sort of deal?
Or call bollocks to our defence and ask the raf to base their jets in baldonnel. At least it would be quicker in any event.

Gatling

Id love to see us pick up some Saab JAS 39 Gripens.
But that's not going to happen in our life time at least .

Drones will be the future unfortunately we'll likely miss that boat too

bear1

Skylinehead wrote: »

That's where affordability may just come into the question. Having fast jets would be nice, I'm a little bit of a military buff, but lets be realistic. There's far greater problems to solve that this.

Fair enough. However, it doesn't detract from the idea that we need a proper air defence.
After 9/11 the government asked the defence chiefs what would be needed for us to be secure and he was told f-16s (more or less I think).
Now 14 years would have gone by without any real need for them and then in the space of a few months the Russians came in and out as they pleased and we needed the raf.
If we had had our own jets we could have dealt with that problem alone.

silverharp

Gatling wrote: »

Drones will be the future unfortunately we'll likely miss that boat too

Drones would be good for coastal security so you might make the naval budget stretch a bit. I'd imagine they would be standard in 10 or 20 years which is about the speed of civil service decision making

Gatling

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

That's debatable when you look at other small maritime nations like Norway & Denmark manage without.

Danish economy is worth around 300 billion + per annum with a unemployment rate of 6% the average dane pays a lot more income tax compared to here too ,.

Imagine a government suddenly decides upping tax rates up to 40% across the board there would be riots

BoJack Horseman

Skylinehead wrote: »

That's where affordability may just come into the question

As I said already, if we can blow €50m a year on just 4 helicopters, then around the same for a dozen planes won't crush the nation what with it being less than 1/1000th of government expenditure

There's far greater problems to solve that this.

Luckily there are nearly 300,000 public servants working on the other things.
However that doesn't mean that things you don't want done can't ever be entertained!

Skylinehead

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

As I said already, if we can blow €50m a year on just 4 helicopters, then around the same for a dozen planes won't crush the nation what with it being less than 1/1000th of government expenditure

Ok we'll buy the planes for 50m, and park them in a garage to rot because you seem to (continually) forget that maintenance and training costs more.

screamer

Ah sure no point in spending money on defense...until it's needed, then watch the **** hit the fan or prop in this case. But sure good old neutral Ireland going nowhere fast why would we ever need to defend ourselves sure we'd just roll over and surrender to an invading force. Sad but true.

BoJack Horseman

Gatling wrote: »

Danish economy is worth around 300 billion

And?

So Denmark has the 36th biggest economy on earth.
And Ireland has the 40th.

Is that where the debate ends?

I'm suggesting we consider the possibility of having a capability of around 1/4 of what the Danes have.

Joeseph Balls

Ted111 wrote: »

Top hole. Bally Jerry pranged his kite right in the how's your father. Hairy blighter, dicky-birdied, feathered back on his Sammy, took a waspy, flipped over on his Betty Harper's and caught his can in the Bertie.

You know ... bally ten-penny ones dropping in the custard ... um ... Charlie Choppers chucking a handful ...

Over Macho Grande?

JustTheOne

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

And?

So Denmark has the 36th biggest economy on earth.
And Ireland has the 40th.

Is that where the debate ends?

I'm suggesting we consider the possibility of having a capability of around 1/4 of what the Danes have.

Wonder if they spend 1/3 of their budget on social welfare each year.

seamus

How many times has it been necessary to shoot down hijacked passenger aircraft over European airspace in the last 50 years?

BoJack Horseman

Skylinehead wrote: »

Ok we'll buy the planes for 50m

You will note that I didn't say buy.

Seeing as you are a self declared defence buff, you don't need me to tell you the details of example I gave wrt the Czech Airforce & Saab.

You already know that that deal included all training (for 21 pilots & 69 technicians), upgrades & support for the duration of the lease.

You also don't need me to tell you that this was all for an average of €5.5m per aircraft per year which when compared to the Coast guards CHC deal (averaging €12.5m per aircraft per year) represents pretty good value.

Gatling

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

I'm suggesting we consider the possibility of having a capability of around 1/4 of what the Danes have.

It's a stupid state of affairs I believe we actually spend close to 800million this year and yet we have next to no capabilities to defend our skys or seas .

Dane's have 60 F16A and 17 f16bs weve have 7 PC9s

darkpagandeath

The Garbage Man Can !!!

Skylinehead

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

You will note that I didn't say buy.

Seeing as you are a self declared defence buff, you don't need me to tell you the details of example I gave wrt the Czech Airforce & Saab.

You already know that that deal included all training (for 21 pilots & 69 technicians), upgrades & support for the duration of the lease.

You also don't need me to tell you that this was all for an average of €5.5m per aircraft per year which when compared to the Coast guards CHC deal (averaging €12.5m per aircraft per year) represents pretty good value.

So nothing regarding hangars, runways, jet fuel, basic fast jet training (I imagine the Saab deal is plane-specific, assuming some competency already)? Costs start climbing hard then. The Czechs have had a proper air force with jets for decades. We don't. It's not as simple as "buy planes" like you're suggesting.

BoJack Horseman

Gatling wrote: »

It's a stupid state of affairs I believe we actually spend close to 800million this year

It's €904 for 2016.
of this 80% is spent on pay & pensions.

Capital defence expenditure will be just €66m this year, almost entirely on the navy's P60s.

You can't really have any kind of capability if you are spending €60m a year.

ScumLord

Next time the RAF lads are over here shooting down terrorists can you tell them to blow up that shed down the back of me field? Marty wants €400 to come in and knock it with the digger.

Ted111

Joeseph Balls wrote: »

Over Macho Grande?

I'll never get over Macho Grande...



(...You're too low, too low..)

Jawgap

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

That's debatable when you look at other small maritime nations like Norway & Denmark manage without.

Luckily though if one was needed there are pooled European tanker assets that Ireland can avail of without massive capital outlay.

Seriously?

All Ivan has to do is trundle up and down the West Coast and wait for the fighters to arrive on station, then continue trundling until the light in the fighters' cockpit comes on that gives the pilots a squeaky arse when they're over water......then when they call Bingo and head for home Ivan can trundle in behind them

One recent RAF QRF interception resulted in a pair of Tiffies being on station for nearly 10 hours - second thing the Brits do after they launch the QRF is launch a Voyager.

BoJack Horseman

Skylinehead wrote: »

It's not as simple as "buy planes" like you're suggesting.

Quote where I said "buy planes"..... cos reading really seems to not be your thing!

I'm saying that the training and maintenance & the aircraft can all be leased, just like other countries manage to do it & just like the Coast Guard already do!!

And you know that the Czechs & Hungarians also got training jets included.

Skylinehead

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

Quote where I said "buy planes"..... cos reading really seems to not be your thing!

I'm saying that the training and maintenance & the aircraft can all be leased, just like other countries manage to do it & just like the Coast Guard already do!!

And you know that the Czechs & Hungarians also got training jets included.

And I just explained that that wouldn't be nearly enough. You should try reading my post that you just cut.

BoJack Horseman

Jawgap wrote: »

second thing the Brits do after they launch the QRF is launch a Voyager.

Which they rent.... I'm sure they wouldn't say no to an extra client!

No one is saying buy MRTTs

Arsemageddon

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

It's €904 for 2016.
of this 80% is spent on pay & pensions.

Quite tight, money spent on wages is a disgrace - we should have a slave army of Unsullied.

andekwarhola

Let's jack up income tax to provide us with the schools, army and other services we deserve.

Wait, where did everybody go?

intellectual dosser

Those Russians at it again? They've always had it in for poor old Eire.

We should have military service too, and conscription, that'll learn em.

Jawgap

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

Which they rent.... I'm sure they wouldn't say no to an extra client!

No one is saying buy MRTTs

Rent or buy it's still a capability that had to be provided to support a QRF - so now that has to be added to the bill for the 24 jets we'd need to operate a round the clock QRF to address a negligible threat and the cost of upgrading, maintaining and operating the hard and soft infrastructure.

It would be great to see, but it would also be a phenomenal waste of money.

Gatling

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

It's €904 for 2016.
of this 80% is spent on pay & pensions.

Capital defence expenditure will be just €66m this year, almost entirely on the navy's P60s.

You can't really have any kind of capability if you are spending €60m a year.

And we spend €640 million on over seas aid,€25 million on the protection of refugees
And €19 billion on social welfare ,

640 million over seas that in several cases funded foreign governments military spending go figure

sonofenoch

I'd love to be a Nuclear superpower.....don't **** with us , alright?

BoJack Horseman

Jawgap wrote: »

added to the bill for the 24

You are saying 24
I doubt that many would be needed to maintain a QRF of say 3 (again, if the Czechs can manage 3 from 12, why not?)

12 would be sufficient.
It's my preference to asking daddy across the Irish Sea to do our governments job for us.