Fighter jets for the Air Corps?

Heraldoffreeent

skooterblue2 wrote: »

I thought the Providence wells came up dry and Tony O Reilly went to the wall over it?

They didn't, the find was confirmed in march 2012, but that coincided with a fall in the price of oil. This restricted their ability to do a farm out, which was only concluded last year.

The field is small though, its about a billion barrels and the industry average recovery rate is about 37%, so getting 370m barrels out of it would be doing really good.

skooterblue2

Heraldoffreeent wrote: »

The field is small though, its about a billion barrels and the industry average recovery rate is about 37%, so getting 370m barrels out of it would be doing really good.

Is that all? I was told about shares in it back in 2006 aprox. "There is more oil and better quality than in Saudi Arabia"..... I know a few guys who had the pension fund in it.

sparky42

Heraldoffreeent wrote: »

They didn't, the find was confirmed in march 2012, but that coincided with a fall in the price of oil. This restricted their ability to do a farm out, which was only concluded last year.

The field is small though, its about a billion barrels and the industry average recovery rate is about 37%, so getting 370m barrels out of it would be doing really good.

From memory isn't it also a fairly "heavy"?

sparky42

jonnybigwallet wrote: »

Another reason to go for the Gripen. Given the DF involvement with the Nordic Battle Group, we could do some joint training with established Gripen operators. However I think that the Gripen is a step change and should be done some years down the road. I still reckon a fleet of Scorpions (8) would be handy to get the lads up to speed on jet aircraft first. It's cheap and it has 2 engines. Then acquire the Gripens in about 3 to 4 years time when the oil comes into production in Cork.

The Scorpions are still a paper plane, it has no orders, why in god's name would the AC pick it for a "start up" plane?

Heraldoffreeent

skooterblue2 wrote: »

Is that all? I was told about shares in it back in 2006 aprox. "There is more oil and better quality than in Saudi Arabia"..... I know a few guys who had the pension fund in it.

Nobody in their right mind would stick a pension fund in it, lower than 5% of a portfolio would probably be too much.

PVR has been a bit of a pump and dump/penny share forever.

Theres been talk about DunQuin/Dunbeg for years and the conspiracy theory is that O'Reilly knows there's loads there and he's waiting for oil to be millions per barrel before he exploits it. The fact he is Bankrupt blows that theory out of the water.

Exxon farmed into Dunquin several years ago, spent about a hundred million dollers on a drill, they found water. PVR are still talking up another sector on that block, don't think any Major is nibbling, I kinda stopped following them a number of years ago.

Heraldoffreeent

sparky42 wrote: »

From memory isn't it also a fairly "heavy"?

As far as I can remember, yes it is, which is why it was Esser Stanilow or Valero Pembroke that were mentioned for refining rather than upgrade Whiddy.

Leonidas BL

sparky42 wrote: »

The Scorpions are still a paper plane, it has no orders, why in god's name would the AC pick it for a "start up" plane?

Sure they'd be no good anyway. What benefit do they have really over the PC-9's... They dont fire AAM's, they dont have radar and they dont go supersonic!

Psychlops

prinzeugen wrote: »

Also the Tornado has also been used for what Ireland would most likely use it for..

Air to air, air to ship and limited air to surface.

RAF Tornado is far from limited in Air to Ground, any RAF Tornado role demo ive seen specifically highlights that & their most recent use against ISIS/ISIL

sparky42

Psychlops wrote: »

RAF Tornado is far from limited in Air to Ground, any RAF Tornado role demo ive seen specifically highlights that & their most recent use against ISIS/ISIL

Given the Tornado was meant as strike aircraft, land attack is one of it's core reasons for existing.

Leonidas BL

sparky42 wrote: »

Given the Tornado was meant as strike aircraft, land attack is one of it's core reasons for existing.

But there's no denying that the Tornado ADV was useful for intercepting bombers out over the ocean, maybe even more so than a multirole fighter.

sparky42

Leonidas BL wrote: »

But there's no denying that the Tornado ADV was useful for intercepting bombers out over the ocean, maybe even more so than a multirole fighter.

How do you figure? I mean it made sense to the UK because it was in service with them already, but given how few users the entire Tornado program ended up with it can't have had any major advantages?

CrankyHaus

sparky42 wrote: »

How do you figure? I mean it made sense to the UK because it was in service with them already, but given how few users the entire Tornado program ended up with it can't have had any major advantages?

The only users were the original contributing nations (UK, Ger, ITA) and Saudi Arabia, which along with the other Gulf States is well known to buy military equipment as a diplomatic tool rather than out of strategic necessity.



https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2018/03/01/for-the-gulf-states-diplomacy-involves-buying-weapons-they-dont-need


I'm not saying the Tornado wasn't a succesful strike aircraft but its very limited export success has to be interpreted with that taken into account.
Also the sale of ADVs to the Saudis was part of the infamously corrupt Al-Yamamah arms deal, suggesting that the aircraft did not win orders on merit.

The ADV had a lengthy and problem plagued development, the radar fiasco is the best known but other rather basic capabilities were still missing later and the RAF retired them for Typhoons first chance they got. Similarly the Italians didn't even wait for the Eurofighter and ended their lease of ADVs to replace them with F16s as their interim fighter before they got the Eurofighter. After using the ADV the Saudis converted 60 of their further orders to the IDS strike variant instead. All of this indicates that the ADV failed to meet expectations from its operators.

The Tornado design is ancient 60's variable geometry and the airframes must be knackered. The low level high speed terrain following mission profile would exert considerable stress on an airframe. The maintenance on variable geometry systems and a design that old would be difficult and costly - The US got rid of F14s long ago for similar reasons. Even if they were being given away they would probably not be a good choice.

beauf

The Tornado was a compromised design. Jack of all trades master at none.

It was designed to loiter for long periods on CAP. It was never intended as a dogfighter and it was slow to accelerate. Wouldn't suit Ireland at all. I seem to remember it was criticized for poor performance in hot and high climates. Maybe I'm mistaken I can't find anything online about that.

But it was a great jack of all trades. Great weapons platform. Very capable in the right hands.

beauf

I think there are simpler better performing, and more cost effective aircraft than the Tornado. Especially for Ireland.

sparky42

beauf wrote: »

I think there are simpler better performing, and more cost effective aircraft than the Tornado. Especially for Ireland.

Course there are, for larger nations who already have such legacy aircraft on their books, it might well be cheaper to keep them in service (depending on usage, demands etc), but for us if the idea of us ever moving to Jets again picking up second hand 4th gen aircraft is worse than pointless, it's self defeating.

prinzeugen

The ADV Tornado was never designed as a dogfighter. It (and the radar) was a long range thing. First beyond visual sight.

The GR4, has the range and a cannon. ..

prinzeugen

CrankyHaus wrote: »

The only users were the original contributing nations (UK, Ger, ITA) and Saudi Arabia, which along with the other Gulf States is well known to buy military equipment as a diplomatic tool rather than out of strategic necessity.



https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2018/03/01/for-the-gulf-states-diplomacy-involves-buying-weapons-they-dont-need


I'm not saying the Tornado wasn't a succesful strike aircraft but its very limited export success has to be interpreted with that taken into account.
Also the sale of ADVs to the Saudis was part of the infamously corrupt Al-Yamamah arms deal, suggesting that the aircraft did not win orders on merit.

The ADV had a lengthy and problem plagued development, the radar fiasco is the best known but other rather basic capabilities were still missing later and the RAF retired them for Typhoons first chance they got. Similarly the Italians didn't even wait for the Eurofighter and ended their lease of ADVs to replace them with F16s as their interim fighter before they got the Eurofighter. After using the ADV the Saudis converted 60 of their further orders to the IDS strike variant instead. All of this indicates that the ADV failed to meet expectations from its operators.

The Tornado design is ancient 60's variable geometry and the airframes must be knackered. The low level high speed terrain following mission profile would exert considerable stress on an airframe. The maintenance on variable geometry systems and a design that old would be difficult and costly - The US got rid of F14s long ago for similar reasons. Even if they were being given away they would probably not be a good choice.

Not true!! It was designed for the cold war and low level flight over Germany to drop small nukes on Russian forces.

During most NATO missions, the Tornado went in after the US. You forgot to mention the Tornado that have been upgraded in the copy and paste job!

CrankyHaus

beauf wrote: »

The Tornado was a compromised design. Jack of all trades master at none.

It was designed to loiter for long periods on CAP. It was never intended as a dogfighter and it was slow to accelerate. Wouldn't suit Ireland at all. I seem to remember it was criticized for poor performance in hot and high climates. Maybe I'm mistaken I can't find anything online about that.

But it was a great jack of all trades. Great weapons platform. Very capable in the right hands.

I'd actually argue that it was optimised for low level penetration of air defences in the strike role and performed well in that task but that attempts to adapt that design to other roles were flawed. The F111 was designed for the same mission and both the US Navy and Air Force wisely rejected McNamara's attempts to force it into the land and carrierborne fighter role as an economy measure.

The low level penetration mission, to go in below the radar horizon of enemy air defences, was all the rage in the 1960s and early 70s, before AEW and look down shoot down radars made it a less viable proposition (and various IADS counters like SEAD/DEAD, standoff weapons and eventually stealth were in turn developed). Variable geometry was similarly in vogue at the time before other advances made it unnecessary. The Tornado has to be understood in that context as a relic of a very specific time and requirement. That it has lasted so long in the strike role is a testament to how good it was at its intended task. Why anyone thinks it would perform well in the 21st century as a A2A platform when attempts to make it one in the 20th failed so badly is beyond me.

prinzeugen

Tornado and cannon. Bye bye. The GR4 was not designed for air to air but can do it.

A few rounds up exhaust of an airliner is all that is needed.

OS120

prinzeugen wrote: »

Tornado and cannon. Bye bye. The GR4 was not designed for air to air but can do it.

A few rounds up exhaust of an airliner is all that is needed.

and how do you propose that a GR4 finds said airliner?

Leonidas BL

OS120 wrote: »

and how do you propose that a GR4 finds said airliner?

That wasn't even the point. I was originally talking about the F3 Air Defense Variant which was designed to catch high flying long range bombers out over the sea. Not sure why your man wants to shoot airliners up the arse....

sparky42

Leonidas BL wrote: »

That wasn't even the point. I was originally talking about the F3 Air Defense Variant which was designed to catch high flying long range bombers out over the sea. Not sure why your man wants to shoot airliners up the arse....

Haven't the ADV's been out of service for years now? I'd imagine they've been scrapped.

Leonidas BL

sparky42 wrote: »

Haven't the ADV's been out of service for years now? I'd imagine they've been scrapped.

Gone since the mid 00ies's I think...

OS120

yes, the ADV/F3's have all been turned into razor blades. they went out of service in 2011 - replaced by the Typhoon.

the GR4 has only the most basic air-to-air capability: its radar, which isn't an A2A radar, can find a tanker at night if it knows roughly where to look, but thats about it.

it was trialled on a couple of exercises as a way to augment the Tornado F3/Typhoon fighter force (for the Falklands) - fuel tanks, 4 ASRAAM, and partnered with either Typhoon/Tornado F3 or controlled by a ground radar. it was OK for air policing over a fixed position, but it simply didn't have the performance at medium/high altitude to work against an attacking, manouvering force.

thats not what it was built for - it was designed and built to be a fast, low-level strike attack aircraft who's defensive system was 'where'd it go?'. it eventually matured into a medium altitude bomber as weapon systems changed, and it was bloody good at it - but zoom climbs and transonic accelleration weren't part of its design brief so it was never built for them.

only an idiot would buy a P60 class OPV to use it as an aircraft carrier, and only an idiot would buy a completely shagged out bomber and try to use it as a fighter.

prinzeugen

OS120 wrote: »

and how do you propose that a GR4 finds said airliner?

The same way they would know if there was a plane with its transponder switched off.. A decent ground based military radar.

Its how the RAF find the Russians when they approach UK airspace with transponders etc switched off.

They dont show on civil radar. You can have the best radar fitted to a plane but its useless on the ground. You need a radar to tell you there is a problem and you need to scramble your jets.

Common sense really.

And as I have already said, there are plenty of airframes that are only halfway through their life, so they are hardly "shagged"!

beauf

In fairness it's radar was hardcore.

sparky42

prinzeugen wrote: »

Common sense really.

Got to be honest I see nothing that's "Common Sense" in trying to argue that the Tornado should be an option for us if we were in a position to move to Jets.

prinzeugen

sparky42 wrote: »

Got to be honest I see nothing that's "Common Sense" in trying to argue that the Tornado should be an option for us if we were in a position to move to Jets.

Its a good starting point. There are lots of Tornado crew, instructors, ground crew etc that will have taken redundancy from the RAF that could be hired. The Tornado is a 2 seater also. Handy.

Heraldoffreeent

prinzeugen wrote: »

The Tornado is a 2 seater also. Handy.

So is a Mazda MX-5.

jonnybigwallet

So is the Scorpion jet. Maybe not ideal but reasonably priced and an incremental step into the jet age.