RAF jets protecting Ireland

PCros

It's been discussed over the years but there doesn't seem to be any real interest in getting our own jets. We have the boats so why not any aircraft?

Denmark, Finland and Norway who have similar populations have them, I believe Finland has over 100 which I suppose is because of their neighbours. I'm not saying that we need that many but even 8-10 would suffice.

Contract could be given to the RAF to train our pilots and possibly aircraft could be purchased off them too.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/secret-defence-pact-allowing-raf-jets-inirish-airspace-undermines-our-neutrality-says-td-berry-40526069.html

ec18

Given the way technology is going and Air forces in general are going to transition to unmanned flight over the next decade or so. It would probably be more beneficial for us to invest in drones or similar unmanned coverage over Irish air space

HTCOne

Between acquisition, maintenance, training and operations, even the 12ish that would be required would likely cost over a billion €. I don’t think the public have much of a stomach for that. If anything, heavy lift capability to support the peace keeping operations is likely higher up the priority list.

We have the boats (but nobody to crew them, there’s a couple effectively mothballed in Haulbowline due insufficient crews) because of fishery patrols. Fast jets are overkill for that. The odd Bear intrusion into the NAT or PLOC situation with an airliner isn’t really enough to justify the expense in many people’s opinions either. Let the RAF handle it, the Bears are there to antagonise them anyway, not us.

Edit: and the statement in that story about Russian aircraft entering Irish airspace with their transponders turned off is misleading. They have done this in Irish controlled airspace, not in our sovereign airspace. Airspace more than 12nm beyond our coastline is international airspace for which ATC function is delegated to Shannon by ICAO. Any State aircraft can operate Due Regard out there and are under no obligation to talk to ATC or let us know they’re there or what they’re up to. If they came within 12nm of our coast that would be illegal, but it hasn’t happened.

Nijmegen

This comes up quite a bit... Ultimately, yes as a neutral nation in theory we are supposed to pull our own weight so, for example, a neighbor can't be overrun via our territory. On the other hand, the status quo really doesn't incentivize the Irish taxpayer to stump up the cash. The Brits seem to be doing a fine job intercepting those Bears and as long as they don't accidentally down an EI flight coming back from New York, most Irish people won't care - they're not actually overflying the island and causing us any hassle.

Of course, we then go crying to our neighbors when anything does happen to us and they have to roll their eyes. We're basically freeloading and we like it. We're not spending the hundreds of millions to billions it would cost to own and operate a fighter squadron, a primary radar, etc etc, and imagine the hand wringing if it was Irish flagged jets up there wing to wing with Russian aircraft and they start getting bolshie with us.

grassylawn

Lots of teenage boys like the idea of becoming fighter pilots for their nation's defence forces.
Our dependence on the UK doesn't sit well with some nationalistically minded types.

I think that's the whole of the case for this.

Peregrine

PCros wrote: »

It's been discussed over the years but there doesn't seem to be any real interest in getting our own jets. We have the boats so why not any aircraft?

Do we? What are "the boats" equivalent that you think we have?

PCros wrote: »

I'm not saying that we need that many but even 8-10 would suffice.

What would 8-10 suffice for? What capabilities do you think we could have with 8-10 aircraft? Which type of aircraft?

PCros

Peregrine wrote: »

Do we? What are "the boats" equivalent that you think we have?

We have 10 boats which 3 are on reserve I believe according to their website.

Peregrine wrote: »

What would 8-10 suffice for? What capabilities do you think we could have with 8-10 aircraft? Which type of aircraft?

Patrol of Irish airspace where required, we're not going to war here. Single-engine multirole fighter aircraft.

Davidth88

I have always wondered why the IAC have the PC9s TBH if you consider what their primary role is ( fast jet trainer ) .

Anyway , this has always been the case ( The RAF watching Irish airspace ) .

I see no reason for the IAC to purchase fast jets, it would be a few more than 8 or 10 needed after all I imagine most fast jets spend as much time with a spanner on them as they do in the air ( open to correction ).

I would also imagine the facilities you would need to handle fast jets would be pretty extensive , Baldonell would need a bit of an upgrade , HAS , longer runway ? , catch fencing and stuff like that wouldn't it ?

Peregrine

PCros wrote: »

Patrol of Irish airspace where required, we're not going to war here. Single-engine multirole fighter aircraft.

8-10 won't be enough for that. The last thing we need is another half assed purchase that won't deliver on the necessary capabilities. We have enough of those.

If we're going to do this then we need to have a conversation about what's actually required to deliver the kind of operational capacity you're talking about.

riffmongous

I'd imagine the Brits and the Gov prefer it this way, if we had some capability we'd have to come to another sort of arrangement with them that might have more serious implications for our neutrality, especially now they're not EU anymore

CIARAN_BOYLE

PCros wrote: »

It's been discussed over the years but there doesn't seem to be any real interest in getting our own jets. We have the boats so why not any aircraft?

Denmark, Finland and Norway who have similar populations have them, I believe Finland has over 100 which I suppose is because of their neighbours. I'm not saying that we need that many but even 8-10 would suffice.

Contract could be given to the RAF to train our pilots and possibly aircraft could be purchased off them too.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/secret-defence-pact-allowing-raf-jets-inirish-airspace-undermines-our-neutrality-says-td-berry-40526069.html

8 jets wouldn't keep a 2 jet qrf in service.

Either we spend for a serious airforce or we don't. Tokenism is pointless.

sailing

Waste of money, not needed. On any given day the RAF are training about 50 miles east of Dublin for hours on end. They’d sort out any issue before one of ours are even airborne.

We don’t need them. We’re not under any International threat. We won’t be any time soon. The only reason the UK have squadrons are more for International conflict abroad, not really for home soil.

The games with the Russians suit them for training for interceptions. There’s never any real threat of conflict.

Larbre34

Theres really no getting around this inconvenient truth - any sovereign Republic, even a neutral one, who cannot assert its own borders and boundaries, and exert a presence in the air and at sea within its areas of responsibility, simply isn't worthy of the name.

And we do have huge areas of sea and sky to manage, many times the size or our island.

Someone mentioned earlier that we have the boats. Thats not correct either. We have about a third the number of ships we need to protect fisheries and the EEZ and those ships do not carry the kind of modern day anti air and anti ship missiles to consider them a proper naval deterrent.

Genre..

Larbre34 wrote: »

Theres really no getting around this inconvenient truth - any sovereign Republic, even a neutral one, who cannot assert its own borders and boundaries, and exert a presence in the air and at sea within its areas of responsibility, simply isn't worthy of the name.

And we do have huge areas of sea and sky to manage, many times the size or our island.

Someone mentioned earlier that we have the boats. Thats not correct either. We have about a third the number of ships we need to protect fisheries and the EEZ and those ships do not carry the kind of modern day anti air and anti ship missiles to consider them a proper naval deterrent.

We're just a banana republic that's the reality

Probably if we got attacked by a boatload of Jamaicans there'd be some uproar about the situation

Larbre34

Genre.. wrote: »

We're just a banana republic that's the reality

Probably if we got attacked by a boatload of Jamaicans there'd be some uproar about the situation

Someone needs to take it more seriously than that.

The IAA and by extension the Irish State is responsible for an area of controlled airspace far larger than Ireland again to our west, roughly speaking. We also have some limited tracking and communications responsibility out in the Shanwick Oceanic zone as well as an hosting the Aireon global ALERT system at the North Atlantic Communications Centre in Clare.

As things stand, we have no primary military radar to track Russian military planes who operate without transponders in our area, or any planes to challenge them, or to intercept and inspect commercial and civilian aircraft should any incident arise.

Given all the above and as a Country hosting major tech and data industry with a clear vulnerability to infrastructure, the absence of an effective airspace defence system is an abdication of duty as a sovereign Republic and a dereliction of our responsibility to our international investors and partners.

Tenger

The IAA is a cilivlian agency that is very successful in its field.
It has no responsibility for "protecting our airspace"
I have yet to hear any of our "International partners" or those multinationals lobbying the Irish Govt to install military tracking radar and/or a robust air defence network.


Your overly dramatic picture is the work of a wierd mind. You should have a read of the 1990s Clancy-esque novel "Dark Rose"
(possibly the worst book I have ever read)

Inquitus

Larbre34 wrote: »

Someone needs to take it more seriously than that.

The IAA and by extension the Irish State is responsible for an area of controlled airspace far larger than Ireland again to our west, roughly speaking. We also have some limited tracking and communications responsibility out in the Shanwick Oceanic zone as well as an hosting the Aireon global ALERT system at the North Atlantic Communications Centre in Clare.

As things stand, we have no primary military radar to track Russian military planes who operate without transponders in our area, or any planes to challenge them, or to intercept and inspect commercial and civilian aircraft should any incident arise.

Given all the above and as a Country hosting major tech and data industry with a clear vulnerability to infrastructure, the absence of an effective airspace defence system is an abdication of duty as a sovereign Republic and a dereliction of our responsibility to our international investors and partners.

Lol, are you being serious? Anyone who has invested in this country knows exactly what the state of our defense forces is, and they don't care hence they keep investing!

ClosedAccountFuzzy

We’re also a member of the EU and have an increasingly distant and somewhat souring relationship with the UK due to their political hostility toward the EU.

What if Johnson withdrew air cover arrangements for example?

It’s a rather ad hoc and informal messy relationship. It’s not as if we’re members of NATO with some mutual defence arrangement.

touts

Cost would be too great. Because we are effectively starting from zero by the time we put the infrastructure, training and support facilities in place we wouldn't have much change out of a billion a jet. Even if we bought 50 jets it still wouldn't be enough to protect us in the event of a real war.

faoiarvok

Does anyone actually know what the agreement is? The relevant departments are keeping it pretty close to their chest. I wouldn’t be surprised if it had nothing to do with protecting us, but was just a blanket diplomatic clearance for UK interceptors to cross our airspace if they want to check out a suspicious aircraft heading towards them.

Larbre34

Read it yourself.

Just last Sunday the Times of London had an article on a submission by the IAA to the current Commission on Defence on precisely this matter.

So while you're correct about the remit of the IAA, the State as a whole does have a responsibility beyond their remit, just as it is in every other Country.

Larbre34

faoiarvok wrote: »

Does anyone actually know what the agreement is? The relevant departments are keeping it pretty close to their chest. I wouldn’t be surprised if it had nothing to do with protecting us, but was just a blanket diplomatic clearance for UK interceptors to cross our airspace if they want to check out a suspicious aircraft heading towards them.

Nobody does outside the Dept of Foreign Affairs, but it does appear to be as you describe. We also know that the Department of Defence didn't see it, which says a lot too.

I'll be very interested to see if Cathal Berry pursues its constitutionality, because he has a very strong argument.

Tenger

Larbre34 wrote: »

......
......
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So while you're correct about the remit of the IAA, the State as a whole does have a responsibility beyond their remit, just as it is in every other Country.

Funny how this hasn't acted as a disincentive to all the MNCs who invested in our nation over the last few decades......

faoiarvok

Larbre34 wrote: »

I'll be very interested to see if Cathal Berry pursues its constitutionality, because he has a very strong argument.

If it is just a diplomatic clearance, I’m not sure how it would be unconstitutional if all the other clearances given to other countries’ military aircraft are OK.

If they start shooting down airliners in our airspace, he’d have a point, but I can’t imagine anyone’s envisioning that.

Larbre34

touts wrote: »

Cost would be too great. Because we are effectively starting from zero by the time we put the infrastructure, training and support facilities in place we wouldn't have much change out of a billion a jet. Even if we bought 50 jets it still wouldn't be enough to protect us in the event of a real war.

At least do your research and stop picking numbers out of the air.

Nobody is equipping for a war. The previous, now retired, General Officer commanding the Air Corps published an opinion that to police our airspace in peacetime and provide a 24/7 Quick Reaction Alert of 2 aircraft, would need the purchase of 16 fighter jets, 3 full crews for each for cover, a national military radar system, improved military ATC, ground support technicians and firefighting, improved accommodations for planes, armaments and personnel (possibly in a new air station at Shannon airport).

Total cost of that would be 1 to 2 billion Euro, spread out across the life of the programme. However, there are ways in which that can be achieved more cost effectively. The Czech Republic currently leases 14 Gripen fighters, with tech support, from Saab and the Swedish Government at a cost of €70 million over 12 years. A pittance in defence terms.

But you're right about starting from scratch. The dereliction of responsibility by successive Govts over the decades has ensured that and no matter what we do in the future it'll be a big undertaking and a significant upfront investment.

ClosedAccountFuzzy

The cost of it isn’t too great. We are extremely unwilling to spend on basic defence infrastructure, yet we wouldn’t think twice about lashing money into other aspects of infrastructure spending.

We don’t need the USAF level of cover but we should be at least be able to deal with interception and monitoring of rogue aircraft in Irish airspace.

We also should absolutely be able to ensure we can do proper fisheries and other patrols of our own waters.

Ireland is a very wealthy country that plays the poor mouth on many issues like this.

It’s also not about being an aggressive military force. It’s a bit like failing to invest in locks for your hall door and an alarm system.

A small, but well equipped air defence system and navy would be fairly sane and reasonable to have here. I’d rather see strong use of technology like primary radar and so on, maybe use of drones for naval patrols and so on than some vanity project, but we do need to take this more seriously than we do.

Also areas like cyber security are clearly huge gaps in our defence policies.

Ireland isn’t some unimportant backwater anymore. We are an increasingly significant nexus of financial trade, IT and communications networks.

Also it’s not undermining our neutrality to do so. If anything it’s reinforcing it as we wouldn’t be just hiding under the cloak of cover from the U.K., US or possibly France, all of which are anything but neutral in their policies around military interventions.

Psychlops

sailing wrote: »

On any given day the RAF are training about 50 miles east of Dublin for hours on end. They’d sort out any issue before one of ours are even airborne.

RAF Hawk Jet Trainers out of RAF Valley, thats why they are in the Irish Sea, not supersonic & not armed for the most part, the majority of RAF Fast air training takes place on the UK east Coast. Their main QRA bases of Coningsby & Lossiemouth are on the east coast too.

washman3

Genre.. wrote: »

We're just a banana republic that's the reality

Probably if we got attacked by a boatload of Jamaicans there'd be some uproar about the situation

Joe Duffy would sort it out...:D:D


wash your hands....

Any threat to Ireland is a threat to Britain, whether we're best of friends or best of enemies.

If we were invaded in the morning, Britain would be far quicker to our aid than anyone else. They'd have support on the way before the cock finished crowing.

Britain will always have our back (airspace).

touts

Larbre34 wrote: »

At least do your research and stop picking numbers out of the air.

Nobody is equipping for a war. The previous, now retired, General Officer commanding the Air Corps published an opinion that to police our airspace in peacetime and provide a 24/7 Quick Reaction Alert of 2 aircraft, would need the purchase of 16 fighter jets, 3 full crews for each for cover, a national military radar system, improved military ATC, ground support technicians and firefighting, improved accommodations for planes, armaments and personnel (possibly in a new air station at Shannon airport).

Total cost of that would be 1 to 2 billion Euro, spread out across the life of the programme. However, there are ways in which that can be achieved more cost effectively. The Czech Republic currently leases 14 Gripen fighters, with tech support, from Saab and the Swedish Government at a cost of €70 million over 12 years. A pittance in defence terms.

But you're right about starting from scratch. The dereliction of responsibility by successive Govts over the decades has ensured that and no matter what we do in the future it'll be a big undertaking and a significant upfront investment.

No trained pilots
No trained support flight engineers
No trained maintenance staff
No suitably trained firefighting staff
No training staff or training infrastructure to actually get us any of the above.
No proper military airfield
No proper hangers
No proper support ground vehicles
No munitions or armaments
No proper military radar system required to direct and support the jets.
No military air traffic control system
And of course No Jets.

We're all pulling numbers out of the air but the idea of €417k per jet per year (based on 16 jets for 12 years at a total of €70m) is hopelessly inadequate. The salaries alone for the pilots and support staff per jet would exceed that.

We all agree that successive governments have underfunded air defence. But that means the most significant cost element is not the Jets themselves but making up that 100 years of neglect. It is simply cost prohibitive. I wish it wasn't but wishes count for nothing in this country. Just look at the multi billion National Children's hospital debacle.

Del2005

Larbre34 wrote: »

Theres really no getting around this inconvenient truth - any sovereign Republic, even a neutral one, who cannot assert its own borders and boundaries, and exert a presence in the air and at sea within its areas of responsibility, simply isn't worthy of the name.

And we do have huge areas of sea and sky to manage, many times the size or our island.

Someone mentioned earlier that we have the boats. Thats not correct either. We have about a third the number of ships we need to protect fisheries and the EEZ and those ships do not carry the kind of modern day anti air and anti ship missiles to consider them a proper naval deterrent.

We aren't a neutral country because we can't protect our boarders. Neutral countries spend money on defence, we are militarily non aligned and never spend money on our defence.

No matter how many people post on the internet or write articles in the press there's no way that we'll spend money on planes, our airports can be taken out before our air force could react, when we've multiple other priorities to fix in this country.

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

We’re also a member of the EU and have an increasingly distant and somewhat souring relationship with the UK due to their political hostility toward the EU.

What if Johnson withdrew air cover arrangements for example?

It’s a rather ad hoc and informal messy relationship. It’s not as if we’re members of NATO with some mutual defence arrangement.

It's a good job that the approaches to Irish air space go through other countries so they can't ignore them. With the UK claiming Rockall they have to react before the aircraft get anywhere near our airspace.