Fighter jets for the Air Corps?

https://theaviationist.com/2021/04/30/italian-f35-estonia/


Down to Shannon with ya, plenty of airspace to play around with over the Atlantic, 12 pins as a low fly area & yer laughing. Until they start to take it seriously over here then this is most likely what we should be going for, wasnt our last actual fighter the Seafire?

Dohvolle wrote: »

I'd be happy to let the italians use their F35 to protect our skies, but I wouldnt suggest Ireland buy them. They are a dud. Nato are being forced to buy them to keep the unit cost down.

They are the only 5th gen in town for most Western nations, not to mention those that have bet everything on the b for their navies, for example Turkey is now left trying to find drones and maybe modifying a new fighter to operate off their LHD (spoiler that’s not likely to end well).

Given the reality that the future European fighters are still the better part of two decades from service sticking with 4.5 gens may not be an option.

Though could you imagine the security issues if we did have NATO stationed here? Every mad one with an axe would descend on Them.

Dohvolle wrote: »

There was some panic buying in the aftermath of 9/11. That's how the ADR got flycatcher and L70 and the L60 ended up decorating the square. The speed at which both the L70 and flycatcher were dumped showed exactly how useless they were. Fine for point defence just about, but the politicos thought they would be used to shoot down errant airliners! As a man who once probably trained you told me, "all it takes to disable them is a sniper with a wire cutter".
We almost bought L139s the same time but in hindsight, thankfully, that never materialised.

They were great fun to fire but the ones we had, had a plate with 1954 as the manufacture date. Back on topic, the L139 of the time was a different beast to the latest model, but we still should have some meaningful means of air defence be that GBAD or a properly equipped air corps. But preferably both.

Psychlops wrote: »

Slightly off topic or maybe not, but what does the ADR have now?

according to kildare.ie they have the bofor L/60 40mm along with RBS70 missiles and flycatcher radar. going by some posts above the mention of the bofors is out of date.

Shooting down is the easy part. We want to get up and see what they are doing!

saabsaab wrote: »

Maybe a few SAMs to shoot down airliners instead of expensive interceptors?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i15PpKdNOnI

Dohvolle wrote: »

Shooting down is the easy part. We want to get up and see what they are doing!

its ok, given the cost of the missiles themselves the government would probably insist on a Dail vote before agreeing to fire one.

Psychlops wrote: »

Could you also imagine the Political win? They get to not spend money on fighter jets, but they also at the same time get fighter jet protection.

Nah, getting anything with "NATO" on it permanently stationed/rotating in Ireland will have everyone on the Left screaming bloody murder...

Jim2007 wrote: »

The Irish national territory covers an area greater than Germany, so how many fighters do you think you’d need to be taken seriously? 50, 100, 300... a couple of air bases? Maybe some some inflight refueling capability... and since much of the national territory is beyond the horizon, maybe we should think about an aircraft carrier as well.

And who would we train to defend against? Russia, China, NATO...

Of course you could always do as the Swiss do buy a few just for show and let the boys play with their toys 9 - 5 and rely on France/Germany/Italy to cover the out of office hours!

A completely waste of money that would not be supported by the voters, never mind the Dail.

Well that's a nice rant of nonsense with very little facts, but the average level of discussion on any defence matters.

For the record, the Swiss take their defence very seriously, unlike the Austrians, who operate a similar model of tokenism as we do. They bought the Typhoon, equipped it with the least capable missile, flew the minimum amount of hours to keep the pilots current and did the fewest upgrades to keep the aircraft at the peak of it's capabilities. They appear to think that the Swiss and the Germans will protect them if anything kicks off. As an aside, the L70 is still a very capable gun and with decent ammunition is very lethal. Anything that comes within it's engagement envelope can be brought down, especially when it is tied into a radar network. It's also a devastating ground weapon. there's a reason why so many armies still use them. Most targets are not airliners at high altitude. In the case of the Irish, every time you take away a capability, it's rarely replaced or it takes ages to get it back. We have no sonar on our ships, yet underwater threats are the new game in town. We've never had jet fighters,a decent utility cargo aircraft, tracked armour of any quality, our IFVs are pathetically underarmed and our radar resources are third-rate.

In fairness, as has been pointed out earlier, Ireland doesn't need fighter jets, Ireland needs interceptors.

It is highly unlikely Ireland would need to establish air superiority, it only needs a deterrent to intercept and ward off encroachers.

As such, a pair of something like Rafales or Gripens would more than suffice. Both are good multi-role fighters, but not the out and out air to air fighters like a Flanker family or the Typhoon.

So, two pairs ready to go at short notice, and two more as back-ups with probably another pair in reserve is all that is necessary, so 10 in total. Our land mass is so small that a single base is all that is necessary, coordinated with two major radar stations, roughly north and south, maybe with a middle one in the west coast specifically looking seaward.

That's all that is needed. We don't even need a long range missile, as to a Mach+ capable jet the current generation of AIM-9 Sparrow is probably fine, given the distance they can cover quickly. All an Irish Air Corp jet would have to do is put off an intruder until such time as an RAF, FAF or SAF fighter got there.

Second hand Gripens would probably be the most cost effective, maintainable and capable packages.

My tuppence.

Dohvolle wrote: »

He waited 116 pages for that valid contribution...

Pity he doesn’t know how to use google, for example a quick search would highlight that the Swiss have spent considerable time/money to move to a 24/7 operation.

AlphabetCards wrote: »

I don't think MB are too bothered working through a whole qualification and validation procedure for like 10 new seats for some IAC small-time airframe tbh. The cost would be prohibitive.

How has the same template not been required on the same seats in other Air Forces previously, for the same reasons?

Women pilots of trainers and fast jets is hardly a novelty at this stage and the adjustment required would hardly be bespoke.

Jim2007 wrote: »

And the that's all you got.... you did not even bother to address any of the points raised...

Probably best that you review some of the threads on the forum and then re-address the points you see there with some sort of realism.

Stovepipe wrote: »

For the record, the Swiss take their defence very seriously, unlike the Austrians, who operate a similar model of tokenism as we do. They bought the Typhoon, equipped it with the least capable missile, flew the minimum amount of hours to keep the pilots current and did the fewest upgrades to keep the aircraft at the peak of it's capabilities. They appear to think that the Swiss and the Germans will protect them if anything kicks off. As an aside, the L70 is still a very capable gun and with decent ammunition is very lethal. Anything that comes within it's engagement envelope can be brought down, especially when it is tied into a radar network. It's also a devastating ground weapon. there's a reason why so many armies still use them. Most targets are not airliners at high altitude. In the case of the Irish, every time you take away a capability, it's rarely replaced or it takes ages to get it back. We have no sonar on our ships, yet underwater threats are the new game in town. We've never had jet fighters,a decent utility cargo aircraft, tracked armour of any quality, our IFVs are pathetically underarmed and our radar resources are third-rate.

To be fair to the Austrians, there was plenty of “dodgy” stuff going on with the Typhoon contract and they got the Tranche 1s which seem to be a bitch to upgrade with anything, the U.K. was going to retire their Tranche 1s at the last review but kept them but are getting rid of them after the current review, think Germany and Spain are replacing their T1s as well. Austria will be better off with their replacement, but they are certainly low spenders on defence as well.

In our case it’s without question DOD and Finance don’t want to pay for anything and the politicians don’t care enough to fight the issue as the public don’t care enough.