Fighter jets for the Air Corps?

I remember as a lad watchin the 1966 50th anniversary military parade goin down O'Connell St. And the Vampire jets flying overhead al low altitude. Very impressive! Not like the little propellor driven trainers they have nowadays! Need to get back to a decent level again and we need to have more than one aircraft type.

An interceptor and a ground attack aircraft. My suggestion is 8-12 of the highest specced Kai F50 and 8-12 of the new L 139. A squad of decent helicopters would come in handy as well. For troop transport and some light attack helis as well.

Yet lacking any national C&C capability, and all a generation at best out of date by the time they were in service.

You do talk some toss JB.

Not exactly true Mark 1's in 1944, Hawkers in 1945/46. Vampires were still frontline. The Mark 1's were 11 in number and were made 12 by recovering one that had landed not too damaged. In almost every department including Navy we ditched capability in favour of opening new boxes thereby having a role change and a loss of cutting edge. Floating and Flying is expected but what you can do when you get there is critical.

Yes, yes it is.

Every post you make is like you just walked in door, talking the same rubbish that has been debunked a thousand times on the Military forum. Not to mention your dumb Darby O'Gill shtick. It's not a point of view you have, it's just trolling and wasting everyone's time. If I didn't know better, I'd almost think you are simple in the head.

Yes true, any of the Hurricane marks were long out of frontline European RAF Fighter Command by the time we got them (hence in part why the U.K. was finally willing to sell them) and even then without the invasion panic of 1940 later designs would have replaced them much earlier in service. The Vampire was a first gen design that first flew in 1943, by the time we got them, the rest of the world were bringing the second generation jets into service (let alone better types of first gen ones in service), with the Vampire relegated to trainer usage be the RAF by this time.

Nor does that change my point that lacking any nationwide C&C capabilities the usefulness of fighters outside of Dublin or air shows were limited anyway as they would never have been directed to any incursion.

Obviously with fighters direction is required on a number of fronts. In any standard ATC system Mil ATC and Civilian ATC should be using the same screens, with in addition a suitable system of Forward or battle Field control for CAS and rescue. P31 in Galway bay could have provided ATC for most of the West Coast to 100nm radius, she also could control her own Helo within the range of her own X-band radars. My point is that we carelessly disposed of assets we didn't like for choice reasons which stripped the DF of capabilities. We then didn't replace like with like.

When the Dauphin and AC exited stage left, attrition set in as those closest to the project moved on or retired. The ship was reimagined as an OPV, the Flight Deck was compromised by putting a crane close to the hangar with RIB Chocks for an extra boat. Everything from Horizon bar , glide slope and 5 wire handling system became redundant. Not certain what happened the Radar but it was never a mentioned asset thereafter.

The fault was ours and many gloated at the failure of a white elephant but the failure was one manufactured by those responsible for making it work.

Just noticed there today, PAK airforce purchasing a 25 J10c’s. I think they are the first customer and are stating it’s much performance wise than the F16(potential purchase for IAC)

Very good idea. A shame we have not (yet) banned overflying rights to Russian aircraft. Difficult to enforce with no interception aircraft. Deffo in favour in loading up one of the maritime patrol aircraft with whatever can be scraped up in the armoury. Even several crates of hand grenades would come in handy.

i Like his attitude towards defence you can actually see he cares about it, loa3 I really hope gets moving soon faster than currently going as the Russians look like they are sustaining heavy loses it’s only a matter of time before something gets dropped into the Atlantic aimed at a data cable, Russia is currently offline with cyber attacks from every angle and the swift is removed so they will hit everyone else harder or at least try. We need to up our game asap..

100%.

Who would have thought that this question, so long debated in conceptual form, as an outlier of possibilities, could come to pass so literally and so starkly and in times of such peril.

Well it's too late now.

I think the question of joining NATO will come up soon... Maybe a referendum?

It's a very, very complicated area, legally.

Successive Governments have said they will not change our policy of triple lock Neutrality without a referendum. The problem being, Neutrality is not in the constitution, so a referendum isn't needed. And it's not a good idea to put it in there, because it hamstrings any legislative response by the Oireachtas to unforeseen geopolitics, which is not a position you want to be in should the sh1t hit the fan.

What is in the Constitution is Article 29. 4. 9

Now, that on its own, does not guarantee neutrality in itself. We could declare war on Russia tomorrow over the Ukraine invasion, so long as we didn't join a common defence as envisaged by Article 42 of the Lisbon Treaty beforehand.

Hell, we could even join NATO and not violate that Article!

It's a mess, it needs a citizens assembly, followed by a special purpose joint Oireachtas Committee to hear submissions and make a recommendation to the Government of the day, to repeal that Constitutional clause and hold a plebiscite on preferred steps forward.

I wonder will they be let take all the aircraft out of Russia? I'mean the leased ones. I understand that not all will be in Russia but still it will be interesting to see if they allow the return of those that are.