Fighter jets for the Air Corps?

To free up manpower the air corps should maybe outsource basic flight training to the companys based in cork and waterford and full time rotary training to the us army

Dohvolle is right above.

My question is though, free up manpower to do what?

I think it's a lot more to do with turnover and a failure to attract people in in the first place that's causing the problem.

Outsource training, insource it, export it to other militaries, it doesn't change the fundamental retention issue.

I don't disagree. And that sort of programme will have to be one of the first developed for the DF overhaul,if they are to genuinely change things.

There must be holistic career options, education in exchange for minimum service. They should look again at housing for all personnel in service too, where they can put down some roots and start a family.

Thats the difference between government and private jobs. I know some of my former colleagues that give up salarys of over 100k in the construction sector to work for 48k for the council. They may have gone from building amasing civil projects to director of hedge cutting and pothole filling but they have there wages gaurnteed and no stress

That's kinda it loyalty has to work both ways the government has to start looking after people. At the end of the day we all have our life's to live and living cost a lot.

just something I came by.

Are more pilots been sent out or was that a once off?

We had operated contemporary fighter and fighter/trainer aircraft continuously from 1938 until the Vampires were slated for retirement in 1975. The Fougas were a straight replacement, were they not?

The more prudent question would be, why were the Fougas not properly replaced in 1999.

The opportunity was there to address that gap somewhat in the post-911 environment and those great Statesmen, Michael Smith and John O'Donoghue thought otherwise.

All those short-sighted dumbass White Papers and benign security assessments in that era were a disgrace. Many a useful idiot drawing massive pensions from those times of carnage.

It goes back even further than that. The single seat Seafires were never replaced by another single seat fighter in 1955.

The Spitfire trainers were replaced by Vampire jet trainers and later Fouga Magister jet trainers.

All the above were in number 1 Fighter Squadron at one time or another at Gormanston and later Baldonnel. No. 1 Fighter Squadron then became and did double duties as the advanced flight training school.

All these aircraft were used for training purposes in the Air Corps, with the Army and Naval Service, they did aid to civil power duties occasionally and were used for ceremonial duties.

They were purchased to give pilots the opportunity to fly military aircraft, learn formation, train in weapons and tactics etc. I don’t think anyone really thought they would be used in a real world conflict - the idea seemed to be to form a nucleus of military pilots who would have a foundation to build on if the government saw fit to purchase contemporary fighter aircraft (probably due to another world war scenario)

No. 1 Fighter Squadron became Light Strike Squadron in 1980 during a reorganisation in the Air Corps probably because it wasn’t realistic to equip a fighter squadrons with subsonic training aircraft .

The Fouga Magisters started to be gradually retired from 1996 to 1999. The reason they weren’t replaced at the time was due to the Price Waterhouse report which said the Fouga Magisters and Marchetti basic trainers should both be replaced by a single type of turboprop trainer.

After the last Fouga was retired Light Strike Squadron just ceased to exist and advanced pilot training was carried on until 2004 on one King Air 200. Then the Pilates PC.9M turboprops arrived and combined the basic and advanced training requirements for the Air Corps with a secondary function of light strike.

It’s fair to say Ireland has never had a real air defence system or ever operated contemporary military fighter aircraft.

Good idea. If it's cheap then that's the one for the air corps.

While Dohvolle is exactly right about the Technology, the politics of if mean Israel wouldn't sell to Ireland anyway. And even if they did, we shouldn't buy them.

It is economically, politically and morally appropriate that Ireland should source its military equipment in the EU and EEA if at all possible. Failing that, it should come from countries allied to the EU and EEA.

Fortunately, that still gives us plenty of good options across the board.

They sold us drones so I wouldnt heed that a lot.

Sending them to the US for a few months would be waving goodbye to a tonne of cash. Months of…

accommodation, food, entertainment, rental cars, sundry expenses, whatever extra pay for being away

plus…

paying whoever is training them, fuel, insurance, time….

We have several options. New, rented Gripen, ex RAF Tranche One Typhoons, soon to be ex Finnish F-18s or probably most sensible, F-16MLUs from several different sources, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian. I've worked with them several times and F-16s are just so damn reliable. They never go tech