Fighter jets for the Air Corps?

I posed your points to a person on a military forum with knowledge of such matters (your points in italics followed by his answers) .…

"It's not the electronics that's the issue. It's the airframe and engines. The US Navy (which the USMC is a part of, whether they like it or not), has plenty of experience operating F-5s in the Aggressor role going back to the 1970s/1980s. They have the facilities, the machinery and the spare parts to replace fuselage frames that have been overstressed or engines that are at the end of their life. Ireland does not. And the F-5 is not exactly a current model"

Definitely the person who quoted that is stretching to be a contrarian. 1. The engines are being upgraded as part of ARTEMIS. 2. The airframes by all accounts will be essentially remanufactured. 3. If 1 and 2 are done there should not be a problem of Ireland under Partnership for Peace membership and contractual arrangements with the vendors to hook into the same NAVAIR arrangements as the USMC just like the RNZAF has done to keep its 60 year old P-3's and C-130's operating on the support and sustainment side. 4. That person who made the quote on the other forum will have no knowledge of the condition of these Swiss aircraft to make an estimation that they are at the end of their useful life and would be unaware of the fact that under ARTEMIS their root fatigue index is such that they can be life extended to 9000 hours. 5. You do not need the current model of the most up to date generation to do basic air space interceptions and fact it is why in the US Air National Guard for example they still use Block 30 Vipers for this role in some states. After all one of the frequent air policing taskings are for safety reasons escorting through airspace passenger jets with their transponders off or non notified biz jet movements.

"What's more, the F-5 would be unsuitable even if it were still current. It simply lacks the sensors needed for operating in the environment that any Irish interceptors would be expected to operate in."

The person on the other forum is speaking absolute nonsense. Even in their current Swiss state they are able to operate in the air policing role. Ireland is never going to deploy them as part of an NATO air combat package to take on the Russians but use them to do an intercept of business jets, commercial aircraft and the occasional slow flying large Russian military aircraft off the west coast.

"The Marines will operate those F-5s, those that they can get flight ready, in a very specific environment: a clearly delineated area of airspace where they know from the start what they will be up against and what their job will be: close range air combat" ​

Again the person on the other forum is confusing an air policing intercept with red air notams required for BACM.

"Any Irish fighters could potentially find themselves going up against an unknown radar contact in the dead of night, possibly in bad weather and beyond the range of shore-based radar. in such kinds of situations, an aircraft with barely any radar and without datalink capabilities is a liability, not an asset" ​

Again the person on the other forum is merely speculating about the Swiss aircraft capabilities and is not informed about the upgrades the aircraft they will likely undertake under ARTEMIS which includes a radar update and datalinks.

I am going to add in here another thing which would be a likely consideration if Ireland was in a position to acquire the aircraft off the Swiss and I doubt that the bloke commenting on this other forum has not thought through.

The Yanks will be involved in any ex US designed and manufactured military aircraft due to US ITARS laws which have a commercial and political lens to it. They will oversee that transfer from the Swiss via the State Department to Ireland. I don't see any issue as Ireland is a friendly country to both and will look positively to the deal due to concepts as self reliance and burden sharing. But the Yanks, the transactionalists that they are will want some in return and that is that as part of the deal ARTEMIS upgrades undertaken by US companies and would like their slice via US companies the contract to support and sustain the platform. You can see that as part of the recent Portugal transfer to Romania of early Block Vipers.

"Also, let's be real here: The likelihood of the Irish Air Corps operating a squadron of fighter aircraft anytime soon is very low, as much as I'd love to see it happen. Even if the political will were there, we lack the infrastructure, from the airbase to the maintenance depots and cache of weapons (in case things do go south), to the radar and command & control facilities"

And lets be clear here too. The requirement that Ireland has discussed stemming from the COD is for an air policing squadron for Irelands ADIZ and not a full up multi-role strike / fighter squadron that has the institutional capability to do all the war fighting roles from TacRec through to DEAD.

1. Buy the radar system. 2. Build a small on base magazine for the few AIM-9P's you will have. 3. Build a basic hangar that the contracted firm will do its business - just like we have at Hangar 1 at Ohakea where we fly the T-6C's and back inside the shed the lads from Hawker Pacific keep the plane flying. 4. Command and Control - Taoiseach via High Wycombe with an Air Corps liaison officer on desk - why reinvent the wheel or do it from Torrejón in Spain under NATO P4P again with an Air Corps liaison officer on desk looking after the response chain.

I think the problem is that normally everyone thinks that a fighter squadron of brand new Gen 4 aircraft costs way too much money and thinks only of new Gripens and F-16's et al. But for a budget of $75-100 million the F-5 option on the table might start correcting some heads and be entirely sufficient for the time being to address a huge capability gap in Ireland's airspace. Until their recent retirement the JASDF often used pretty rudimentary F-4's as their QRA platform instead of F-2's and F-15J's for that you need just a cheap and cheerful but supersonic capable light fighter. You sending the Constable and not the SWAT team.

"Lets not muddy the waters any more by dragging up any clapped-out aircraft that someone is putting up for sale" ​

Used aircraft that are not clapped out are always worth considering for discussion whether or not the current Irish government is interested. Policy ideas in government do still come from the public if they are compelling enough to solve a political problem. Road testing them on public forums like this has its role because often perspectives and inputs beyond departmental policy groups do feed up through the decision chain. I know because I saw it happen when I pushed pens around once upon a time.

On the other hand, there is nothing as permanent as a temporary/short solution, if a stopgap like this was bought then I would fully expect the situation not to be looked at again until the last one literally costs more money to fly than selling it based on previous usage, so forget looking at new aircraft in the 2030s. Besides which all of this is immaterial even without the delay of LoA2/3. If the Red Arrows considered Baldonnel too marginal to use for the hawks and an air show, how much would need to be spent first anyway? Let alone of course the need for growing the AC and important parts like the Radar System that at this point isn’t going to be ready by 2028 either.

Not really the same thing.

The S92 was built in relatively small numbers,(about 300) compared to the F5, and the production line has closed after 20 years. The spares issues appeared before production ceased.

The F5 had a production run of 2500 over 30 years and shares major assemblies with the T38, of which 1200 have been manufactured over 10 years. There is a worldwide parts bin, as older airframes time out. Even major airframe structures have been rebuilt.

The Swiss, Finns and Spanish should be passing their Hornet fleet on in the coming years, however I don't hear many calls to give them to Ukraine, in the same way the F16 is considered an ideal solution there.

I'm all in favour of a mixed fleet as well. Obviously include a LIFT machine.

remember the TD screaming about a C17 overflying Dublin… The AC would be banned from flying faster than you could dial Joe if a QRA flew from Baldonnel.

SF scrubbed their site history for a reason when they figured out the nation didn’t support the Russian invasion of Ukraine, they were fine looking the other way when Russia was bombing the crap out of Syria. Said TD and party would most likely scream about buying fighters more than Russians overflying Dublin.

I can. I've already bought the popcorn.

"Can you hear me caller??"

"Who??"

And weapons stores, increased hard standings and hangers, and I’m sure a shitload more things.

I dont see the point in basing a fixed wing air-corp in baldonnel , the noise and the costs being a couple of factors ,

But you'd need to be able to move any fast jets around , to refuel and re- arm ( like the swedes do with the gripen ) ,

We’d get more use and ROI out of 20 snow ploughs.

You're clearly not familiar with the security situation in Europe, or the potential threats to the resources, infrastructure, data and environment of this State, as a member of the EU, of the global West, and as host of the EMEA HQs of many of the biggest IT, communications, financial services and pharmaceutical businesses in the World.

If you can get snow ploughs that can track disguised signal intelligence ships, submarines and malign surface units in our EEZ, as well as long-range recon aircraft and nuclear capable bombers in our area of responsibility, then I'm sure the government would be pleased to hear from you.

Why would you build a green field airbase anywhere near dublin ?

Seems a bit expensive - especially when Dublin airport is right there , and operational 24/7

Maybe if we buy a few PC21s the swiss might through in a few F5s as part of the deal!

Typo meant PC24, If we had 5 of them they could cover Air Ambo,Euro Transport for government and Top Cover and the swiss could do a deal with the F5s