Transport Aircraft

I would guess it’s whoever offers the best time/cost, but at least if we actually do buy direct once it opens the door for future buys.

not a huge surprise, I see the reasoning is for the ICJ ruling on their occupation, though I wonder if it’s in part a response to the reported overflight of arms? Or just making certain that if we are opening the savings and actually buying stuff that at least the usual suspects can’t say we are buying from Israel?

Actually…I'm pretty down to earth on what I would like for the new Air and Space Force 18 FA50's and a half dozen Super Tucanos should do the trick. Possibly substitute the Saab for the FA50'S.... over to the politicians after the election!

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Thats enough Internet for you. Brush your teeth and go straight to bed.

New Garda H145 chopper (though not yet complete) has been seen at the factory in Donauworth. Serial 287 is worn.

Well, obviously.

But this business of issuing registry numbers randomly through the sequence is messy.

It should still be done like it used to be, ie, the PC12s 280-283, C295s 290-292, additional helicopters and replacement fleet 30x, 31x, 32x serialised by type.

To my mind Garda aircraft shouldn't even be on the military register, but I accept for the time being that the ASU isn't going to be moved away from the Air Corps, even though it should be operated by a civilian contractor, with Garda operations staff on board. Wouldn't it be the perfect bed fellow for a shared facility at Weston?

In the absence of that, the new Garda fleet should be 301-303 and subsequent new Air Corps types pushed out to 31x etc.

There looking to build a private air ambulance base in mayo. I can think of a few safety and insurance issues here.

Also considering 112 and the possabile replacement of 112 with a private hse contractor i can see a few other problems.

Not sure what is going on with the current HEMS tender but i wonder is the hse crewing situation having an effect since the consultants pointed out the AP is not enoght and it should be a Emergency ED Doctor on board as best practice.

https://www.rte.ie/news/regional/2024/0921/1471235-air-ambulance-base-mayo/

Any Irish Citzen still there does not deserve help. The DFA have been telling people to leave for weeks so thats on the people not the state.

As for the troops that is a UN Mission with 10k personal the UN Nations will work together

An we will have 2 C17s in a few weeks in casement

For a funeral of course. I mean it only takes a day or two.…and civil flights are still ongoing.

Well....the 295 has its shortcomings and an Embraer 390 would have been a better buy. Anyway, the mooted purchase of a MRV for the navy would give us the ability to act autonomously and indeed give others a hand out for a change. Looks like another project that has been kicked into the long grass….

Well..depends on the spec of the MRV. My idea was for a proper MRV which was heavily armed and had the capability to carry out a contested beach landing of several company's of troops and IFV'S, attack helicopters on board etc,Along with being a hospital ship and capable of use for humanitarian purposes.

after so long and at least two other GE campaigns, I’m still going to “wait and see”, at this stage it seems everything is going to be announced during the election campaign, which seems pointless as Defence procurement isn't going to win votes.

While I agree with the general idea of getting the best ship we can, just a few points..

No ones amphibs anywhere are "heavily armed" the most even US, Chinese etc ones have are MR-SAMS and even then only the America class is armed with those, everyone elses is point defence missiles and medium calibre guns.

If the NS MRV needs a defensive system something like the Millennium system from Rheinmetall will cover 95% of any scenarios.

No one has carried out a seriously contested amphibious landing in decades and now with the proliferation of advanced systems from armed UAV/USV/UUV, to AShM to guided ballistic missiles among even NSA it's a different all game to what those previous Amphious ops had to contend with….

No point a small force like ours factoring in doing something like that when much larger forces have starting to disregard it as viable..

The only ones seriously planning and prepping to put a force ashore across a contested beach is the Chinese because of Taiwan…and that's going to be WWII style bloody either way.