Fighter jets for the Air Corps?

Its not a question of sounding better, its a question of proper capability planning.

The former GOC Air Corps published an Op Ed about 10 years ago now, stating that a Quick Reaction Alert force, of 2 planes on QR standby, with 2 more in ready reserve, and allowing for maintenance, longer term overhaul, training, airframe rotation etc. would require 16 planes, with either 12 or 14 in combat specification and 2 or 4 as trainer versions with twin-seats etc.

That's the number. This talk of half a dozen planes gets you a 9 to 5 service, 5 days a week, with weeks or months of no service when either only one or zero planes are available for whatever reason. And make no mistake, 1 plane is the same as zero planes, because you wouldn't deploy a single fighter-interceptor 3 or 400 kms out over the Atlantic without a wingman.

Oh god image they mark a PC 21 as a suitable upgrade.

As a replacement Trainer for the PC-9 Trainers that need replacing?

What's the problem?

I do know what you meant. That "they", the government, might purchase the PC-21, and then claim the Air Corps is equipped with suitable combat aircraft for our needs.

At the time the PC-9s were bought, you probably would have been right. Back in the days of Defence White Papers before 2014.

But it is neither the policy nor the utterance of the government any longer that we do not need blue water naval ships and a small number of combat aircraft.

Considering Simon Harris has mentioned now on a few occasions that his desire is a fighter-interceptor squadron at Shannon, along with a quicker adoption of LoA 2.5, to move on to LoA 3 by end of decade, he certainly won't be the one trying to sell the PC-21 as anything other than a replacement for the PC-9, which is at the end of its service life.

And the increasingly security conscious Irish taxpayer certainly wouldn't be buying it as such anyway.

So I think you're wrong.

I dont agree with those who present this as a choice between spending on hospitals or spending on weapons. If we are occupied, the occupier is unlikely to care about spending on hospitals, which in war are increasingly becoming targets unfortunately.

Well, first a good chunk of those that present that argument would deny any hospitals are stuck unless its Israel doing it (note how quiet they are about Russia's attacks on civilian targets), but the basic fact is that they use that argument for its emotional weight and the fact that the public rarely goes beyond such basic "either/or" questions.

Stop been a Ass to people Larbre !!

Maybe have a word with yourself.

I don't think anyone asked you, did they?

We don't need a fighter, we need an interceptor.

Many planes are fighters; fighter bombers, light attack fighters, strike fighters, air defence fighters. Like for example the M346, or the venerable Harrier, in its various iterations, or the A-4 Skyhawk.

But nothing like that is of any use to us. We've no field army to cover, no naval task group to run picket for.

We need an aircraft type that can to get anywhere over Ireland, or over the oceanic EEZ, or in Irish mandated controlled airspace, from a single base, in 10 to 20 minutes.

80% of that requirement is covered by a supersonic fighter-interceptor type, operating from Shannon, capable of Mach 1.8 or better.

Anything less is a total waste of money and we might as well do nothing and just stick with trainers and qualifying pilots to go off and work for Ryanair.

While I don't disagree with your logic, I would counter with there is no such thing any more!

No one makes a pure interceptor these days.

So we have to look at multi-role fighters and see which one is best for that. We need no ground attack capability, so air dominance with the extended CAP range is what we need, in a package that can also intercept/interdict.

That still leaves Rafale, Typhoon and Gripen as the front runners, as nothing American is going to be reliable for the foreseeable, Russian is out of the question and Chinese would be a step too far for our European partners.

That leaves Korean or Japanese, or possibly Turkish.

I think the way things are headed, the European options still look better in the long term.

I wouldn't agree.

The Gripen has two main disadvantages. Demand V production capacity and its single engine.

5/6ths of Ireland's area of responsibility is over open ocean, and we neither possess, nor will possess a refuelling tanker or a long-range military SAR.

Hi ,i just popped into this thread, im sure this has been asked numerous times, but is getting supersonic jets actually going to happen? If so when do you think ?

Again the single engine concern is overplayed imo, you have the Nordic nations using single engine for years for hostile climate to Norwegian over water operations. You have the USN, RAF/RN using single engine for carrier operations, you have the RAAF using it for Australian operations and before politics you had Canada planning to use single engine.

Engine reliability has massively improved generation on generation, it’s a trade off that we will have to consider.

As to production, pretty much every current gen NATO fighter has a waiting list on production lines, but since we are barely making progress on LoA2 it’s not the major concern.