Fighter jets for the Air Corps?

A lease deal on these would be the ideal solution for Ireland.

Not at all. Just logical.

Major General Harris will give you 3 Gripens and no more.

That deal has been in the office for quite a while.
I am very curious as to what the "in service" airframes transferred will actually be though.
The Turks will want more capability than the T1s and the delivery timeframe also seems very compressed for 40 airframes with 20 new build and 20 refurbed.

There's also rumours that Turkey have a deal in place with Qatar for the transfer of their most recent batch of 12 Euro fighters.Apparently, part and parcel of a deal for future KAAN deliveries.
I dont think the RAF can risk reducing their current front line strength but, I do think that transfers from Qatar and Oman of T3 Eurofighters and follow on orders for Turkey and to backfill the transferred aircraft will keep the Britisih line active for a while yet.

The landscape for Fighter acquisition and the diplomatic fallout of the shifts away from US supply in particular is really one of the most incredible developments of the rise of multi-polarism.

China, France, Eurofighter, South Korea, Turkey, Pakistan and India are all now competing for middle East, Central Asia and SE Asia contracts.
A slew of suppliers of all kinds of gear who are happy to sell without US style end user restrictions.

Nope and not likely any day soon. I know the austrians had a lot of issues with the Tranche 1 eurofighter. What are the actual operational costs of a Tranche 1 eurofighter? The Tranche 1 were bascially a Air Policing aircraft.

That's changing. Russia and others aren't concerned about neutrality just take what they can get away with. We did have jet fighters (Vampires) many years ago when we were broke. No reason not to have a few now.

Its a measure just how long they've been talking about it, they've grown old.

People need to move on.

However the Eurofighter is one of the more expensive options. What ever about the roundels, paying through the nose to supply and maintain them would be harder sell for people.

There are people and aircraft that have retired during this thread. Aircraft that were an option are long gone from inventories.

Older Aircraft even if capable get too expensive to maintain with age unless you've very deep pockets like the US. Especially complex ones.

As you all know, I have a preference for twin-engined interceptors and European types.

And as we say in project management, you can have something quickly and good but not cheap, quickly and cheap but not good, or cheap and good but not quickly, never all 3.

But there is one plane that is plentiful, proven, economical and versatile, and does exactly what it says on the tin.

Turkey has about 500 aircraft in it's inventory and around 200 fighters. Its planning to get up to 40 Typhoons. It wants new build F16s and F35 but not likely to get them at the moment. Its about diversity and politics and being less reliant on the US.

Theres quite a bit of difference between that and the catalogue shopping Irelands been doing. Ireland haven't got to the tyre kicking stage.

It's my bet that Ireland will never have fighter jets of Saab and above for the Air Corps and neither get that mentioned military primary radar system.

Sadly there are no bookies who take bets on that.

It was a very amateur mistake the DOD made saying that every 1/4 they would publish there updates on how much work they had done. Id say that civil servant got sent to the RSA in Mayo for punishment.

It really is shocking how slow the whole thing is moving.

That military radar will problably be the most likely thing that'll be reality on Irish soil at some point, but in the very distant future. Originally anounced for 2026, there will be another excuse in 2026, and maybe a firm decision in 2028, with maybe a live operation by 2030. But that's all a very very positive prediction.

Fighter jets for the Air Corps in Ireland will be wishfull thinking for eternity. Politics will gamble on the public forgetting that and there is also no majority in public opinion for that. The majority of the Irish still thinks "Who would ever attack us?" so no politician in Ireland will risk changing that as long as re election is possible. Irish politicians don't get elected for military spending anyway.

The war in the Ukraine may be fading off by 2030 and the matter of fighter jets for the Air Corps will be forgotten by then. The British RAF will remain responsible for any kind of inception whilst Irish politics will still speak about "Neutrality as an identity".

Another situation where I'd say, I love to be wrong, but sadly I am not…..

Its not shocking at all.

But apart from the usual civil service glacial pace, I go back yet again to that issue of capacity.

As well as not having enough regulars to crew ships and planes, we simply do not have the capacity among the officer corps to manage day-to-day taskings, and also to form project teams and to onboard new equipment, systems and duties.

In other countries, whole permanent units exist for such work, across the services. We just don't have the critical mass of experienced people yet.