Conjoined twins flown home by the Air corps

Stinicker wrote: »

It is frivolous wasteful spending like this that is the reason Ireland is in economic depression. People need to man up and learn to take responsibility for their own lives and destiny, everybody expects to get something from the Government.

If I had a private air ambulance service I'd be pretty mad to see the Government competing with me by giving patients free rides home. It is a disgrace and this socialist "entitlement" culture so prevelent in Ireland and Europe is what has crushed our economies and has seen the Euro currency collapsed and on life support by the German government.

Proper government use of Jets is as a Ministerial transport and and any other such planes should be got rid of and let the private citizens choose their own air ambulances. The market will soon adapt and with medical insurance it will allow another industry to develop where state intervention has held it back.

you sir, are an idiot...

The air corps carry out air ambulance missions on a regular enough basis. I worked in the air corps until not so long ago. Believe me, this isnt some sort of free air travel that patients are getting.... its because they are in need of critical care. These aircraft can be fitted out with advanced medical equipment and carry a medical team on them. Infact one of the government jets can also be converted to the air ambulance role.

If you think that the price of a few air ambulance missions would pay for 10 fighter jets you are living in dream world....

Also the defence forces has a long tradition of providing humanatarian aid to those who need it at home and abroad and i can tell you now, the lads would have done it for free if they could have.

Ireland has become a sad place with the likes of you around......

murf313 wrote: »

you sir, are an idiot...

The air corps carry out air ambulance missions on a regular enough basis. I worked in the air corps until not so long ago. Believe me, this isnt some sort of free air travel that patients are getting.... its because they are in need of critical care. These aircraft can be fitted out with advanced medical equipment and carry a medical team on them. Infact one of the government jets can also be converted to the air ambulance role.

If you think that the price of a few air ambulance missions would pay for 10 fighter jets you are living in dream world....

Also the defence forces has a long tradition of providing humanatarian aid to those who need it at home and abroad and i can tell you now, the lads would have done it for free if they could have.

Ireland has become a sad place with the likes of you around......

Attack the post not the poster. Don't post in this thread again please.

Stinicker wrote: »

If you are insinuating that I have some sort of a grudge against the Irish Air Corps then you are very mistaken. Our Air Corps do sterling work and are a great asset to the nation.

However I beleive their time and resources could be better spent than using their planes are Air Ambulances. I think that the money wasted running this service which the private sector could do far more efficiently

The private sector also knows how to make a profit.

And your Tens of Thousands of euros is surely off. Do you have links, evidence, that would suggest this round-trip flight cost the country tens of thousands?

sdonn wrote: »

OK just to pick a few volcano-sized holes in your theory:

Casa burns 800lbs or 444 litres of Kerosene per hour.

Fuel is about €0.65 a litre, lets be generous and allow 2,000 litres for the return journey. = €1,300

Factor in wages - figure out maybe 4 crew, 2 medical staff @ €50,000 a year each (again being generous) and work out what 3 hours of their pay is. = €57.00 each or round it up to €500.

Last but not least, no landing fees in Ireland as it's a military flight operating out of a military base. In the UK, landing fees for that aircraft are between £80 and £600 depending on the airport and time of day. = €600

Total actual cost = €2,400

Hardly record-breaking money really.

Even less when you figure they probably dont have to pay tax on fuel

should be spent on equipping Ireland with some decent air defences and say 10 or 15 either F-16 or Eurofighters.

Are you a strategist? Tactician? I can tell you from a quick googley moogley that the Eurofighter as a typical speed of between 1-2 times the speed of sound. In the event of an attack, the RAF could be within Irish Airspace to defend it inside of 20 minutes (less time when you presume an air patrol is already off the ground). In the Grand Scheme of things, British Air Forces are not any farther away than their american counterparts from their respective patrol areas, just take a look at poor Oregon:

http://www.airforce.com/baseloc/index.html

And who is going to air-raid Ireland anyway?

you would rather they spend the money on a dozen F-16s that will never encounter a combat situation versus an air wing that gets regularly put to good use for the good of civilians.

Ireland is not in a position to require it.

If a Ryanair or Aer Lingus plane was tomorrow morning hijacked by some terrorists who threatened to crash it somewhere in Dublin, Ireland does not have the capability to shoot it down. And before people suggest the RAF would come to the rescue, say it was a Lufthansa or Air France jet, do you think the RAF or British military would risk provoking an incident with another country to help their Irish neighbours? Smaller poorer countries than us have air forces many times bigger and better equipped.

You're jumping to the wild conclusion that the European Security Council hasn't already devised emergency plans for a 9/11 scenario.

So unconcerned are our government with National Security that on the recent Motorway's built across Ireland there was not one single airstrip incorporated into the design build of the motorways when for practically no extra cost the Irish government could have built between 5 or 10 emergency highway strips that could be converted into Airfields in a time of war or national emergency. But I guess transporting some sick people is higher up the agenda of this government.

5 to 10 strips? Youre talking about getting 10 F-16s. why do you need, on top of all of irelands existing runways, a bunch of highway converted for the task?

In the event of a scenario where you need to land and cant: look - Britain! And the americans, who have bases all over europe. Have access to VTOL fighters.

Look, you're clutching at straws, and having a good whinge that the government is making the air corps do something useful rather than fulfill the paranoia of few.

Bans for everyone.

If Ireland had the facilities and expertise to carry out the surgery, then the problem wouldn't have arisen, so it was only fair that the government did its bit.

Whoever is to blame for the facilities and expertise not being available, should cough up for the cost of the trip.

whats the big deal?

we have an air corp and we aren't involved in any war or peace keeping missions.
should we pay the lads to sit around talking about flying, or, send them out to do good work?

we don't have a dedicated HEMS or air ambulance service on this island, so imo, use the aircorp. and use them for search and rescue too (even though the chc lads do a great job there) and flying the garda chopper and retrieval flights for sick babies etc.

hopefully the aercorp budget goes towards humanitarian causes before, buying fighter jets coz, we don't really need fighter jets in an irish air corp, unless we go to war.

Steyr wrote: »

Hello? We are just finished in Chad, and Air Corps Personnel have served overseas pretty much since we started doing Overseas Missions.

we aren't oversees now

The "lads" dont sit around, the AW139's/EC135's/CASA's etc are constantly training with the Army and Navy/Special Forces and the PC9M's are always up training as are other units doing other jobs.

i wasn't having a go at them - are you in the army or something are you just a nut? do you know what a rhetorical question is?

No we dont have a HEMS here but the IRCG do a very good job 24/7 with the S61N's. The IAC will never get Search and Rescue back as its being provided for by CHC.

i already said chc were grand lads, but i think you may be just typing random letters and numbers to make it look like you know what your talking about!!;)

Also we dont have just 1 Garda chopper as your above post seems to think (my post never even implied this and i don't care if we have 50 of them) but you can not go doing mercy flights in a Gardai EC135 as its crammed with Surveillance equipment so its better to send the IAC AW139's as are seen quite regularily (regularly? really?) at Irish Hospitals up and down the Nation.

chill out, i was sticking up for the air corpS. (and chc).

i think you must have read my post while you were in a bad mood or something.
maybe you are just showing off your little bit of knowlege on the air corpS - (a good indication of an under achiever;))

:rolleyes:

If there was ever a proper use of state funds then this is it.