Replacment for Cessna 172

Sgt. Bilko 09 · 28-04-2020 11:24am

Sgt. Bilko 09 wrote: »

Pc-12 It literally just ripped over my house, iT is in Dublin Airport

Bit strange but it’s doing touch and go’s in the airport it went over the house three times now

Sgt. Bilko 09 · 28-04-2020 11:34am

Just got a text from lad in aer corps PC-9 in port loaise one over The Irish Sea while the PC-12 is over the curragh now, look up lads lol

donvito99 · 28-04-2020 11:44am

Sgt. Bilko 09 wrote: »

Just got a text from lad in aer corps PC-9 in port loaise one over The Irish Sea while the PC-12 is over the curragh now, look up lads lol

269 is west of DUB right now, there is another PC9 over Athy

EDIT: might be an error for 269, could be at Weston. Either way, there were x2 PC9s with the PC12 out and about this morning.

Larbre34 · 28-04-2020 2:42pm

Sgt. Bilko 09 wrote: »

Bit strange but it’s doing touch and go’s in the airport it went over the house three times now

Training on the type at an airfield they'll use a fair bit, nothing strange at all.

Psychlops · 28-04-2020 11:08pm

Sgt. Bilko 09 wrote: »

Just got a text from lad in aer corps PC-9 in port loaise one over The Irish Sea while the PC-12 is over the curragh now, look up lads lol

*Air Corps.

Psychlops · 28-04-2020 11:08pm

New SPECTRE is looking well.

https://skippyscage.com/aviation/mediasearch/msearch.php?search=N280NG&col=serial&fbclid=IwAR2eEQ9dAjCOXk0nF0KxhjCOAWa8hIUrrnExDrheIbVV66VGWooaM6b7m9k

sparky42 · 29-04-2020 2:59pm

Psychlops wrote: »

New SPECTRE is looking well.

https://skippyscage.com/aviation/mediasearch/msearch.php?search=N280NG&col=serial&fbclid=IwAR2eEQ9dAjCOXk0nF0KxhjCOAWa8hIUrrnExDrheIbVV66VGWooaM6b7m9k

That she is, interesting that they seem to have gone for a darker grey than the PC9, thought the photo they showed a while back was closer to the 9's colouring?

donvito99 · 29-04-2020 9:40pm

280 out again tonight doing circuits at Baldonnel

Psychlops · 29-04-2020 10:28pm

Using the callsign XRAY280.

thomil · 03-05-2020 2:42pm

Looks like they're already putting 280 to good use:

https://twitter.com/IrishAirCorps/status/1256919981847166976

Sgt. Bilko 09 · 03-05-2020 7:21pm

thomil wrote: »

Looks like they're already putting 280 to good use:

https://twitter.com/IrishAirCorps/status/1256919981847166976

The livery is horrendous on it.

punchdrunk · 03-05-2020 7:33pm

Sgt. Bilko 09 wrote: »

The livery is horrendous on it.

It’s temporary

Lurching · 03-05-2020 8:07pm

Sgt. Bilko 09 wrote: »

Bit strange but it’s doing touch and go’s in the airport it went over the house three times now

You'd struggle to find a quieter time to do training at Dublin Airport in any other year.

sparky42 · 03-05-2020 9:01pm

Sgt. Bilko 09 wrote: »

The livery is horrendous on it.

Well to be fair its just for the duration, then she'll get the grey of the others.

pidgeoneyes · 04-05-2020 8:35pm

Has the extra PC12 been bought or leased?

sparky42 · 04-05-2020 9:11pm

pidgeoneyes wrote: »

Has the extra PC12 been bought or leased?

Bought according to reports, it was for a Chinese Buyer but they cancelled the order.

pidgeoneyes · 04-05-2020 9:20pm

sparky42 wrote: »

Bought according to reports, it was for a Chinese Buyer but they cancelled the order.

An extra C295 would be nice as well!

Psychlops · 04-05-2020 11:41pm

pidgeoneyes wrote: »

Has the extra PC12 been bought or leased?

Bought. There will be 4 in total.

roadmaster · 05-05-2020 11:53am

sparky42 wrote: »

Bought according to reports, it was for a Chinese Buyer but they cancelled the order.

Leaving crew and techs aside I wonder is there any other aircraft out there in the market that the air corps could pick up cheap such as a transport aircraft. With the current oil issue there has be s92s or similar ready to be got cheap enough.

Heraldoffreeent · 05-05-2020 5:23pm

roadmaster wrote: »

Leaving crew and techs aside I wonder is there any other aircraft out there in the market that the air corps could pick up cheap such as a transport aircraft. With the current oil issue there has be s92s or similar ready to be got cheap enough.

Bit like the extra P60, the PC12 was an opportune buy of the same type of equipment that the DF was already buying, S92's would probably be wandering off piste.

Along with the fact that it would require a new logs chain, type rating for Pilots and retraining for Mechs and Techs.

sparky42 · 05-05-2020 5:28pm

Heraldoffreeent wrote: »

Bit like the extra P60, the PC12 was an opportune buy of the same type of equipment that the DF was already buying, S92's would probably be wandering off piste.

Along with the fact that it would require a new logs chain, type rating for Pilots and retraining for Mechs and Techs.

True enough, though if some 139s were to come up, or someone cancelled their 295 order it might be worth it...

Heraldoffreeent · 05-05-2020 5:39pm

sparky42 wrote: »

True enough, though if some 139s were to come up, or someone cancelled their 295 order it might be worth it...

Yeah, a bare bones 295 would be a great fit.

roadmaster · 05-05-2020 8:40pm

sparky42 wrote: »

True enough, though if some 139s were to come up, or someone cancelled their 295 order it might be worth it...

If a fleet of 139s came available and some how the government decided to buy them we could have a good troop lift capability .

When CHCs tender for SAR is up for renewal I wonder would there be any appetite in the air corps to get back in the SAR game using 139s

Heraldoffreeent · 05-05-2020 9:32pm

roadmaster wrote: »

If a fleet of 139s came available and some how the government decided to buy them we could have a good troop lift capability .

When CHCs tender for SAR is up for renewal I wonder would there be any appetite in the air corps to get back in the SAR game using 139s

Not sure the 139's have the legs or sustainability for SAR, I think I read somewhere that CHC were phasing them out in the UKCG SAR role.

Also, I'm not sure there's any willingness in the DF or AC to revisit that debacle and it would require a shed load of Pilots and techs to map the CHC footprint.

Also, if they did become available and the DF were to revisit SAR, there would probably be no nett gain to troop lift.

Psychlops · 05-05-2020 10:11pm

roadmaster wrote: »

If a fleet of 139s came available and some how the government decided to buy them we could have a good troop lift capability .

When CHCs tender for SAR is up for renewal I wonder would there be any appetite in the air corps to get back in the SAR game using 139s

Not a hope, as it stands they do provide an extremely limited SAR for the likes of Reek sunday & SAR is not mentioned as one of the AW139's roles over on military.ie like the rest of the worlds Militaries, SAR is being contracted out to civvy organisations that can do it better, we cant even man Bal 24/7 & manpower let alone morale is on the floor so SAR 24/7 or any type of SAR wont go ahead.

In an ideal world they should have at least gotten 10 AW139's not 6, im just wondering as it stands how thats working as it wasnt that long ago, a few months infact that they could not even provide EAS for a few days every month.

You have 1 AW139 on EAS duty & that airframe is rotated every 4-5 days back to Bal & I believe they still have a duty 139 for Hospital transfers on at Bal also so thats 2 of the fleet down & perhaps 1-2 in maintenance so its bare really. Also at a guess I would say EAS is fairly eating up the AW139's airframe hours but well done to them as it is a highly busy unit.

donvito99 · 05-05-2020 10:53pm

Psychlops wrote: »

Not a hope, as it stands they do provide an extremely limited SAR for the likes of Reek sunday & SAR is not mentioned as one of the AW139's roles over on military.ie like the rest of the worlds Militaries, SAR is being contracted out to civvy organisations that can do it better, we cant even man Bal 24/7 & manpower let alone morale is on the floor so SAR 24/7 or any type of SAR wont go ahead.

"Civvy organisations" can "do it better" because they're being paid an absolute stinking fortune.

I believe the AC's "flying budget" is something like €3m per annum. We're paying 20 times that to CHC annually.

The AC could take on SAR and likely still have money left over to offer much, much more to the State overall (they won't be turning a proft, they're not paying private sector wages, they're not leasing aircraft or facilities).

How many more hours of MPA could they fly? How much larger would cadet/airman classes be each year? Would they think to finally increase pay for crucial roles and stand a better chance of retaining crucial personnel? What new equipment could be procured, what equipment could be upgraded?

So even if the helicopter is slightly smaller and even if there was teething problems to begin with, the State gets so much more out of this arrangement than SAR. And at the end of the day, the only asset that the State can rely upon in times of crisis is much better prepared and has much more to offer than it does at the moment.

And all for a net zero effect on the Exchequer...

Heraldoffreeent · 05-05-2020 10:58pm

Psychlops wrote: »

Not a hope, as it stands they do provide an extremely limited SAR for the likes of Reek sunday & SAR is not mentioned as one of the AW139's roles over on military.ie like the rest of the worlds Militaries, SAR is being contracted out to civvy organisations that can do it better, we cant even man Bal 24/7 & manpower let alone morale is on the floor so SAR 24/7 or any type of SAR wont go ahead.

In an ideal world they should have at least gotten 10 AW139's not 6, im just wondering as it stands how thats working as it wasnt that long ago, a few months infact that they could not even provide EAS for a few days every month.

You have 1 AW139 on EAS duty & that airframe is rotated every 4-5 days back to Bal & I believe they still have a duty 139 for Hospital transfers on at Bal also so thats 2 of the fleet down & perhaps 1-2 in maintenance so its bare really. Also at a guess I would say EAS is fairly eating up the AW139's airframe hours but well done to them as it is a highly busy unit.

You'd also have to think there's some sort of SLA in place with the Wingers for any air lift needs they might have.

sparky42 · 05-05-2020 11:41pm

donvito99 wrote: »

"Civvy organisations" can "do it better" because they're being paid an absolute stinking fortune.

I believe the AC's "flying budget" is something like €3m per annum. We're paying 20 times that to CHC annually.

The AC could take on SAR and likely still have money left over to offer much, much more to the State overall (they won't be turning a proft, they're not paying private sector wages, they're not leasing aircraft or facilities).

How many more hours of MPA could they fly? How much larger would cadet/airman classes be each year? Would they think to finally increase pay for crucial roles and stand a better chance of retaining crucial personnel? What new equipment could be procured, what equipment could be upgraded?

So even if the helicopter is slightly smaller and even if there was teething problems to begin with, the State gets so much more out of this arrangement than SAR. And at the end of the day, the only asset that the State can rely upon in times of crisis is much better prepared and has much more to offer than it does at the moment.

And all for a net zero effect on the Exchequer...

The 139's and the S92's are completely different animals particularly our civy green ones. They wouldn't be interchangable in what they could offer in terms of SAR, nor would we have enough in the current fleet to support everything else and the SAR birds. We'd have to at least double the airfleet to be able to have the numbers (with the increase manpower), then you get into the larger question of whether it would be the 139 at all or something different given the potential NS requirement at some point as well...

Given you'd have to expand the AC, get air crews and ground crews in multiple stations and the logistical tail having to be significant increased I would seriously question the idea that it would be "net zero" for the Exchequer, not to mention of course any loss of aircraft, R116 had a replacement from CHC's global stock without significant disruption to the service, how long did it take to replace the PC9 we lost?

Stovepipe · 05-05-2020 11:53pm

If you had any idea how the Irish military bureaucracy works, you wouldnt touch the Air Corps with a bargepole. A CHC operation, on any given day, has two pilots, two backseaters, a couple of mechs (usually both B1s or a B1 License engineer and a B2 avionics engineer) and a storeman and maybe one other on station. When the aircraft is flying, the lads on the ground will service other equipment such as winches, flying clothing, harnesses and survival equipment, manage stores, update manuals and take part in all sorts of tasks around the station. When the aircraft returns, they will help unload it, clean it, service it with fuel and oil, tug it into the hangar and get it ready for the next flight or conduct scheduled maintenance. When the shift ends, they handover to the incoming crew. All vehicles, such as the tug, service vans and tanker will be driven by the mechs or the storeman. Pilots and aircrew will get stuck in and help with the survival kit and will deal with weather forecasts and flight planning. In the Military, the system requires that you have a duty driver and mechs are not allowed to drive vans and only allowed to drive the tug.There would also have to be a survival kit specialist,an administrator,a duty cook, one or two storemen and the official rank hierarchy and Union rules, bud, means that the duty driver wont drive the tug and will not assist the storemen and the Officer aircrew wont assist the backseaters. The pilots would be all Officers, the backseaters sergeants, the driver at least a corporal and the stormen would have at least one corporal and their would be one gull, the airman, doing all the bull**** tasks. the mechs would be bound by a slower, rank driven technical trade system, that is worse than the B1/B2 system by a long shot. Military hierarchies are slow, unwilling to cross task, unwilling to change, rank bound and overmanned. SAR works best when you cut the bull**** to a minimum.

Negative_G · 06-05-2020 1:02am

Stovepipe wrote: »

If you had any idea how the Irish military bureaucracy works, you wouldnt touch the Air Corps with a bargepole. A CHC operation, on any given day, has two pilots, two backseaters, a couple of mechs (usually both B1s or a B1 License engineer and a B2 avionics engineer) and a storeman and maybe one other on station. When the aircraft is flying, the lads on the ground will service other equipment such as winches, flying clothing, harnesses and survival equipment, manage stores, update manuals and take part in all sorts of tasks around the station. When the aircraft returns, they will help unload it, clean it, service it with fuel and oil, tug it into the hangar and get it ready for the next flight or conduct scheduled maintenance. When the shift ends, they handover to the incoming crew. All vehicles, such as the tug, service vans and tanker will be driven by the mechs or the storeman. Pilots and aircrew will get stuck in and help with the survival kit and will deal with weather forecasts and flight planning. In the Military, the system requires that you have a duty driver and mechs are not allowed to drive vans and only allowed to drive the tug.There would also have to be a survival kit specialist,an administrator,a duty cook, one or two storemen and the official rank hierarchy and Union rules, bud, means that the duty driver wont drive the tug and will not assist the storemen and the Officer aircrew wont assist the backseaters. The pilots would be all Officers, the backseaters sergeants, the driver at least a corporal and the stormen would have at least one corporal and their would be one gull, the airman, doing all the bull**** tasks. the mechs would be bound by a slower, rank driven technical trade system, that is worse than the B1/B2 system by a long shot. Military hierarchies are slow, unwilling to cross task, unwilling to change, rank bound and overmanned. SAR works best when you cut the bull**** to a minimum.

Would you mind breaking your posts into paragraphs of some description. Reading walls of text with no discernable beginning or end is offputting to say the least.

Much of what you critique about the Air Corps can be debunked if you understood how EAS operates and has done for some time now. While it isn't "SAR", many of the principles are the same and could be applied to both ops.

SAR is now civil function in my opinion. The AC hasnt the capacity to provide any meaningful SAR service given its currently strength unless it withdrew from GASU and EAS, which won't happen because they are easy wins for civil servants and politicians.

The only thing you could see is a single East Coast base removing thr CHC infrastructure from Dublin and launching from Casement for Irish Sea operations which would suit the 139's Range and Endurance. Long Range SAR & Top cover would still need to be provided by aircraft with more endurance on the West Coast.

Anyway, this thread is about the Cessna replacement - not SAR.

Replacment for Cessna 172

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