Transport Aircraft

The Air Corps will not go to Shannon unless they are point blank ordered to do so. When they had the Dauphin there (and in other airports),it was always operated on the basis that Baldonnel was the home and the aircraft would always revert there for even the slightest maintenance. Bal is the nerve centre so no stores for aircraft would be sent to outstations, no storeman (civvies especially) would go there and the admin system stayed firmly rooted in Baldonnel. Same with the current operation of the 135 as a medevac aircraft. Like all outstation operations, it is run on a minimalist basis that costs the AC budget as little as possible and the ordinary military bureaucracy continues to operate. You must have storemen, drivers, admin people etc etc and the lads are all on "sub" while they are detached from Baldonnel. It costs a lot more than a similar civvy operation to run a single helicopter "off the reservation".

Ffs.

You have to move the AC out of Dublin on a Phased basis.

Start by moving all fixed wing to the west coast. Lets assume Shannon for now. It gives younger staff an option to live in the midwest, where they can actually afford a mortgage on one income. As the Older staff retire out, committed as they are to a 40 year mortgage for a 3 bed semi in May-newt, more operations and squadrons could relocate to the new infrastructure being built in Shannon. It'll take 15 years maybe.

Closing Gormo took less. Those who didn't want to move to the southside, and had 15 years or so done, just jumped ship. All the Piston spanner swingers, gone overnight.

Thankfully the Cessna was easy enough to maintain and no longer vital to operations.

Would Waterford airport not be an option?

Don't shoot me, just asking.

Why would you do that ? The aircraft need to be based where they are of most benefit to the state... not to suit those working on / with them... opening up another aer corps base in Shannon would be no great benefit... Taoiseach or minister needs to go to Brussels ? More fuel and an extra landing of the Learjet just to position SNN - DUB or Baldonnel wouldn’t make much sense, logistically or financially...

MATS flights are essentially at the beck and call of the Taoiseach's office and the Dept of Foreign Affairs and basically, the operation can run itself and is about on a par with a civvy business jet operation, ALL of which are 24/7/365, such as Netjets. You could operate MATS from any airport in Ireland,so it is not tied to Baldonnel and,as has been demonstrated many times in the past,it is perfectly possible to provide total security for any VIP in Dublin Airport. I totally agree with Larbre 34 on the Shannon issue.

Its Air Corps not Air or Aer Corp & its Baldonnel, not Baldonnell. For alot of talk about that branch alot cant either spell its Title correctly or give it its actual Base Name which is Casement.

IMO The Air Corps should be at Shannon, in fact they should be a nearly entirely rotary force dedicated to Army Co-Operation, as it stands they can move a handful of Troops nothing more.

What’s on in Spain?

Casa.

More legroom.

Looks like you are bang on the money there is currently a casa enroute from madrid over the UK

Yeah read that this morning. Its the the same pro and no people against the military. Interestly Sinn Fein seam to be on the fence but that maybe to do with sorcha clarke being from mullingar and it a former military town. ( Read somewhere funny enoght a survey was done by the LDA about developing the old barracks and the majorty of people wanted the 4th artillary returned there rather than housing.)

Back to the article got a got laugh with thomas pringle that we should just take an Aer Lingus or Ryanair plane. Best of luck with the return policy with MOL

Him and Paul Murphy talking shite. But interesting to see RTÉ even give an article on the issue.

That's not a particularly comforting thought tbh...

Nonsense.

Its a mindset that the Air Corpse have had for years. Time to send a few more officers on long term exchanges with foreign air arms. Finns can operate F18 from the side of a road, with just 7 crew to support one aircraft.

A ship arrived in Cork yesterday with 3 Dutch air force helis on the deck. And it wasn't pretty off the coast yesterday. The ship has a huge hangar yet the KLu didn't see the need to coccoon the aircraft inside as soon as they stopped flying.

Few, if any of the major airlines store their aircraft in Hangars when not in use. Aer lingus had a number of their aircraft parked up in Cork for the duration of the lockdown. Covered the Air Intakes, pitot tubes etc, and that was it. The USAF stored most of their active aircraft in glorified tents for the 20 years they were deployed to Bagram, a far more hostile environment than south county dublin.

We don't need all the infrastructure to move a flight of aircraft from one place to another.

Your point was that all the air corps aircraft have to live in Baldonnel because that's where all the support services are located.

I'm saying that is nonsense.

The fact that an AW139 currently lives in a tent in Athlone is evidence of this. (Though they are building a more permanent structure).

Also, most of the big maintenance is not done by the air corps, it is done my the aircraft manufacturer, at their purpose built facilities overseas. How many times have the PC12 been back in Switzerland for checks since delivery?

Indeed no maintenance of the GASU aircraft is done by the Air Corps, it's all contracted out, short of the scheduled checks.