Re: Ireland needs airspace defence capability

Austria only has a handful of Eurofighters for air policing, which realistically they don’t need. The Swiss have the money and they can do what they like, the Irish also have the money but they choose to spend it more wisely on more important things than fast jets which they will never use. If ther...

Re: Ireland needs airspace defence capability

Who does Ireland need to defend themselves against? Anyone messing with them will have had to go through the UK first, talk about a pointless endeavour. Ireland puts boots on the ground for the UN, which is all they need to do. Why does any country need to maintain an air force? Why does Switzerlan...

Re: Ireland needs airspace defence capability

Armadillo1 wrote:

i thought it was a joke like about martians. what are you from?

Re: Ireland needs airspace defence capability

[money is wasted on keeping permanent soldiers on duty for the ground forces, and buying brand new Scania trucks and Mowag APCs, etc. This is actually fairly useless considering we are an island and the only real military issues in the past few years have been illegal fishing and airspace incursion...

Re: Ireland needs airspace defence capability

there are english who want to invade Ireland again. thats what they doing brexit for. Maybe there are a couple of extreme cases but the vast majority of British people do not want that. That is not why Brexit is happening, and I highly doubt any future British government will want to invade Ireland...

Re: Ireland needs airspace defence capability

rlwynn wrote:

It is the last thing Ireland Needs to spend hundreds of millions on.

Re: Ireland needs airspace defence capability

The point is Ireland may have the money but they don't care, politically, if the UK/NATO have access to their airspace and it actually is probably really helpful for Ireland. The text and link I quoted further up shows clearly that some type of agreement is in place that permits the UK to overfly I...

Re: Ireland needs airspace defence capability

Meh why waste the finances on an airforce, NZ doesn’t have one, you can also argue that many euro countries also don’t need them. Some of them have it for alliance reasons (Belgium, Netherlands). Some are in strategically important locations (Norway, Denmark). Some need it for personal pride and be...

Re: Ireland needs airspace defence capability

Meh why waste the finances on an airforce, NZ doesn’t have one, you can also argue that many euro countries also don’t need them. Yet, many complain that the US shouldn't be the world's policeman. That's fine with me. What people should remember is that a country's defense and interests don't alway...

Re: Ireland needs airspace defence capability

I am not say that they should buy a fast jet. If anything, they might want to do some air policing and get the Boeing/Saab T-X or something like that. Well these jet trainers are expensive enough themselves, and without anything for pilots to progress onto they would be useless anyway. They should ...

Re: Ireland needs airspace defence capability

I fail to see how having a foreign country in a military alliance effectively control our airspace helps us maintain our policy of neutrality. Plausible deniability. If the British intercept a Russian jet, it doesn't impact as badly on Irish-Russian relations. Whereas if the Irish government did so...

Re: Ireland needs airspace defence capability

A NATO/EU air policing squadron, comparable to the situation in Iceland, the baltic states, or Switzerland at night, should be perfect for that (if ever a political need arises). They are not in NATO ;) But Air Policing, if needed, would not be prevented by that. They'd be more pragmatic. I think t...

Re: Ireland needs airspace defence capability

From a British perspective (and with the caveat that others may disagree), I don't see any problem with the RAF providing support for the Irish government in such situations, especially since doing so helps Ireland to maintain its policy of neutrality. I fail to see how having a foreign country in ...

Re: Ireland needs airspace defence capability

That's a horrendous idea. My post was meant as satire. Why should the people of Ireland expend their limited resources to fund a squadron of jet fighters? Wouldn't they have more pressing priorities? The idea sounds absurd to me. Well of course there are issues in the country that are of higher pri...

Re: Ireland needs airspace defence capability

A good offence is the best defense. Ireland should buy into the B-21 program and get a few smart bombs. That way instead of just intercepting intruders and giving them the finger or what ever interceptors do, they could go and take out the hanger of the plane that did the intruding. That'd put a qu...

Re: Ireland needs airspace defence capability

I don't agree with your escalation argument, we haven't seen this actually occur. If anything based on the graphs I have posted below the threat has lessened as security improved. The statistics don't lend themselves to this being a current threat that will result in significant casualties. 9/11 re...

Re: Ireland needs airspace defence capability

I fail to see how a manned fighter would possibly prevent an MH370 type incident in Ireland. Well a fast jet interceptor could respond to the airliner as soon as transponders are switched off and communication is lost and escort it to the nearest suitable airport. You mentioned an SAM system earlie...

Re: Ireland needs airspace defence capability

Armadillo1 wrote:

must be russian hackers provoke martian invasion directly to Ireland

Re: Ireland needs airspace defence capability

I am not sure that shooting down a passenger airliner with passengers on board would be legal in Ireland to beginn with, it isn´t here and the constitutions are fairly similar.... best regards Thomas I'm going to assume you're based in the UK ( I'm probably wrong but anyway) or somewhere else in th...

Re: Ireland needs airspace defence capability

They’ll get an AF if they ever have a disaster that could been prevented by same. I assume this disaster would be your "russian invasion" fantasy? It is highly unlikely that Russia will ever invade Ireland, but they will probably continue to fly through our airspace with their transponder...

Re: Ireland needs airspace defence capability

Hello all, I'm looking for everyone's opinion on the Irish Air Corps and the fact that they don't have the ability to defend Irish airspace. I think it is quite frankly ridiculous and the AC, like the military as a whole is severely underfunded. Of course the government seems to think otherwise. I ...

Ireland needs airspace defence capability

Hello all, I'm looking for everyone's opinion on the Irish Air Corps and the fact that they don't have the ability to defend Irish airspace. I think it is quite frankly ridiculous and the AC, like the military as a whole is severely underfunded. Of course the government seems to think otherwise. I f...

Re: Irish 6/19: Dublin's bubblin' ...

From another Irish forum.... Aer Lingus considering A330neos.... https://twitter.com/FullBatteryStu/status/1141251294302298112 It's been rumoured before, I think someone posted that the two A330s arriving next year are thought to be -900s? If EI wants to expand with factory fresh frames or to repla...

Re: Irish 6/19: Dublin's bubblin' ...

Hainan have had their licence take away for the Beijing to Dublin/Edinburgh and Shenzhen to Dublin will go to 1x weekly according to the CAAC. Sad news for Dublin Airport. The Shenzhen flight won't last, I heard it was performing badly anyway but once a week isn't competitive with connecting flight...

Re: Irish 6/19: Dublin's bubblin' ...

Nice to see perhaps, nice to fly is another matter altogether Why? Nothing wrong with the Boeing 737 MAX or no MAX. AFAIK the real issue with the MAX is the engine placement. That can't be fixed with MCAS or any other software. I've flown the MAX a few times, including transatlantic with Norwegian ...

Re: Your favorite or most fascinating aircraft type..

Jet Aircraft (All) 737 Classic Series / 737 NG Narrowbody 737-900ER Widebody 747-400 Twinjet 737-900ER Trijet Tupolev TU-154 Quadjet Boeing 747 (All series) / Ilyushin IL-62 / IL-96-300 Regional Jet Sukhoi Superjet 100 / Bombardier CRJ1000 Props (All) Ilyushin IL-18 / Q400 Propeller general aviation...

Re: Most important markets for airlines

Well take for example my national flag carrier, Aer Lingus. Their main markets would be the UK, the US and southern European leisure destinations (so Spain and Portugal mainly.) This is because there are a lot of Irish people living in the UK and vice versa, and there are also a lot of business trav...

Re: Irish 5/19: Summer is a comin' in!

I noticed the the other day that airBaltic sent a 733 to Dublin instead of an A220. Rather unusual, anyone know why this is? Is this a one off or will they continue to send the odd 737 throughout the summer season? If so it would be a good opportunity to catch a classic 737, they're getting quite ra...

Re: Irish 2/19

With EI applying to join the transatlantic joint venture that B6 deal will likely be going away upon the approval. T8 at JFK is domestic and international so there would be no need to remove themselves from a domestic gate. When would this be likely to happen. I'm booked to transfer through JFK fro...

Re: Irish 2/19