AC fighter aircraft

[ropebag]

They aren't mutually exclusive!

If you have fighters you need radar as you are talking about GCI. No point buying/leasing fighters if you don't know when to send them up.

no one said they are mutually exclusive, they are however incremental steps in cost, political difficulty and capability.

buying radars and linking them into the wider European networks would be both (vastly) cheaper and (vastly) easier politically to achieve than leasing 20 Gripen E's and operating them for the next 25 years. it wouldn't provide the same capability - as i mentioned for the hard of thinking - but given that such an intercept capability looks to be not exactly rolling down the political street, it might be a good compromise between unicorns and fcuk all.

[Silver]

Would an alternative be to actually put fighters in place, and rely on UK-supplied radar/information in the interim (i.e. until our own radar system is in place)?

Thats presuming the UK/RAF would forward such info to our authorities. No reason why they wouldnt though, if it saved them sending out intercept aircraft.

[ropebag]

Would an alternative be to actually put fighters in place, and rely on UK-supplied radar/information in the interim (i.e. until our own radar system is in place)?

Thats presuming the UK/RAF would forward such info to our authorities. No reason why they wouldnt though, if it saved them sending out intercept aircraft.

radar data from what?

you may have noticed, but due to some unfortunate fuss in the early decades of the last century, the RAF does not have radar coverage of Ireland. moreover is the concept not a bit daft and arse-about-tit?

spend €100m a year till 2040 on Gripens, but not bother spending €20m in one go on the radars to control them. really?

[GoneToTheCanner]

Ireland is not exactly inexperienced at keeping an eye on the near-Atlantic, from a radar point of view. They have been doing it since radar first came to Ireland and right now, Ireland's civil radar coverage is very good, a consequence of being at the door of the transatlantic routes so picking up and identifying Russian aircraft is not new to the civil or military authorities............to operate any leased in aircraft, to even a basic NATO standard, you'd have to pour millions into runways, training, manpower, engineering,etc, etc so it's probably a leap too far, budget-wise, outside of NATO.

[na grohmiti]

radar data from what?

you may have noticed, but due to some unfortunate fuss in the early decades of the last century, the RAF does not have radar coverage of Ireland. moreover is the concept not a bit daft and arse-about-tit?

spend €100m a year till 2040 on Gripens, but not bother spending €20m in one go on the radars to control them. really?

We could let their E3 fly the odd racetrack in the Irish sea. I'm sure the radar range would give a nice picture for any possible fighter. After all, even the Casa Radar can have all its surface targets identified by the time it is crossing the midlands heading for the atlantic fishing grounds. Surely AEWACS is a bit more advanced.

[Jetjock]

We could let their E3 fly the odd racetrack in the Irish sea. I'm sure the radar range would give a nice picture for any possible fighter. After all, even the Casa Radar can have all its surface targets identified by the time it is crossing the midlands heading for the atlantic fishing grounds. Surely AEWACS is a bit more advanced.

Over the Irish Sea? Let them? They could fly an E-3, 10 Typhoons and a kite 13 miles off the west coast and with or without fighters we could legally do f'all about it.

[na grohmiti]

When I say "Let" I mean "invite". They can bring a tanker too.. One that is compatible with the in flight refuelling system our fighter aircraft will have...

[ropebag]

can i just thank everyone for their concern over the state of our defence budget...

E-3D at £25k per flying hour, plus 18-22 crew - all of whom will be on flying pay and at the least will be earning £35k pa, and probably around £50k pa. it would be cheaper just to buy you the fcuking radars...

[na grohmiti]

They'd only be covering their own six.

[spider]

Which is why I think Banner's earlier proposal (RAF aircraft loaned to and operated by IAC) maybe isn't so far off the mark.

If only the political will to so could be achieved.

It is in the UK's interests to have its Western flank secured...at the moment it isn't.

Yes the RAF could base fast jets at Aldergrove...but the political will would have to exist to allow them to operate in Irish airspace.

It would be much easier and beneficial for everyone to empower the IAC to do the job themselves.

In terms of numbers of airframes required...The Falkland Islands (facing a more imminent threat and thousands of miles from support) have a 24/7 all weather QRA capability with four Typhoons.

Would this really be that unachievable? A flight of IAC Typhoons based at Shannon (I'd still sell Baldonnel...sorry...its a white elephant).

[GoneToTheCanner]

I doubt very much if UK radar coverage does not extend over Ireland. Certainly civil coverage does and has done for quite a while.............either lease from the Swedes or bite the political bullet and hire the RAF.

[pym]

I doubt very much if UK radar coverage does not extend over Ireland. Certainly civil coverage does and has done for quite a while.............either lease from the Swedes or bite the political bullet and hire the RAF.

Unless we we venture into Over the Horizon Radar territory, normal radars are limited by line of sight.

Conventional primary radar sets are usually given an upper range limit of ~250 miles for a target operating at around 35kft. That's about the distance from Cornwall to Kerry. And that doesn't take account of all the other factors, like mountains, weather, wind farms etc. that all negatively impact a primary radars ability to see.

A primary radar head in RAF Valley isn't going to help track Bears 50 or more miles off the Galway coast.

Here's an image based on data from the UK's civil aviation authority - showing the line of sight issues for their primary radar heads at between 20M & 200M:


The higher the set is up, the closer to the ocean it is, the further it will see.

It wouldn't be a massive investment, two or three heads & a shared picture. Operated by IAA, with Irish military liaison, shared picture with UK/Euro buddies. It's basically what's happening already, but improved by an order of magnitude.

It would mean we're contributing *something* rather than nothing - and then we can think about taking a next step.

[na grohmiti]

Time to upgrade Mt Gabriel then? (assuming it has not already been done- the dome was down on one for a while and what sat inside looked very different to what one would expect). Only problem is it is on the South Western extremity, when something in Clifden would give better coverage.

[DeV]

The IAA only have 3 primary radars remember

[pym]

Time to upgrade Mt Gabriel then? (assuming it has not already been done- the dome was down on one for a while and what sat inside looked very different to what one would expect). Only problem is it is on the South Western extremity, when something in Clifden would give better coverage.

Unless the IAA are fibbing, the upgrade was probably to a modern Mode-S/ADS-B secondary radar - which is great, so long as all aircraft are using a transponder. Unfortunately Bears aren't so courteous

Mt. Gabriel would probably be a good spot, due to the existing infrastructure.

In the last few years I've been doing research on how we were affected/behaved during the Cold War - and the bombing of Mt. Gabriel has always been one of the more fascinating little chapters of the time.

There are a lot of articles dealing with it in the Irish Times archives - and the point is made that, as a Secondary Surveillance/SSR head, it was militarily useless.

The funny thing is, the Irish Independent carried an article a few years back, about a recently declassified Irish army memo a year or two before the bombing occurred - and it promoted the idea of upgrading radar facilities on the Atlantic seaboard, not just for aircraft, but to detect missile launches from the Soviet SSBNs which loved hanging around. The memo pointed out that such a capability would have been much appreciated by the UK - a few seconds extra warning.

I've wondered since, if the bombing was encouraged by Moscow.

Although given that every dome constructed in Ireland is inevitably followed by locals muttering "it's for NATO", they probably didn't need to.

Here's the article anyway:

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/secret-plan-to-muster-army-of-500000-in-event-of-nuclear-war-ireland-was-ready-to-help-out-uk-26806742.html