Strategic Airlift

[thebig C]

In an interview with Flight magazine last August, Ralph James said that “…Ireland is also becoming increasingly interested in gaining access to strategic airlift to support its international peacekeeping activities…”

NATO An-124s

I presume he meant that Ireland should join NATO's Strategic Airlift Interim Solution (SALIS) project, under which partner nations are to gain pooled access of at least 2,000 flight hours a year on a fleet of up to six leased Antonov An-124s.



A single Antonov An-124-100 can carry up to 120 tons of cargo. The aircraft are available for NATO and EU missions. The deal runs from 2006 until at least 2012, when the Airbus A400M is expected to be ready to take over. The four Nordic nations were among the signatories. The text of the agreement is given here:

http://www.mosr.sk/dokumenty/eng/memorandum.pdf

C-17s also

16 NATO and PfP nations are also supporting an initiative to acquire three or four Boeing C-17 Globemaster strategic transports to be operated on a pooled basis, including Denmark, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Norway and Sweden.



(An Irish connection: A number of USAF C-124s, the previous Globemaster, came to Baldonnel in the early 1960s to bring Irish troops out to the Congo.)

[CTU]

For god sake, carrington do you ever use the search function.
This has been done to death.

I presume he meant that Ireland should join NATO's Strategic Airlift Interim Solution (SALIS) project,

Presume what you want, unless you are him you don’t know what he was suggesting, for all we know he might want the Air Corps equipped with these aircraft. And if Ireland did join NATO's Strategic Airlift Interim Solution (SALIS) Imagine all the complaining, from the usual suspects, about Ireland being involved in a NATO project and that its eroding Irelands neutrality

And if the Air Corps does get transport aircraft I think it would be more likely to be the C-40A or the C-295 and not C-17s or An-124s

[thebig C]

For god sake, carrington do you ever use the search function.
This has been done to death.

Can someone please think up an alternative phrase for 'done to death'; it's becoming tiresome at this stage.

Search for 'strategic airlift' - as I did - and see what you come up with.

Presume what you want, unless you are him you don’t know what he was suggesting, for all we know he might want the Air Corps equipped with these planes.

People like Ralph James do not use words loosely when being interviewed by journalists. The phrase he used was "gaining access to strategic airlift", not 'buying' or 'acquiring' or anything like that.

And if Ireland did join NATO's Strategic Airlift Interim Solution (SALIS) Imagine all the complaining, from the usual suspects, about Ireland being involved in a NATO project and that its eroding Irelands neutrality

The NATO nations (including Partnership for Peace nations such as Ireland) will fly the planes based on national requirements, which could be for UN, EU, or other international purposes (e.g., humanitarian airlift and disaster relief).

And if the Air Corps does get transport aircraft I think it would be more likely to be the C-40A or the C-295 and not C-17s or An-124s

No-one is suggesting Ireland should buy An-124s or C-17s.

As a matter of interest, why do you favour the C-40A or the C-295? How would you see them being utilised by the Air Corps?

[thebig C]

For another Irish connection, go to Shannon Airport, and see the AN-124 based there.

I'd forgotten that. I wonder how many Piranhas it could carry?

[apod]

NO ,whats been done to death is the amount of trolling and starting new posts about questions answered elsewhere that you are doing.You have started annoying people,myself included.Use the search function

[ARNGScout]

Apod - no one's forcing you to participate in this thread but it appears that there are others that are willing to regardless of whether it was discussed before or not. What is there some unwritten rule that says once something has been talked about it can't be brought up again? Not quite sure why this bothers you so much.

[FMolloy]

Everyone keep the posts on topic.

I know this topic has been discussed before but having talked to carrington about this I do believe that he wasn't able to find anything on it. This being the case I'm going to let this thread run until I can find an existing thread to merge it into.

[CTU]

Search for 'strategic airlift' - as I did - and see what you come up with.

I searched with plain old "airlift" and look what I found posted by Old Redeye (what ever happened to him)

http://forum.irishmilitaryonline.com...hlight=airlift

As for two objections to IAC airlift raised in this forum:
1. By joining the European Airlift Group based in Eindhoven NL, an Irish airlifter will contribute sorties against requirements generated by the EAG in response to EU-wide missions - international military and humanitarian ops and battlegroup training for example. In return, Ireland gains airlift support from the EAG for ops and exercises - particularly heavylift for helos, APC's, etc., taking advantage of the range of airlift capabilites available, including AN-124's on constant short notice charter by the EAG, and RAF C-17's.
2. The Irish airlifter will not have a primary role of flying out troops on international delpoyments, that will remain the purview of chartered airliners. But, in response to one critic, troops are regularly flown great distances in C-130's. I've done it myself many times. The primary roles of the airlifter will be:
a.) support international deployments, humanitarian crises and battlegroup exercises with tactical cargo lift, including aerial delivery by parachute and LAPES
b.) personnel/equipment/vehicle delivery in support of battlegroup advanced party deployment and for special forces rapid response, including rough field ops, night NVG ops, parachute delivery and tactical approaches and departures - think Afghansitan
c.) medical and other emergency evacuation of deployed personnel.

The NATO nations (including Partnership for Peace nations such as Ireland) will fly the planes based on national requirements, which could be for UN, EU, or other international purposes (e.g., humanitarian airlift and disaster relief).

So are the Euro Battlegroups. Some people didn’t like the fact that Ireland are going to participate in that.

As a matter of interest, why do you favour the C-40A or the C-295? How would you see them being utilised by the Air Corps?

Are civil airlines still used for overseas missions?
If they are, why couldn't the air corps purchases a C-40A to transport troops and cargo pallets overseas and any of the large equipment can by shipped on the proposed Naval Multi-Role Vessel (that of course depends on if the MRV is approved, probably after the election, by which time there could be a new defence minister )
Now I am not saying that the C-40A should be purchased, but it a possible solution if it was ever required by the air corps.
As for the C-295 I thought I would just throw that in since it seems to be mentioned whenever airlift is mentioned

[FMolloy]

In fairness CTU, the thread that post is in is not titled 'airlift' so if someone is doing a cursory check of thread titles they could have missed it. I guess the lesson here is that we should look closer & used logical variants of words/terms when searching. Thanks for helping to illustrate this.

I'm going to let the thread continue, clean slate for all.

[CTU]

In fairness CTU, the thread that post is in is not titled 'airlift' so if someone is doing a cursory check of thread titles they could have missed it. I guess the lesson here is that we should look closer & used logical variants of words/terms when searching. Thanks for helping to illustrate this.

I'm going to let the thread continue, clean slate for all.

Lesson learnt all round I suppose FMolloy
Carrington No offence to you, but when people start reading the same thing over and over, especially if a person posting might have required a reputation (Albeit unintentionally) of rehashing old subjects on new threads, it does get a bit tiring. :redface:

I am not saying you should not post you ideas, since some of you suggestion have merit, but I don’t think there are many people from the "powers that be" here (who knows maybe the Minister or the COS, possible even the incoming COS are members of the board) so don’t expect your ideas to become defence policy. I realise that it may not be you intention to formulate defence policy but sometimes you do come across that way.

So as FMolloy said
lets start on a clean slate

[thebig C]

Air Corps Airbus

........
Are civil airlines still used for overseas missions?
If they are, why couldn't the air corps purchases a C-40A to transport troops and cargo pallets overseas and any of the large equipment can by shipped on the proposed Naval Multi-Role Vessel (that of course depends on if the MRV is approved, probably after the election, by which time there could have a new defence minister )
Now I am not saying that the C-40A should be purchased, but it a possible solution if it was ever required by the air corps.
As for the C-295 I thought I would just throw that in since it seems to be mentioned whenever airlift is mentioned

I agree that if would be a good idea if the Air Corps considered a commercial airliner to meet the need for medium to long-range transport. As an alternative to the C-40A (Boeing 737-700), maybe the Czech approach could be looked at?

The Czech Air Force has just received an Airbus A319ACJ (Corporate Jet version of A319), with a second due for delivery later this year. The Czech ACJ can carry nearly 100 people and is reconfigurable to serve in both VIP and troop transport roles. Logistics support and training are provided by from CSA, the Czech airline, which last month received the first of twelve A319s ordered from Airbus.



Price around €40 million, not much more than that of a new Gulfstream or a C-295? I think the idea of having an aircraft that could fly the President or the Taoiseach on State visits, and other MATS-type tasks, for example, but which could be reconfigured to carry troops to and from Liberia or wherever, sounds pretty efficient, especially if there is commonality with a type operated by an Irish Airline, so that maintenance and pilot training could be outsourced.

[thebig C]

defence policy

Lesson learnt all round I suppose FMolloy
Carrington No offence to you, but when people start reading the same thing over and over, especially if a person posting might have required a reputation (Albeit unintentionally) of rehashing old subjects on new threads, it does get a bit tiring. :redface:

I am not saying you should not post you ideas, since some of you suggestion have merit, but I don’t think there are many people from the "powers that be" here (who knows maybe the Minister or the COS, possible even the incoming COS are members of the board) so don’t expect your ideas to become defence policy. I realise that it may not be you intention to formulate defence policy but sometimes you do come across that way.

So as FMolloy said
let start on a clean slate

Hey, no offence taken, I've no problem with 'robust' discussion. But I wouldn't agree that what I suggested is just rehashing old material. I think Old Redeye's proposal was somewhat different, and in any case the EAG has ended up as just a planning cell to co-ordinate airlift capacity between a number of European countries.

Defence policy should be a matter of concern for all citizens, just like foreign policy, health policy, transport policy, whatever. People on this board regularly lament the fact that ordinary people couldn't be bothered about defence issues. They also frequently make defence policy proposals. I thought that was one of the purposes of this board, to provide a forum for people interested in the Irish Defence Forces?

[apod]

Lesson learnt all round I suppose FMolloy
Carrington No offence to you, but when people start reading the same thing over and over, especially if a person posting might have required a reputation (Albeit unintentionally) of rehashing old subjects on new threads, it does get a bit tiring. :redface:

I am not saying you should not post you ideas, since some of you suggestion have merit, but I don’t think there are many people from the "powers that be" here (who knows maybe the Minister or the COS, possible even the incoming COS are members of the board) so don’t expect your ideas to become defence policy. I realise that it may not be you intention to formulate defence policy but sometimes you do come across that way.

So as FMolloy said
lets start on a clean slate

What he said!:wink:

[Goldie fish]

Bertie wanted a BBJ or a 319ACJ before someone convinced him it would be a bad idea, what with the rest of the air corps falling out of the skies.

If such an aircraft was bought, it would quickly be commandeered for VIP transport,much as The Dauphin, Casa and more recently the EC135 have been in the past.

[GoneToTheCanner]

Hi all
This idea is not new in Irish skies.Aer Lingus had a fleet of "Combi" 737s that flew pax during the day and cargo at night. A good crew could change the aircraft over in two hours,as the seats came out on seperate panels and the ULD boxes could go straight in.
Just goes to show that there is nothing new under the sun.
regards
GttC