A look at the AC

[DeV]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB0E0YlV2CY&feature=related

[DeV]

The Air Corps flew almost 2,300 missions last year, including 69 Air Ambulance Missions, often involving the transportation of critically ill patients between medical facilities in Ireland and the UK for vital live-saving treatment. The Air Corps also conducts Maritime Patrols in conjuction with the Naval Service, as well as flying the Garda Air Support Unit (GASU) and providing “top cover” for security operations.

[Tadpole]

Operational missions or does that include training flights?

[DeV]

Operational

[Helihead]

That's six operational missions a day for every day of the year.. Seems a lot.

[FMolloy]

That's six operational missions a day for every day of the year.. Seems a lot.

Many GASU heli missions in the Dublin area would be short enough in duration, I would guess that these push the numbers up.

[GoneToTheCanner]

Don't forget if one Casa does one MARPAT per day, it can represent six airborne hours, whereas a PC-9 doing a training flight might just stay up for 90 minutes, but may fly three times that day, so all is not equal in terms of mission duration. The use of the word mission implies that a flight is non-routine, whereas many of the flights are just routine training flights or airtests or simple carriage of persons from one place to another. In other words, nothing special.
regards
GttC

[Helihead]

Many GASU heli missions in the Dublin area would be short enough in duration, I would guess that these push the numbers up.

Fair point, forgot about GASU.

[Pure Hover]

Be interesting to compare it with the daily CHC mission list?

[Helihead]

Be interesting to compare it with the daily CHC mission list?

PH, just to correct you it would be IRCG missions, which would be about four a day from four aircraft practising SAR disciplines only,lnot including taskings. Expect the missions to significantly increase with the arrival of the 92's. Mentioning 92's, I believe two arrived into Sligo for fuel the other day to do a job way out west on behalf of the UK, one providing guess what....top cover.

All we need now is availability figures and serviceability stats for the aircraft to be made public.

[GoneToTheCanner]

Define operational. "cashies" are operational, so is GASU, so is MARPAT, so is Army co-op, so is MATS.Is a MATS positioning flight "operational", by military standards? By any standard, of course it is. Training flights are certainly operational, because individuals and aircraft are being operated and placed at risk on behalf of the State.Six a day is nothing. 6 Cessna flights could cover that.
regards
GttC

there are, of course, some flights which are a waste of space, such as transporting Ministers to open off-licenses, etc,etc but they are included in the catch-all of training

[DeV]

I'd say that training flights aren't included, they normally aren't.

[Helihead]

A more accurate way of doing things would be an individual breakdown of annual operational flight hours per airframe.
Example the last operational flight hours for IRCG aircraft I saw and were for public viewing was approx 3500 hrs for the year, which breaks down to.....875 hrs per airframe. Are figures available for the IAC ? Maybe PH could help.

[Pure Hover]

PH, just to correct you it would be IRCG missions, which would be about four a day from four aircraft practising SAR disciplines only,lnot including taskings. Expect the missions to significantly increase with the arrival of the 92's. Mentioning 92's, I believe two arrived into Sligo for fuel the other day to do a job way out west on behalf of the UK, one providing guess what....top cover.

All we need now is availability figures and serviceability stats for the aircraft to be made public.

So IRCG training flights are MISSIONS as well! Why would the missions significantly increase with the arrival of the S92's? . Are u expecting more rescue's? Presume you mean much greater training commitment which could be expected.

Sorry but have to ask the question why 2 UK Coastguard a/c had to perform a rescue off the Coast of Ireland. Why couldn't IRCG respond to this? Probably due to range maybe or the fact that the UK still have responsibility for the SAR NW area.

[Rhodes]

A more accurate way of doing things would be an individual breakdown of annual operational flight hours per airframe.
Example the last operational flight hours for IRCG aircraft I saw and were for public viewing was approx 3500 hrs for the year, which breaks down to.....875 hrs per airframe. Are figures available for the IAC ? Maybe PH could help.

The 2009 figures are available.

CITs
Cessna - 335 missions - 945.75 flight hours
AW139 - 13 missions - 21.75 hrs
Pilatus - 5 missions - 9.42 hrs

GASU
EC135 - 1954 missions - 1,795.85 hrs
Defender - 188 missions- 359.38 hrs

Air Ambulance
CASA - 27 missions - 96.33 hrs
Learjet - 8 missions - 22.17 hrs
AW139 - 45 missions - 124 hrs

Other ATCA
AW139 - 18 missions - 48.75 hrs
EC135 - 18 missions - 43.08 hrs
Cessna - 14 missions - 54.5 hrs

SAR
AW139 - 6 missions - 20.25 hrs
CASA - 4 missions - 15.25 hrs

Maritime Patrols
CASA - 280 missions - 1,558.7 hrs
Cessna - 21 missions - 90 hrs
EC135 - 3 missions - 11.75 hrs
AW139 - 2 missions - 5.5 hrs

MATS
Gulfstream - 42 missions - 220.42 hrs
Learjet - 82 mission - 239.17 hrs
Beechcraft - 1 mission - 0.75 hrs
CASA - 1 mission - 0.67 hrs
EC135 - 4 missions - 7.67 hrs
AW139 - 19 missions - 30.92 hrs