Pilatus PC-12 NG

[GoneToTheCanner]

The chances of surviving a ditching in a PC-12 are slim. It's not designed for rapid egress and the best you could consider is to try to force land on a beach, if you could make it as far as a coastline. It reminds me of the change from Alouette to Dauphin for the same reason. There were several close calls with the Alouette when engine issues arose. There's good reason why Maritime operators specify two engines as a minimum.

[na grohmiti]

Relatively speaking, how risky is such patrols with modern Single Engine planes? Also Christ the PC12s must be racking up the hours at this stage?

Remember when the PC9M had an engine failure some months back? It had enough altitude to glide back to Bal. With the mountains on the SW coast and the prevailing winds, you'd be sweating before you reach Cork Farranfore, or Shannon.
There's a reason single seat fighters have ejector seats with an inflatable raft under the seat. Ditching off the SW coast would be very risky for al concerned, this time of year. Were they wearing drysuits in the cabin just in case?

[Sparky42]

Looks like the PC-12 is a maritime patrol asset now too.
Brave doing so with a single engine aircraft.
Defence Forces mount hush hush surveillance operation to monitor Russian ship off Irish coast - Irish Mirror Online

Relatively speaking, how risky is such patrols with modern Single Engine planes? Also Christ the PC12s must be racking up the hours at this stage?

[na grohmiti]

Looks like the PC-12 is a maritime patrol asset now too.
Brave doing so with a single engine aircraft.
Defence Forces mount hush hush surveillance operation to monitor Russian ship off Irish coast - Irish Mirror Online

[GoneToTheCanner]

Must be said, that's some serious clocking of hours on the PC12NG fleet since delivery.

It's operating at commercial levels and Pilatus will be watching reliability and mean time between failures like a hawk. These days, all such aircraft are transmitting reliability gen back to the manufacturer and the operator in real time. Back in King Air and Hs 125 days, the Don exceeded the norm for such aircraft in terms of annual hours flown and reliability monitoring was done with a biro and a sheet of paper and the intuition of Flight Sergeants.

[na grohmiti]

I'm sure the manufacturer is pleased as well .

It would be, because Pilatus seem to be doing most of the Routine Maintenance still.

[Laners]

I'm sure the manufacturer is pleased as well .

[na grohmiti]

Must be said, that's some serious clocking of hours on the PC12NG fleet since delivery.

[DeV]

It did do it though, not ideal, but well done to the crew and airframe

[EUFighter]

To put the range issue into perspective I had done the possible tracks of the flights (Red) and an alternative with a proper transporter the C-390 from Embraer (Yellow)


For the PC-12 here are the details, I have taken DUB as the destination as Baldonnel, AFAIK does not have an IATA code.

GOM	EBB	062°	(NE)	061°	(NE)	218 nm
EBB	KRT	000°	(N)	359°	(N)	928 nm
KRT	CAI	356°	(N)	352°	(N)	871 nm
CAI	FCO	312°	(NW)	308°	(NW)	1,162 nm
FCO	DUB	319°	(NW)	316°	(NW)	1,020 nm

For the C-390 here are the details,

GOM	HER	354°	(N)	353°	(N)	2,224 nm
HER	DUB	319°	(NW)	314°	(NW)	1,711 nm

The issue with the PC-12 is that it just did not have the legs to make the trip out of Africa in less segments, its range is 1400nm which meant that EBB to CAI in one hop was not possible.
On the other hand the C390 has a range of 3100nm so gives plenty of routing options and in such an operation you want options. Also it could have taken the troops with them rather than having to drop them off at EBB to get a commercial flight back. If KRT was not available for whatever reason, civil unrest etc what would we have done? That is where a proper medium range tactical transporter comes in. I could have easily draw a dozen alternative routings for the C-390, for the PC-12 it would have been a bit more difficult.

[GoneToTheCanner]

Scrapping on site is not a good precedent. What if the same was to happen for a larger mission? As for throwing in the sea, you don't want your equipment to be hauled up by fishermen years down the road either, and DRC has no coast.
It comes down to this, if we can't get troops and equipment to and from an operation independently, then we shouldn't be participating in that operation.
We shouldn't be showing the flag in obscure missions so the DFA can feel good about Ireland abroad.

Going as far back as the Congo in the 60s, scrapping of the old Fords on site happened and the Swedes even abandoned fighter jets there. I understand that it's not good optically or politically but sometimes, there's no choice and the DF has to take the hit. It's not Vietnam levels of abandonment, either. I'd get lads out and suffer the loss of a few rifles any day of the week.

[GoneToTheCanner]

Unfortunately even having an aircraft (be it PC12 or something much larger) doesn’t even provide the guarantee

Look at Mali, they are preventing UN troop rotations and they are the host country

be interesting to see an FOI where the delay was, DoD, DFA or on the other State(s) side

DoD are saying they have a lack of staff and that is delaying procurement projects

it could just as simple as a palm not being sufficiently greased or some random official not stamping something or not moving a document across a desk. It really doesnt take much to cause a delay with paperwork. A close friend did a lot of flying in that region and it was a rare flight that didnt have some kind of delay or admin bullshit involved.

[na grohmiti]

One of our Air Corps contributors mentioned this in detail some while back in the discussion about transport aircraft. NGOs don't like the markings to be to militaristic, the fact that our ISR aircraft are interchangeable as transport aircraft, (ignoring the type) can create barriers. Imagine for example if a WU-2 landed at Shannon while doing weather research. Straight off the retired commandant would be jumping up and down about NATO spy planes patrolling our skies.
The fact the CIA use the PC12 in the intel role, marked up in civilian livery might not help either. We forget that while we have a relatively clean history as colonial oppressors(apart from our long history filling the colonial regiments of the British army of the 18th and 19th century), much of the developed world knows nothing of the Europeans apart from colonisation, or taking the wrong side in local conflicts. They have plenty of reason not to trust our motives.
A more appropriate aircraft in this case would be the Lear, if it was available. Which could probably have done it in the same amount of legs, but more discreet. Yet again though it underlines the immediate need for Both a Long range Passenger and/or tactical transport aircraft.

[CTU]

It comes down to this, if we can't get troops and equipment to and from an operation independently, then we shouldn't be participating in that operation.
We shouldn't be showing the flag in obscure missions so the DFA can feel good about Ireland abroad.

Unfortunately even having an aircraft (be it PC12 or something much larger) doesn’t even provide the guarantee
Look at Mali, they are preventing UN troop rotations and they are the host country
be interesting to see an FOI where the delay was, DoD, DFA or on the other State(s) side
DoD are saying they have a lack of staff and that is delaying procurement projects

Yes it would be interesting to see what the actual hold up was.

I do think there is a bit a naivety on the Govt side when it comes to these issues, one of them is this thing about "multi-role" aircraft, be it a PC-12, CN-235 or the new C-295s, with the exception of "280" they are not "transport aircraft" they are for all purpose an "ISR" aircraft with sensors fitted and some countries are not going to be thrilled about letting in such an aircraft in there airspace, even if they only find out afterwards, especially a country in the middle of a civil war.

Now I am in no way suggesting this is what happened in this case but it is a possibility of what could happen and shows why, at a minimum, a "clean" C295 transport is required for these types of operations.

[DeV]

Scrapping on site is not a good precedent. What if the same was to happen for a larger mission? As for throwing in the sea, you don't want your equipment to be hauled up by fishermen years down the road either, and DRC has no coast.
It comes down to this, if we can't get troops and equipment to and from an operation independently, then we shouldn't be participating in that operation.
We shouldn't be showing the flag in obscure missions so the DFA can feel good about Ireland abroad.

Unfortunately even having an aircraft (be it PC12 or something much larger) doesn’t even provide the guarantee

Look at Mali, they are preventing UN troop rotations and they are the host country

be interesting to see an FOI where the delay was, DoD, DFA or on the other State(s) side

DoD are saying they have a lack of staff and that is delaying procurement projects