Not a good idea?

[Turkey]

yes they do - the NS does an 'off the cuff' 6+ months SAR op in the Med while working up a new class of ships and having been preparing to undertake a completely different type of mission in the IO, the Army moves completely out of its previous experience and does a difficult and potentially very crunchy deployment to Chad. both ops involve less than ideal equipment and less prep than people would like, yet they crack on and do it, and do it well.

why then should the AC be so different?

Same question I've been asking for years....

[GoneToTheCanner]

the Army got a few stiff knocks from the Chad/Liberia experience, especially concerning Mowag operations, in-country transport,etc,etc but seems to have learned and moved on. The results are still out on the Med deployment for obvious reasons but it will surely be good for the NS, provided it does a real, searching, educational debrief afterwards.

[GoneToTheCanner]

@heligun, Turkey is right. Irish helicopter companies were doing stuff that the Don wouldn't do/hated to do/wouldn't dream of doing for years. Irish Helis was doing external load lifting that the Don could only dream about or rarely practised. Parachuting from helicopters? Check! operating out of improvised heli-pads for the ESB and other State bodies? Check! Flying to oil rigs and lighthouse pads every day? Check! Firefighting with Bambi buckets? Check!....They and others were flying multiple sorties per day per aircraft that the Don never achieved. I recall heli lads bragging about doing four lifts per day. I'll grant you that things have improved remarkably but the Don may yet have shot itself in the foot.

[DeV]

How was the army able to deploy to Chad?

By a lot of money being found - something like €60 million!

[na grohmiti]

How was the army able to deploy to Chad?

By a lot of money being found - something like €60 million!

But penny pinching was still involved. The debacle of using local contractors to bring vehicles from port to AO nearly ended the mission before it started.

[morpheus]

If the Don , as has been suggested, has put this proposal forward, then I fear we will finally be witnessing the end of the air corps and I will have lost all faith in our defence forces and DOD as a whole.

[Heligun]

@heligun, Turkey is right. Irish helicopter companies were doing stuff that the Don wouldn't do/hated to do/wouldn't dream of doing for years. Irish Helis was doing external load lifting that the Don could only dream about or rarely practised. Parachuting from helicopters? Check! operating out of improvised heli-pads for the ESB and other State bodies? Check! Flying to oil rigs and lighthouse pads every day? Check! Firefighting with Bambi buckets? Check!....They and others were flying multiple sorties per day per aircraft that the Don never achieved. I recall heli lads bragging about doing four lifts per day. I'll grant you that things have improved remarkably but the Don may yet have shot itself in the foot.

Sorry are you talking about 10/20/30 years ago??? How is that relevant. Was IS relevant is the capabilities now and the abilities of all crew and support services. Nobody cares what went on (or didn't) in the past, what matters is what we do now and what we are capable of doing in the future. The only limiting factor is the DOD and some sections of senior management, but for you to imply that the crews and not capable or not willing to take on a task (home and abroad) is simple wrong. When the AW139s were deployed to NI the brits were looking jealously as crews took command on the ground (HHI) and in the Air including going on a SAR while the Chinooks crews looked on from their Ops room. If you Don't take my word for it ask the RAF CO thoughts of the AC operational flexibility, crew abilities and equipment, ask him could they deploy and I'm telling you his answer wouldn't tally with the historic crap you are talking about.

[Jetjock]

So the Air Corps deems it may be potentially preferable to outsource maintenance?

There seems to be a bit of an over reaction here.

It's not the complete outsourcing of helicopter ops. It's the replacement if Air Corps techies with civilian personnel who will most likely maintain the helicopters to Air Corps military maintenance regulations.

Look at the bigger picture. In a budget restricted service with a capped establishment there may be a potential to replace support personnel with operational personnel.

Gttc, I'm surprised at your opposition to this given how vocal you have been down through the years regarding the relatively poor Casa availability/utilisation rates achieved along with the "union rules bud" attitudes you yourself encountered.

This may not be a bad thing.

[morpheus]

The argument SHOULD be to increase the budget cap and hire more techs and pilots and get more capable aircraft.

what next? civvy tech staff on naval vessels,
civvy mechs maintaining the mowags and ltavs?
civvy armourers?
civvy engineers!!!???

Union rules bud.

[DeV]

Thing about it is subout AC tech's and you lose flexibility (that should be there) that could cost a fortune.

Eg:
the tech also does GoHs, armed duties, overseas etc
the tech gets little if any premium payments
the tech's leave can be cancelled and detailed
the tech can't strike
the tech can be deployed operationally armed overseas with an aircraft (should the AC be tasked by Government)
Etc etc

Change the mindset that Gttc experienced (if it hasn't already) and the only benefit that I can see would be the pension costs for future generations of tech's (as the past and current need to be paid anyway).

What do you do with the serving tech's if you do? Redeploy them to the army? They will leave in short order and go into civil jobs. Or an expensive VER system.

This at a time when they are pulling AC tech training up to civilian standards?!

[DeV]

Just going to leave this here - page 283

http://www.audgen.gov.ie/documents/annualreports/2008/Appropriation_Account_2008Rev1.pdf

[Jetjock]

I think what's very very pertinent here is that the Air Corps has a very direct means of comparison:

2 x EC135 maintained in house vs 2 x EC135 maintained by an outside agency.

If the latter Garda pair are achieving higher availability rates or better VFM than the AC pair then there is only one party with the blame squarely at their feet.

[TangoSierra]

The argument SHOULD be to increase the budget cap and hire more techs and pilots and get more capable aircraft.

what next? civvy tech staff on naval vessels,
civvy mechs maintaining the mowags and ltavs?
civvy armourers?
civvy engineers!!!???

Union rules bud.

Finland outsources its vehicle maintenance to civilians. They're even deployed on UN missions with the military types.
Most engineering contracts are outsourced by the DF.
The majority of technical repairs to comlex weapons systems / comms etc is sent back to manufacturers.

Your point?

[morpheus]

that on deployment, if something goes wrong, your civvies will quickly become targets who cant shoot back. Techs are soldiers first techies second.

[Jetjock]

Do you honestly believe all the civilian contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq were there to clean the jacks?

The civilianisation of support roles is commonplace in militaries worldwide. It's not a new trend.