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  • #31
    Ill bet the men in the picture have been told not to look at their phones or tablets for the duration of the photoshoot. Nobody is asleep, nobody looks too bored, there's no food in view,no papers and no-one looking for the jax. Another point; if you keep seat sets like those in the picture, you'd better have somewhere safe, clean and warm to store them and they take up a lot of space.

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    • #32
      Originally posted by na grohmiti View Post
      Who is in SAL now? What about the Paint shed next door?
      I do understand though that the further you move the air corps folk from Dublin, the closer they are to turning to a pillar of salt. This is unfortunate.
      SAL was originally a joint venture between Lufthansa Technik and Swiss Air Technik, now that Lufthansa owns everything it is called Lufthansa Technik Shannon.

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      • #33
        Originally posted by EUFighter View Post
        SAL was originally a joint venture between Lufthansa Technik and Swiss Air Technik, now that Lufthansa owns everything it is called Lufthansa Technik Shannon.
        To anyone past or present who has anything to do with Shannon, it is and will remain SAL. The German moniker is not used by anyone. Ever. It is "Aerospace". End of.

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        • #34
          Originally posted by na grohmiti View Post
          And movements in Shannon recently are nothing as busy as Cork or Dublin.
          The only thing saving it is the stopovers and US Immigration pre clearance.
          The stopovers are long gone but pre clearance thankfully persists. Trans-Atlantic traffic is busy only during the summer with minimal winter traffic. And by busy I mean a shadow of its former self. Where widebody A330 and 767's once operated, A321 NEOs and 757s now hang on. Barely. 737 Max groundings killed off Norwegian and Air Canada routes. The airport survives on transient once off traffic and temporary cash cows like Kuwaiti 777 that stopped for security clearance and screening while Kuwait airport was non TSA compliant. It was a business that stopped literally overnight. Even the Omni troop flights trialled a German alternative stop-off for a few weeks last year. Panic ensued.
          While Shannon's scheduled business is precarious it still draws revenue from unlikely aymmetric sources - like the private Saudi 777 that parked there regularly over the last two years on call with full crew and APU running for the son or daughter of someone important attending college in London. Cheap parking charges apparently the attraction to the person/country that can afford a 777 on call for a college student.
          Then there's the NHC Orion's that decamp to Shannon to chase North Atlantic Winter Windstorms instead of their usual fodder.

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          • #35
            Originally posted by Jetjock View Post
            To anyone past or present who has anything to do with Shannon, it is and will remain SAL. The German moniker is not used by anyone. Ever. It is "Aerospace". End of.
            Yes, we all know it as SAL, but officially that is no longer the name.
            httphttps://www.lufthansa-technik.com/locationlist/-/asset_publisher/d4cagQl5YCWV/content/location_ltshannon

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            • #36
              Originally posted by EUFighter View Post
              Given recent reports of Lufthansa MRO divestments, I wouldn't count on that name being on the side of the hangar by the end of the year.

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              • #37
                Originally posted by CTU View Post
                How many of those civil-military QRA airfields have one serviceable runway?
                How many of these civil-military QRA airfields are emergency diversion airports for Transatlantic Civil Airliners?

                What's to stop an unfriendly from using a Civil Aircraft on a recognised flight plan from "declaring an emergency" crash landing on the one serviceable runway and rendering you QRA unserviceable until the one runway is back up and running. It was only last year that Shannon was closed for 2 hrs due to a Light Aircraft Incident.

                If shanon was to be used I would expect at least one of old Unused Runways be brought back into service as a backup just in case.
                13/31 is probably a simple resurface away from a usable state and even though unused for quite some time was until 5 years ago listed as available on airfield charts.

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                • #38
                  Originally posted by IrishDigger View Post
                  How about this one,

                  C17 is a fine aircraft, also nice to see RAAF Airlines operate a mainly business class seating layout.

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                  • #39
                    Getting back to topic and before people start running off with ideas of getting old C-130H and doing all sorts of modification there needs to be a better assessment.
                    Looking at the webinar and the input from ANZAC being able to justify more than one airframe should not be an issue.

                    One thing is to look at operational scenarios, here we can look back over the deployments the Army has done to foreign shores. How far away? What loads were required? What was the availability of suitable landing areas? Then is to take out the crystal ball (the minister of state polish head) and try and predict where in the future deployments may be needed both military and civilian. I emphasize the latter as we can be sure that once a capability is there we will have plenty of department who want to take advantage of it, naturally free of cost.

                    The likely outcome will be a large confused matrix, one which large air forces (USAF) would cover with a wide range of aircraft. Not having that luxury there will be clustering and some scenarios made. It could be that the best mix will a 1-2 small transports and a share of something like the SAC. It might be we go completely on the share ownership model with a group of like minded countries and that together a set of requirements would be developed.

                    Up to now most have gone directly to the C-130, and it was the only one with the manufacturer pushing it at the webinar. But there will be others interested; Airbus, Leonardo, Embraer, Antonov and Kawasaki. The only hope I would have is that the requirements when written are around the needs of the mission and not just tailored to a particular aircraft.

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                    • #40
                      If we have our own, it needs to be in widespread use, which would make our crews more deployable, even without aircraft.
                      This is where the C130 variant wins hands down.
                      Was at ATI in Fairford in 1994, the ramp was a Herc meet. Crews from all over the world swapping flights in each others aircraft.
                      83-0490 of the 139th Airlift Squadron, New York Air National Guard. International Air Tattoo, RAF Fairford, July 1994.
                      For now, everything hangs on implementation of the CoDF report.

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                      • #41
                        I am not saying it will not end up being a C130J, but do not let the tunnel vision start too soon.

                        Interoperability will be a key requirement and within the EU+1 there are 3 countries that operate both C130J and A400M, two countries that operate only the C130J and 2.5 countries that operate the A400M only. As it will be a strategic asset it should be new and be capable of being used for 30 yrs+

                        Just over a year ago when I was in Madrid, at the hotel was the A400M User Group Meeting, France, Germany, UK, Spain, Belgium, Turkey and Malaysia. Now that is smaller that a typical C130 user group meeting but the C130 first flew 65 yrs ago. Maybe the A400M UGM will be much bigger in the future if many more of the EU nations start to take A400M's to replace their legacy C130's.

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                        • #42
                          the operation of recent times that - had airlift been available and organic - would have looked most different is Chad.

                          in a way however this idea of '+airlift..' is misleading, because airlift is such a game-changing asset/mindset that operations with airlift are conceptualised from fag-packet onwards in a fundamentally different way for operations without airlift. its a bit like playing 'cavemen with guns', when if cavemen had had guns, they wouldn't have been cavemen...

                          the immediate benefit that leaps to mind is the ease of accessing training opportunities - with a pair of C-130's it becomes very easy to send an Inf Coy to a two week exercise in Sweden or France, or a missile troop to the range at Benbecula for a week. the important thing, both for readiness/skill/experience, and for proving the utility, is that these trips aren't a 'once a year' things, they are a constant stream of smallish, low-level exercises with Irelands friends and partners.

                          this then has a positive impact all on its own - your crews become proficient at dealing with other air arms, going to weird and wonderful locations, and this is likely to have an impact on retention and recruitment: basically it becomes a more interesting, more challenging, more worthwile job, so people are less likely to want to leave.
                          Last edited by ropebag; 8 June 2020, 19:18.

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                          • #43
                            Here’s a few jobs:



                            The only issue is that Irish Aid while having no problem getting ex and seconded (Or volunteering in civvy capacity) DF personnel or using State resources .... there could be a risk with using DF assets.

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                            • #44
                              Originally posted by DeV View Post
                              Here’s a few jobs:



                              The only issue is that Irish Aid while having no problem getting ex and seconded (Or volunteering in civvy capacity) DF personnel or using State resources .... there could be a risk with using DF assets.
                              real simple - book the airlift up a year in advance and use every single available flying hour to support the DF and wider defence, and get the DoD and political structures on board (freebies and trips to the Arctic Circle, and massive social media presence and pictures of your platforms doing stuff every day). by all means then do a bit of charridee work in some sub-saharan shithole: make sure you take a camera crew, and plaster everything in the Irish flag. use some tasty dusty airstrips to produce some excellent tv footage.

                              use the clout you've developed with that political engagement to tell IA to clear off - you are not a taxi service, and its already booked - and indeed unless you are genuinely moving aid out to the middle of nowhere, then a chartered, civilian freight aircraft is a far more effective and efficient way of getting stuff from A to B.

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                              • #45
                                Originally posted by ropebag View Post
                                real simple - book the airlift up a year in advance and use every single available flying hour to support the DF and wider defence, and get the DoD and political structures on board (freebies and trips to the Arctic Circle, and massive social media presence and pictures of your platforms doing stuff every day). by all means then do a bit of charridee work in some sub-saharan shithole: make sure you take a camera crew, and plaster everything in the Irish flag. use some tasty dusty airstrips to produce some excellent tv footage.

                                use the clout you've developed with that political engagement to tell IA to clear off - you are not a taxi service, and its already booked - and indeed unless you are genuinely moving aid out to the middle of nowhere, then a chartered, civilian freight aircraft is a far more effective and efficient way of getting stuff from A to B.
                                I was suggesting it as a possible use for the aircraft!

                                If they DF want such an aircraft they have to “sell it” as being capable of supporting Ireland Inc

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