Like many small European countries with limited defence budgets and few strategic commitments, Ireland has long pondered its air force's role. The country is outside NATO and has not been involved in an armed conflict since its independence in the early 1920s. The main function of its defence forces has been in supporting United Nations peacekeeping missions in Africa and elsewhere, but - other than in providing airborne training for the army and occasional personnel - the Aerchor na h'Eireann or Irish Air Corps, which does not have a long-range heavylift capacity, is not involved. Instead, the corps, based at Casement air base outside Dublin, provides transport for government ministers and helicopter back-up for the police and ambulance service; it also carries out surveillance and fisheries protection in the country's 428,000km2 (132,000nm2) of territorial waters, mostly in the Atlantic; and, until this year, offshore search and rescue (SAR).
Various reviews in recent years have tried to define the corps' role and equip it accordingly. In the latest, the defence ministry announced in December it plans to issue a tender imminently for up to six light utility helicopters to replace an ageing fleet comprising three types: seven Aerospatiale SA316 Alouette IIIs and one AS342L Gazelle and four Eurocopter AS365F Dauphins. At the same time, the corps will discontinue its SAR service from Sligo airport in the north west, for which it leases a Sikorsky S-61.
There have been two other recent acquisitions: eight Pilatus PC-9 trainers are replacing six Aermacchi SF260WE aircraft. The first two will arrive in April, with two more each month until July. The PC-9s will allow pilots to increase their flying hours from 150h to 200h because of the aircraft's higher operating ceiling - Irish weather frequently meant training at the SF260's 10,000ft (3,000m) limit was impossible. They will also provide better armed air response, says corps commanding officer Brig Gen Ralph James. In December a Bombardier Learjet 45 joined the Gulfstream GIV to provide ministerial transport and has been kept busy thanks to Ireland's current six-month presidency of the European Union. The main remaining priority for the air corps is to upgrade the Litton V5 radar and tactical data management systems on its two CASA CN-235 maritime patrol aircraft.
Over the past decade, one of the biggest problems the air corps has faced has been in retaining pilots. With limited opportunities to serve overseas, many were being lured away early to the civil sector as Ryanair and other low-cost airlines expanded. Now, thanks to a better pay structure, the average career of a flying officer is 15 years, which, according to James, gives the corps at least seven years of a pilot's peak performance.
Source: Flight International
