Irish Air Corps SAR bid machine costs
 

The Irish Air Corps are plotting a return to military SAR on Ireland's east coast. The Air Corps released details to the Irish Times of a deal they're believed to have agreed with Leonardo, to provide two fully SAR equipped 189's at a cost of 17.5 million euro each for the first two and 14 million euro for a third.
The big question is, are they getting a good deal?

Depends on spec of course but assuming it's Leonardo baseline SAR config with FLIR, belly tanks, hoists etc and not a light SAR spec, I'd say that price of 17.5m EUR is exactly where it should be if not a bit on the cheaper side. Depends what LH have included in their numbers though, they could be making their money on the training and through life support.

14m EUR for a SAR 189 is crazy low.

It does seem surprisingly cheap!
They also appear to have agreed the price without having to go to a public tender, although this may be because they already have 6x 139s. It will be quite an achievement for them to get back into SAR, as they have virtually zero operational experience, having had SAR removed from them nearly 20 years ago. They have 2 or 3 pilots with previous SAR experience and the current winchcrew have zero, with all of them being recently trained.
They're also short of engineers so a lot of the maintenance will have to be contracted out.
Fun times ahead!

Is there a news article?

Yes, in the Irish Times on the 7th April, with information released by the Irish Air Corps. They are concerned the UK may be a security risk :)

Here is the official link

https://www.gov.ie/en/campaigns/ed65...ation-project/

cheers

You sure they are AW189s? Sounds more like AW139 pricing which would make sense for the East Coast bases...

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/irel...oast-1.4531109

When I saw that, I thought for a moment it was probably euromoney being gifted to Ireland for some petty optics on protecting the single market, but then I realised there would be no way the French would allow the Italians to get their hands on free money.

Have they got enough people to provide 24/7 cover?

Pretty sure they are referring to SAR kitted AW139’s. It does not make sense to have another type added to the fleet when they are already short of staff etc.

Maybe, but only for the duration of the pandemic! After that it's unlikely they will stick around. The Irish Air Corps has a long history of struggling to keep staff :bored:

I really wonder how this will do any good to taxpayer and to persons in need of SAR. Have watched this outfit for a while and also was involved for years in similar operations and am in serious doubt this will be better arrangement than current one-both for taxpayers and those in need.
But, well, maybe I will be positivelly surprised...

I know that it is frowned upon these days to look back more than 12 months but is anyone familiar with the history of Waterford SAR?

Are you talking about 1999?

Yes - and the Sligo debacle that finally convinced the Irish Government to give the contract to a private operator.

Which incident was that?

He’s probably referring to when there was CRM failure to a spectacular level and the minister of the time brought CHC in to fly their own airframe at almost no notice. Just ask the ex navy crewman trainer who had to deal with the IAC officer attitude when teaching the crewmen. Isn’t one of them now an IAA ops inspector for Irish SAR? Oh but wait, the IAA ran for cover after the R116 crash and claimed they had no oversight despite visiting bases to spend multiple days at a a time auditing.

There seems to be a proliferation of ex IAC crew claiming SAR experience on AW139 and EC135, both types introduced since the above removal of the IAC from all SAR duties. Some of these crew are pilots in Qatari military or crewmen with a Canadian company contracting in Yemen all claiming SAR experience they don’t have. Sadly employers cannot do enough of a background check to discover they lack said experience.

Given that’s the case then a local government being lobbied heavily is only going to be swayed more and more by a false belief of capability and no understanding of methods, recency, training and knowledge. The IAC have been criticised for lack of oversight before but has the culture changed? The give-it-a-go attitude appears to prevail.

Surely it will just be another avenue to better paid civilian jobs for those who man a military SAR asset as used to be the case back in Irish S61 SAR days.

There still exists a cover up culture. The Irish Dept of defence attempted to slur the innocent student pilot in the Pc9 crash a few years back in open court in front of his still grieving family. Only after they damaged the 139 lifting some of the wreckage off the mountains and never reported it. What about the unusual attitude incident during the initial aw139 delivery in 2006. The AS365 sent to Marignane for rebuild many years before on a low loader that was never reported. The CN235 that landed at base with foliage in the landing gear. The Alouette written off claiming an engine failure when the video camera at the wedding nearby confirmed unauthorised whazzing. The video of the FR172 crash that was never publicised and the AAIB report never published. Or the CHC s61 with a smashed tailwheel when 2 IAC pilots during the work up to Sligo in 2002 attempted to lift to hover with engines at idle.

Does anyone in their right mind want that for a state SAR setup in modern times?

That just about sums it up. Now they want to operate SAR again? Frightening....

You mean stuff like actually doing SAR? It is after all almost 20 years since the Irish Air Corps last 'played' at SAR, a little debacle that despite a dedicated aircraft and multi million Euro budget ended in the usual mess.

The question is - What SAR experience exists in the Irish Air Corps now?

Anyone can call themselves SAR qualified and experienced and a number of 'wide-boys' do exactly that with no real-world experience. Doing a bit of SAR training in nice weather does not make you SAR qualified - it's one of those 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing' scenarios where the unknown unknowns come and bite you in the a&se because you thought it was all easy-peasy.

Flying an aircraft into the ground on a coastal letdown in dodgy weather is typical of the 'We can do this, we are SAR and anything goes' mentality - amateurish and dangerous.

East Coast irish SAR might not be as challenging as the West Coast on a regular basis but there are plenty of situations where the unwary could easily get caught out.

Modern SAR is no place for amateurs or turf wars.