Messages

511

Irish Air Corps / Current status of the Fougas?

« on: May 26, 2003, 12:46:13 am »

It would need a decision to be made for a gate guardian to grace the entrance to Baldonnel, the last one was the Vampire that a select few of us in the 40th appt. class painstakingly reassembled from a pile of bits in RAF colours, parked it up in front of the appt's. hostel where it stayed until there was a 'do' at the officers mess and they had it dragged around there. Over here in the UK every RAF or USAF base has a gate guardian, on the A1 there's a Harrier mounted outside RAF Wittering and very impressive it looks too. Of course it wouldn't take much to get a Fouga set up on a plinth at the main gate, just keep plugging away at the senior officers. RAF Benson has got a very impressive photo-reconnaisance Spitfire out the front. Maybe the last flight for one of the Allouettes could be the 30 second flight from the ramp to beside the flagpole!

512

Irish Air Corps / Naval Service Pilots.

« on: November 10, 2003, 05:50:39 pm »

Well as I said before, if you know that you'll be spending time at sea when you sign up then you've got no comeback. When I joined there was no mention of it and then we were just expected to get on with it. I did pay a visit to an old mate of mine in the Navy once and most of the matelots wanted to get a transfer to Baldonnel to get out of the navy!

513

Irish Air Corps / Naval Service Pilots.

« on: November 09, 2003, 04:32:26 pm »

Hey Silver, yeah that way they'd know that they were going to spend some of their service at sea. But why stop at pilots? The aircraft need a team to look after them so all the crew would have to be 'Naval', no use training the pilots but have the techies posted down from the 'Don, that's not a good combination! As I said in another thread, I left in '85 'cos I didn't fancy working 3 weeks at sea as we were told that would be a typical patrol.

514

Irish Air Corps / Corporate Image of the IAC

« on: November 09, 2003, 01:26:18 am »

Mind you, one of my abiding memories is of running across the Parade Square in Finner, on Christmas Night with a cooked turkey under my arm, just relocated from the NCO's mess kitchen to our Billet! Myself and Franz W****r lived off that carcass for the rest of the week! A few years later I topped it with a trifle! Anyone in Heli Flight just ask John G***n! Ahhh! those were the days!

515

Irish Air Corps / Corporate Image of the IAC

« on: November 09, 2003, 01:18:33 am »

Hey FF, I bet you've never had to walk down to the Holyrood hotel in Bundoran for a meal 'cos the food in Finner camp was so bad! When the Air Corps finds itself a role then it can plan ahead. Neutrality is a good idea, but in the real world, what about a common European defence policy? Ireland can't sit back and just expect the UK to defend it like it did in the last world war, can it? Ireland is wholehartedly into Europe, so why not get involved in a European Defence Group?