Madam, - As Jim Forde (April 20th) points out, the fly-past which accompanied the 1916 commemoration military parade on Sunday, April 16th, underlined, albeit unintentionally, our total inability to control our national air space (a requirement essential to the assertion of neutral status under international law).
The events of September 11th, 2001, emphasised a new type of airborne threat. While even the only remaining superpower was caught napping by the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington four-and-a-half years ago such an eventuality is unlikely to be repeated as is shown by the military "escorts" provided to the two Irish aircraft which were the subject of bomb scares in British airspace during Holy Week.
Faced with a high-jacked airliner bent on mayhem, the only defence which our Air Corps could offer would be to fly one of the two "ministerial transport" aircraft into the intruder, always supposing that one of these aircraft was (a) available, (b) could be scrambled quickly enough and (c) its pilot was both willing and able to carry out a Kamikaze type suicide mission.
While state-of-the-art combat aircraft such as the Eurofighter, the F-22 or the Su-35 are clearly beyond the means of a small country with few military pretensions, we do require aircraft with the capability of intercepting and if necessary shooting down a hostile aircraft of subsonic speed.
Only four to six such aircraft would be required and their acquisition would not only be well within our present means but would also do wonders for the self respect of the members of our military air arm - which, with the loss of its maritime search-and-rescue functions, has been effectively reduced to a taxi-service for politicians and senior bureaucrats and a flying training school for Aer Lingus, Ryanair and Aer Arann. - Yours, etc,
ADRIAN J. ENGLISH, Kilcolman Court, Glenageary, Co Dublin.