Irish Air Corps FMA IA-58 Pucará

[Weaver]

An Ireland Fortress

The Irish Air Corps' FMA Pucarás

  In April 1982 Argentina deployed 35 FMA IA-58 Pucará counter-insurgency aircraft to the Falkland Islands following it's successful invasion. Following the SBS raid on Pebble Island during which six aircraft were destroyed, the remainder were scattered amongst a large number of remote operating locations. Although this avoided more of them being lost to commando raids, it also prevented them from being resupplied with fuel and weapons once the British landings had started, and this meant that many of the aircraft were captured intact on the ground in perfectly serviceable condition. In total, seventeen airframes were shipped back to the UK, where one of them was test flown by A&AEE at Boscombe Down to assess the type in case of further hostilities.




  Meanwhile, another conflict much closer to home was deteriorating rapidly. The revelations in 1980 by an Irish newspaper of corruption and inappropriate links between members of the Irish government and the IRA, and the subsequent murder of one of the journalists involved, had lead to an unprecedented public outcry, a snap election, and a new government very hostile to the IRA. The arrest of several IRA leaders in the South, followed by a failed attempt to assassinate the new defence minister in retaliation, had only made matters worse, and by mid-1982, a low-level conflict was underway south of the Ulster border that was every bit as nasty as that to the north of it.




  In June 1982, an Irish Air Corps Cessna-337 patrol aircraft disappeared from radar near the border, and was subsequently discovered, together with it's dead crew, riddled with heavy machine-gun hits. The IAC commander immediately requested more potent aircraft, but finances and service experience were severely limited, and all aircraft studied were either inappropriate or unaffordable. The UK government, with a vested interest in combatting the IRA, wanted to quietly help, but had nothing suitable to offer. However, as luck would have it, IAC officer Captain John Curran was serving on an exchange posting with the A&AEE at Boscombe Down with the intention of gaining experience as a test-pilot, and he had an opportunity to fly the captured Pucará. He immediately realised that it was just what the IAC needed, and he put together a radical proposal.




  Curran proposed that the UK government give the fleet of captured Pucarás a modest overhaul and then give them to Ireland, with the latter only having to negotiate and pay for a technical support deal with Argentina. Unfortunately, the Argentinian government would have none of it. Still smarting from the recent war, they insisted that the Pucarás were 'stolen property', demanded their return, and refused to be a party to any agreement brokered by the UK. However, Curran and the A&AEE were ready for this. The Pucará was a relatively simple aircraft, no more complex in principle than a civilian light twin turboprop, and the vast majority of it's hardware had been sourced from commercial suppliers outside of Argentina. For example, the engines were French, the ejection seats and undercarriage British, the guns French and Belgian and the avionics American. It was therefore perfectly possible to support most of the aircraft without Argentine co-operation. The one exception was the airframe itself. Curran's solution was that, since there were more airframes available than the IAC could use, one would be put into a test rig at A&AEE and kept ahead of the stress cycles of any operational aircraft.




  This proposal was accepted by both governments and the first re-fitted and repainted aircraft arrived at Casement Aerodrome for conversion training in mid 1986, flown by John Curran himself. Of the seventeen available airframes, twelve were supplied to the IAC in order to maintain an active fleet of eight, with four reserves rotated to even out flying hours. One airframe (with the highest hours) was put into the stress rig at Boscombe Down, and another was retained there for flight-testing. The remaining three aircraft went to UK museums.




  Since the aircraft would be mainly viewed from the ground by hostile forces, they were painted in an overall pale grey colour to camouflage them against the sky. In this respect the IAC started a trend that was later followed by many other world air forces much larger than Ireland's. During the aircraft's service, a number of modifications were tested by Boscombe Down and put into service, including a still-classified electro-optical pod (believed to be a high-magnification LLTV system) and the fitting of BOZ-100 countermeasures pods in response to intelligence information about the possible IRA acquisition of Stinger shoulder-launched SAMs. In the event, no Stinger is known to have been fired at a Pucará or anything else, but the issue of whether the IRA actually had any remains unclear.






   In service, the Pucarás proved very valuable, being mainly used for surveillance, their armour providing much greater protection from ground fire than the Cessnas and SF.260s used previously. On the rare occasions when they did open fire, it was usually with the guns, the old-fashioned mix of individually-selectable cannons and rifle-calibre machine-guns allowing a proportional response without undue risk to civilians. In one famous incident in 1989, two Pucarás challenged a suspicious fishing boat off the Irish coast which they believed to be engaged in arms smuggling. Most unwisely, the boat's crew opened fire on them with a machine-gun. Responding with cannons, the Pucarás had to take violent evasive action when the fishing boat vanished in a huge explosion as it's cargo of ammunition and arms exploded. This incident gained widespread publicity causing the IAC to relax it's normally tight media control in order to gain some useful PR. Unfortunately, the wisdom of this decision was called into question when one of the pilots was killed by a car bomb as he left a TV studio in London.






  The 1994 Peace Agreement saw a huge reduction in Pucará operations, and whilst once popular, the aircraft soon came to be seen as an unwelcome reminder of the Troubles. By 2006, only six aircraft remained operational, and it that year they were replaced, together with the remaining Fouga Magisters, by a dozen EMB-314 Super Tucanos.




Did this for the COIN GB over on BTS. It's the Airfix re-box of the Special Hobby job, and to be honest, I found it pretty poor: lots of fit issues and unclear instructions. The markings came from an Airfix Magister re-issue which is why there's no tail flash. I do have a set of the old SAM IAC markings but they don't have a tail flash either, and the white has yellowed in storage. The idea is that the big white numbers are frequently-changed tactical codes, unrelated to the aircraft serial, in order to avoid particular aircraft and pilots being identified.

[andrewj]

Nice model and backstory, very plausible.

[PR19_Kit]

What Andrewj said, I almost found myself hunting for my 'History of the IAC' book to check on the numbers of aircraft.   

[Weaver]

What Andrewj said, I almost found myself hunting for my 'History of the IAC' book to check on the numbers of aircraft.   

I did research it: I think 246 was actually a Dauphin acquired in the mid '80s IIRC.

[Weaver]

Forgot to say: the EO pod body is the cover for an interdental brush, and the ball is a map pin. I ground a circle in the map pin head with my Dremel to represent the lens, then fitted it to the brush cover with a concoction of plastic and aluminium tubing, some of which shows through the side holes ('heat exchanger shields' or something like that...).

[Doug K]

Convincing story and excellent model - well done

[zenrat]

Good job H.

[TomZ]

Love it. Very beautiful clean colour scheme.

TomZ

[comrade harps]

I like it and the scenario is reminiscent of the Irish Civil War of the 1920s. 

[NARSES2]

Excellent build and a very plausible story 

[Dizzyfugu]

A bit bleak, but I like the idea and story behind it. 

[KiwiZac]

Definitely not what I was expecting. Great job!

[major]

Looks cracking! Beautifully clean and simple.

[Army of One]

Great build H..........I've built one of them before.......was hard work.....well done 

[Glenn Gilbertson]

Great story, believable and a beautiful build - well done!