"The half-decent years"

contrary to today, there once was a time when our air corps could have been considered almost acceptable:

in 1975, several Fouga Magister jets were puchased from france, which were use for training, the light strike squdron of the airforce and for the "silver swallows" display team, which won the award for best overseas performance during an international airshow in england.

the only problem was that the Magisters were biult in the 50's and still made up the main part of the Irish aircorps until in 1998! wheen they were withdrawn from service and are still yet to be replaced with new jets.