Rafale gets F3 upgrade

This’ll be interesting to see who wins the Singapore contract.
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Date Posted: 08-Mar-2004

INTERNATIONAL DEFENSE REVIEW – APRIL 01, 2004

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Rafale to get upgrade
Peter Lewis

France’s Délégation Générale pour l’Armement (DGA) handed a EUR659 million (US$817 million) contract to Dassault Aviation and its partners in the Rafale program in February 2004 to upgrade the aircraft to F3 standard, allowing it to carry France’s new ASMP-A nuclear missile.

The DGA said the money to develop the F3 standard Rafale would go to Dassault, Thales, the European missile group MBDA and France’s SAGEM, which is to supply the new Rafale’s avionics suite.

The delivery date for the F3 standard has been set for 2008 when the French Air Force is to form its first squadron of 20 nuclear-capable Rafales.

While it ordered the F3 standard primarily with deployment of France’s airborne nuclear deterrent in mind, the DGA indirectly gave Rafale constructor Dassault a leg-up in its efforts to supply Singapore with around 20 new-generation fighters. Rafale is competing against Boeing’s F-15T and the Eurofighter consortium’s Typhoon for the Singapore contract worth an estimated US$1 billion. The Singapore authorities, which are to announce their choice by early 2005, have stated they would only be interested in an F3 standard Rafale.

Dassault’s share of the development contract will be EUR457 million while Thales is to get EUR100 million to develop the upgraded fighter’s radar. The F3 standard will have a better anti-ship and reconnaissance capability than present variants of the fighter, carrying the AM 39 missile and the Reco NG reconnaissance pod.

The F3 standard Rafale that Dassault is proposing to Singapore will be equipped with Mica air-to-air missiles, France’s AASM (Armement Air Sol Modulaire) precision bomb kit and the Scalp-EG cruise missile, if the French government authorizes export of the latter.

But the aircraft will not carry conformal tanks and active electronically scanned array radar (AESA) that the French offered South Korea when competing for Seoul’s requirement for 40 new fighters, a contest finally won by Boeing’s F-15E.

However, France has said it will supply AESA for part of Singapore’s order if the city-state agrees to share the radar’s estimated EUR300 million development cost. Equipping Rafale with AESA would be tantamount to upgrading the fighter to F4 standard, its ultimate stage.

French defense ministry sources said the Singapore order could be split in two, with the first eight F3 standard Rafales being delivered in 2009 and the 12 remaining fighters, equipped with AESA and equivalent to France’s F4 standard, being turned over to the Singapore Air Force between 2011 and 2013.

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