Anyone have any details on why the NLCA certification failed? Will this delay the test flight program?

I dont understand why the certification authorities would not give certification because of an over weight part, that is a performance issue not a flight safety issue in itself unless the excess weight was compromising the structure of the aircraft or HAL were not able to prove the or certify the structure with the additional load.

What is happening with the LCA MK2?

7th Gen shall be something not become the truth until 2060 to 2070 at least ~ At that time, the most important thing for 7th Gen might be: the successor (methane hydrate? hydrogen fuel? or even the nuclear fusion power?) of fossil fuel energy today……..

Have to agree! especially with fuel issues, armies can not afford to keep buying fuel guzzlers for ever more. maybe 7th gen will be satelites with direct energy weapons… They wont be fighters but they will also use less fuel traversing the earth.

Could they do a updated Typhoon with extra stealth feature similar to the silent eagle?

Hi all,

so what is true about the Rafales ability to super cruise? Some places say it can some say it cant

Though current Rafale variants are claimed to be capable of supercruise, the aircraft was unable to demonstrate this during the Singapore evaluation, and many sources suggest that the aircraft is only marginally capable of supercruise, with light weapons loads and under certain atmospheric conditions, though a planned engine upgrade should, according to some sources , remove this limitation and allow the Rafale to supercruise with more realistic loads at around Mach 1.4.

http://www.electronicaviation.com/aircraft/Dassault_Rafale/807

To be honest the IAF has evaluated the aircraft and they found the typhoon and Rafale capable for their needs..

These issues going on in the EU over subsidies etc will only go to annoy the end customer…

the only thing that could wreck all of this is now the 2 people who have said they do not like the assumptions used in the pricing.. nothing else matters, congress are as corrupt as ever if not more than they used to be but on this issue they will try and balance out the other corruption scandals and Defense ministor will prolong the purchasing procedure to make him self clean of any scandals. And damn the needs of the country…

lol could imagine this going in the way of the artillary farse!

Rafale is said to be able to supercruise with 6 missiles and 1 supersonic ext tank at around Mach 1.3.

The Typhoon has been in as much competitions as the Rafale. You only haven’t heard as much because it’s been disqualify almost from the beginning (i.e Brazil), while Rafale has made it to more finales, so noise has been made.

The truth is that it’s extremely hard for European aircraft industry to compete with the US and Russia. The US has economy of scale and a lot of political goodies and Russia usually sell cheap. So you will only see an opportunity with countries not willing to align themselves on the US, or with the money to buy high techs but the US isn’t willing to sell.

but the report says that the Rafale was not able to show super cruise capabilities in other contests, i guess it can do it if people can claim it but it would be interesting to know which version of Rafale is on offer with the IAF.

I have heard about the typhoon etc in the contests unfortunately the Typhoon is suffering from the short sigtedness of the EU. they worried to much about their own budgets and kept on cutting things out and down without thinking about export potential. If they had invested in the typhoon to get the full set of multirole capabilities they could have sold more typhoons and cut costs of purchasing typhoons themselves.. They shot themselves in the foot.

What is the OSF?

Does the Rafale have a infrared sensor at the front?

Never mind found a link on google..
http://www.electronicaviation.com/aircraft/Dassault_Rafale/819

The Rafale is an almost unparallelled achievement for a single nation, as equivalent fighter programmes have been undertaken by much larger companies or collaboratively by several nations. As an aircraft to meet French requirements (combining a robust carrier capability and good air-to-ground potential) Rafale could not be bettered, while the programme’s unilateral nature afforded great focus, and protected it from many of the political factors which have so dogged the rival Eurofighter. Any problems (and those listed here are disputed) should be viewed in this light.

There have, however, been increasingly critical comments about Rafale from members of the National Assembly’s Finance and Defence Commissions, and there have been reports of disagreements between Dassault and DGA about cost increases and obsolescence. According to Defence Analysis (p.17, Vol 8.No.12 December 2005) Dassault have called the RBE2 radar ‘fatally flawed’ alleging that its range was “inadequate” and averring that the Rafale therefore relied on AWACS support to overcome this. The DGA also described Rafale’s OSF (“Optronique Secteur Frontal”) as “obsolescent” and production has been cut back to just 48 units, rather than the planned number, which was to have been sufficient to equip all F1 and F2 versions.

While UK and German newspapers have been energetic in their criticism of Typhoon, Rafale has enjoyed a much gentler ride, and many of Rafale’s problems (which have been similar in nature, scope and extent to those suffered by the rival Eurofighter) have seldom emerged until long after they were solved, or remain unsubstantiated rumour, though there have been exceptions. According to Defense News, Air Force Gen. Eric Rouzaud revealed that early deliveries of the Rafale were prone to a software glitch that cut out part of the flight system, requiring the pilot to hit the reset button. The fault has been fixed, Rouzaud said.

Was the Rafale really supposed to super cruise with the M-88E engines? what is being offered to India?