Excellent 🙂
The Mirage 2000 had the shortest course at landing, even shorter than the Ching Kuo. The F16 had the shortest take off run though, with 2 tanks and 2 huge pylones!
I didn’t include the Blackhawks in the comparison 😀

And give up a longer range, lighter weight, stealthier missile?

but SCALP/Storm Shadow can hit the target :dev2:

Jackonicko, give the Argentinians 4 Su-30MKI’s and 4 Typhoons would struggle to defend the Malvinas, given a 1:1 exchange ratio- that would be most likely if the Argentinian pilots trained well and used their MKI’s wisely..the Typhoon has no advantage in terms of detecting and tracking the MKI earlier than the MKI does it..and although the R-77 is not quite as modern as the newest AMRAAM variants, till the time the Meteor comes in, there is no decisive advantage for the Typhoon here either..in the case of the Rafale, the MICA is even more short ranged, so the MKI would likely take the first shot even if it detected the Rafale a little late..
so I’d like to know just how the Rafale or the Typhoon “outclasses” the best developed Flanker variants. if Argentina were to go in for the Su-35, that would be something more than a handful for the Rafale or the Typhoon..:diablo:

The problem seems to boil down to the range of radar detection and who will detect whom first, and what would be the useful range of weapons in that scenario.
And I must say that the odds of the Sukhoi don’t look that good if you think about it five minutes.
EF and Rafale were both designed with some useful stealth features while the Sukhoi 27 family were not , and had a little RAM added here and there.
But, are the stealth features on Rafale and EF worth noting ? Do they bring any operational advantage ? That’s the question…
I’ll try to bring my 2 cents. Let list some of the most advertised stealth features that the eurocanards have:
– the masking of the engine compressor fan by double S shaped air intakes
– engine compressor blades profiled and treated for reducing their radar cross section
– gold coated canopy
– semi recessed missiles
– RAM material on hot spots
How effective would that be ? Well, we know that radar range strongly depends on the presentation aspect of the target, for example that radar ranges in the frontal hemisphere are double of that in the rear hemisphere, due to engine compressor blades and cockpit being great radar reflectors. Since eurocanards were designed to eliminate these most proeminent sources of radar return in the frontal hemisphere, we can estimate that their radar cross section in the frontal hemisphere is approximately equivalent to that of the rear hemisphere. Thus range against them would be almost halved compared to a fighter of the previous generation.
On the other hand, the family of Flankers all have huge air intakes with direct sight on the engine compressors, 2 huge engines for double radar return, huge cockpits reflectors, 2 large fins, large proeminent missiles (R27 fins and R77 lattices are very good radar reflectors), large radar dish and are much bigger than the eurocanards.
So I would give a huge advantage in detection range to the eurocanards. In addition, the seekers of the active radar missiles would be even more affected by the reduced signature that would work in synergy with ECM to cancel any supposed range advantage of the russian missiles.
All types are equipped with IRST, so no advantage here, or maybe to the smaller planes and engines, again not a good case for the Sukhois.

So IMHO, the odds are in favour of the eurocanards here, not tremendously but still … Especially if Argentina would attack the Falklands, or the Royal navy fleet w/out the support of EAW and if the eurocanards have GCI or AWACS cover. In the end it would all depend of whom has the best doctrine, support, team work and … luck.

I stated they could operate from landbases on the East Coast of the US. Then fly out to do Carrier Quals. Yet, it doesn’t sounds like the Rafale can be easily support from a well equipped base let alone a foward one………….no wonder they haven’t won any expoert sales.:eek:

That is just silly …
Rafale can be easily supported from a summarily equipped base as proved by the deployement of 3 of armée de l’air Rafales to Afghanistan. Deploying a whole flotille (squadron ) for 6 months at sea with full readiness and support would require another level of logistical organization of course. You would have to remove the equivalent of a F18 squadron load in parts to make space available, then field adequate testbenches. Do you know that french electric equipment use 220V and US 110V ?
A carrier is a well equiped, independant and mobile airbase. A forward airfield relies on constant input of parts from mainland depots, be it for F18 or Rafale.

About UMS the 50-50 EADS Thales joint venture:

United Monolithic Semiconductors designs, produces and markets leading edge RF, UW and millimetre wave components and systems for the Telecom, Space, Defence, Automotive and ISM Industries.

The company’s strategy is to position itself as a “one-stop” supplier to the wireless microwave and millimeter-wave market, offering a broad range of standard and custom designed MMICs, along with an open foundry service. It has two production facilities, at Ulm in Germany, and Orsay in France, where the commercial headquarters and product design and development are also based.

so it has a production unit in Germany AND in France … and in China too.

About the Korrigan program. It is a european program involving 7 countries. It seems to me that the GaN development costs are so huge that they had to be shared on the european level. So I would expect all european parners in Korrigan to have about the same capabilities.

Note that in UMS technological roadmap, the GH25 series of GaN devices, with 0.25micron technology working in X band (the band used in most air intercept radars including RBE2) will not be in production by 2010 when the ‘RBE2 actif’ is supposed to enter service on Rafale.
So I doubt the ‘RBE2 actif’ will use GaN, except if I mixed the dates or missed a point 😮 .

Torpedo,

There are ample published sources describing Typhoon’s MMI – and the fact that you seem to think that automatic threat prioritisation is a big deal (pardon me if I’ve misunderstood you) makes me wonder where you’re coming from.

Indeed you are (willingly or not) misunderstanding me. The point I was making was it was very simple and intuitive to engage targets while working in air to ground mode. The push of one button can hardly be thought unintuitive nowadays. Before you argue, I know that MMI doesn’t reduce to that. But that example typifies the philosophy behind the design, ease of use, reduced number of actions …
Beside, if threat prioritisation exist since long, in Rafale, Gripen, EF2000, F22 (and probably every new generation fighter), threat prioritisation is enhanced by data fusion, in case of Rafale computing data from RBE2, IFF, OSF, Spectra and L16 to make it better and reduce workload. That’s also part of the MMI and is often overlooked.

(“The radar ands OSF automatically scanned the forward sector and prioritized air targets according to threat assessment algorithms (using factors as distance and closing speed and IFF)”)

Did you seriously think that Typhoon doesn’t do this?

Where on earth did you find that I was saying that :rolleyes: However, the capacity of the mechanical Captor to both scan its whole field of view for air targets while simultaneously working in ground mapping mode, computing 3 corridors for terrain following, threat avoidance, and ground target designation can seriously be doubted.

The effectiveness and efficiency of an MMI can be measured and is not entirely subjective, and while a pilot’s flying background and experience will affect his preferences, it has been shown that effectiveness is far less ‘experience dependent’ except during conversion and for the first few flying hours. Rafale’s MMI is certainly more intuitive for people used to flying “Dassault fighters such as M2000”, as you say, and the cockpit and display modings were designed for exactly those pilots, and with their input (though my understanding is that Dassault did not have an aircrew dominated cockpit design committee in the sense that EF did).

But the Typhoon interface was not simply designed to be “more intuitive for people having been flying Tornados or F4 for years” – the cockpit and MMI were designed by pilots from a very much wider spectrum of experience – not only from the more disparate spectrum of aircraft operated by the partner nations (Jaguar, Harrier, Tornado GR, Tornado F, Sea Harrier, Lightning, F-4F, F-4F ICE, F-104, Tornado IDS, F/A-18, AV-8B+, F-4, F-104ASA, Tornado F, Tornado IDS, F-16) but also from a whole range of exchange tours – including Mirage 2000, F-14, F-15, F-16C, F-16MLU, F/A-18, F-117, etc.

Do you think that Dassault did not consult any pilot ? Do you think no french pilot was ever in exchange on Tornado, F15 … Beside if you go back to Lightning, we will fall back on the good old argument of who has more experienced in designing airacrafts. We all know where it will lead us :dev2: Don’t you know that some of Dassault test pilots are graduated from the US test pilot school in addition to the french EPNER ?

DVI in Typhoon is still being developed, of course, and only an early iteration is in frontline service, but the ability to sort targets (changing the automatic prioritisation), and then allocate them to different members of the formation, all in radio silence, is a key capability.

This is by no way restricted to the EF2000. It has been stated by test pilots that Rafale allows totally silent intercept with L16 thanks to the weapon system ability to share data with other aircrafts, AWACS, GCI, CdG … According to CEAM commander:

When used in conjunction with the Link 16, we can conduct silent interceptions at extreme range, and we can even shoot Micas off-boresight for self-defence with an external target designation, either from another Rafale or from an AWACS.

http://new.isoshop.com/dae/dae/gauche/sponsors/sponsor_rafale/img/fox3_9.pdf

Rafale’s cockpit does incorporate some technological innovations, and the simultaneous A-A/A-G operation facillitated by an E-scan radar is clearly impressive, though Captor-M the ability to seamlessly switch between modes, so the advantage is perhaps less than some would have us believe.

But a holographic HUD is common to both platforms, as are some of the other features – such as HMD, new generation anti-g suit, etc., and I’m not sure that all of them are as useful as they are technically brilliant. I’m sceptical as to the value of touch screen displays in a high g cockpit, for example, since the aim should be to get all controls into the hands (literally) or voice of the pilot, and to minimise the number of switch selections by ensuring that the appropriate display format is presented automatically with a given mode change. Even on the steam-age Jaguar 97 upgrade, as many AMLCD functions were commanded via HOTAS as was possible, to circumvent the need to reach forward and touch the buttons on the bezel.

You will notice that all touch screen controls can be activated via 2 sticks called “allumettes” on HOTAS control. Surprisingly, these stupid Dassault engineers have thought of that 😡

Similarly, an over-reliance on colour in display symbology is perhaps unwise when glare and greyout can be such powerful factors. I was a big fan of Rafale’s radar display when I saw it (as a layman) but frontline pilots I’ve spoken to liken it to ‘looking down the boot’ on a Lightning and say that radar data should be more seamlessly fused and integrated into the tactical situation display, and in the HUD. No-one is saying that Dassault has incorporated technology for technology’s sake, but the operational value of a particular technology can sometimes only be fully understood by an operational pilot, who may ‘spot’ drawbacks and disadvantages that would not be apparent to you or I, unless they were pointed out to us.

And the same stupid engineers that designed a complete fighter were not aware of white washing of the screen ! Same could be said of the DVI, look like a good idea on paper but in a high G fight, is that useful ?

Typhoon has its problems, of course, especially at this stage in its career (though the AMI have had aircraft on QRA for ages, the RAF Typhoon isn’t yet fully operational), and apart from the performance, radar, and MMI, there are many areas where there is real criticism of Typhoon from the user. Rafale is more mature, and though it has similar problems, I’d assess that it’s still ahead in a number of key areas.

Gripen, Ef2000 and Rafale have all been designed by competent teams, whose choices may reflect different design philosophies, different industrial, financial capabilities or different customer requirements but in the end, the operational capabilities are very similar. It They are very obviously too similar to be considered a generation apart, even in term of individual subsystems.

The defence deleguate for Socialist Party elaborates on the CVF:

http://www.lesechos.fr/info/analyses/4541509.htm

In short it says:
– the CVF question is only a secondary question, education is first priority.
– it is unfair for the actual governement to take engagements that the next governements will have to fulfill, and 70 billions of euros are needed to fund all the programs that the the outgoing team launched only recently by after having spent 5 years in command.
– the force format will have tobe reviewed, the Navy will have to make choice between FREMM, Barracuda, CVF. Do France really need a second carrier. Anyway the CVF wont be operational before 2015 so will be useless for the next 2 presidencies …
– the Navy should review its doctrine and shorten the periods of carrier unavailability by better technics
– other expenditures could be more urgent than CVF, a european carrier group would be preferred, discussions on cost issues industrial and military cooperation with Great Britain does not appear conclusive on that matters.

Any mistake in the translation would be mine 😉 Apologies in advance.