My turn.

Disclaimer: I’m French & in favour of the Rafale (and know more of this aircraft than of the Typhoon). Nevertheless, I try to be objective/non partisan when comparing both fighters.

As of today, both aircraft enjoy advantages and disadvantages.

Very true 🙂

Yes, Rafale’s air-to-ground weapons integrations are several years ahead (and Rafale will always have wider multi-role capabilities than Typhoon)

Indeed.

but since your priority was to replace Jaguar, that’s hardly surprising.

That’s one (good & relevant) reason. I’m not sure it’s the only reason. I think the political mic-mac with the four partners in Eurofighter also delayed Typhoon’s progresses.

But Typhoon is catching up.

Yes, but because of
– the above mentionned political issues
– and the incertainty with the F-35 procurement (UK, Italy),
I feel unsure (as for now) that the Typhoon will catch its target level.

Yes Rafale is closer to getting an operational AESA, but Typhoon is catching up and will have a vastly superior AESA when it does.

I agree with the first part. I’m not able to comment on your view that the Typhoon’s CAESAR will be vastly superior than the Rafale’s RBE2-AA. I think CAESAR will have more range. I fear it will be more expensive to maintain and/or more prone to failure because of the mecanically movable antenna (which will give on the other hand an advantage in performances).

But Typhoon’s performance is superior and always will be, and Typhoon can supercruise with ease.

Indeed, Typhoon’s pure performance is better. It’s more powerful, and it’s a better aircraft for Air-to-Air fight with:
– a radar which sees farther (CAPTOR range > RBE2 range)
– missiles which go farther (AMRAAM range > MICA range)
– more thrust & aerodynamics optimised for high altitude / high mach
On the other hand:
– the Rafale seems more at ease at low altitude / low speed (namely its nose-pointing capabilities seems excellent in this area, and better than Typhoon’s)
– with its current lower pure performance, the Rafale is also more fuel efficient, giving it more range and/or more loitering time; one has to balance each avantage & disadvantage.
– should it be deemed necessary, the 9t M-88 could be fitted on the Rafale; with such an upgrade that could be made, I’m not sure one can write that Typhoon’s performance will always be superior. In fact I don’t know if 9t engines is enough for the Rafale to cath up with Typhoon on the aerodynamics performances chapter, but it may reduce the difference to a non significant parameter. NB: Personal opinion/guess: I don’t think 9t engines will one day be fitted on french AdlA/MN Rafales, and accept therefore your statement that Typhoon’s performance will always be superior.

Typhoon has a better MMI giving a lower pilot workload, and its advantage in this area will stretch further ahead when P1E enters service.

That’s a highly debated topic. I don’t know the MMI of the Typhoon, but have had the chance to play some time with the Rafale’s one, which seemed excellent to my untrained eyes (ergonomics & sensor fusion). I also remember lots of Rafale pilots praising that topic of their aircraft.
Was the Typhoon MMI upgraded since the swiss contest in 2008? IIRC the swiss report ranked the Rafale’s MMI as superior, but at the same time it ranked the Typhoon better in terms of pilot’s workload.

Typhoon has a world-leading helmet, and a great IRST. Rafale has neither (save the handful of original and admittedly obsolete OSF sets).

Indeed. And like all fighters which don’t have one, Rafale people keep saying it’s not so important and/or Rafale can catch up with other tricks (namely: MICA capabilities). Perhaps, perhaps not, what is sure is that Rafale would be better than it is now with a good HMS. And if retaining the other “tricks”, what an aircraft!
On the IRST, I cannot comment the perfomances of the Typhoon’s one. I know the Rafale’s one is not a success. Let’s wait for it to be upgraded (if it will indeed be). I dare hope for a good IRST with the OSF-NG, because french industries have assets in such technologies.
But you must not forget the excellent TV channel of the OSF, which gives an edge to the Rafale in both Air-to-Air and Strike roles.

Stupid caricatures (…) do not add to the debate.

I totally agree 🙂

Cheers
AZ

Carrots & Apple, it seems.

As you noticed, €142 m does include the R&D cost, which one won’t want to charge a first export customer with, I think 🙂

Then we have €101.1 m for France, vs “80 to 87 million Euro” (an estimation, it seems) for India. Let’s see… 108 of the 126 aircrafts will be assembled (and in due time, more and more of their parts made) in India by HAL (or other), not by Dassault. Is the cost of the indian part of the assembly included? If not, that seems to be the first explanation for the different prices IMO…

The conversation had previously been withheld by the investigator for obvious reasons.

No it wasn’t. Most of if had been published in the BEA’s 3rd interim report in july 2011.
The conversation itself, as published by the press (your article and others), is a selection of the conversations held in the cockpit in the last minutes of the flight. It is neither all what has been published by the BEA, neither all what has been published by Otelli in his book.

The conversation, if factual, would reveal for the first time that the flight crew of AF 447 were absolutely clueless about the flight situation.

I disagree.
1/ Not the first time.
2/ This “3rd version” (expurged) of the CVR cannot be taken as a solid ground for analysis. In fact, this expurged version seems precisely aimed to show only the clueless/confused part of the whole conversation. How dishonnest… (note : I don’t deny the crew was confused. He was. And that’s the/a main factor in AF447’s accident)

The quoted book doesn’t contain a “full” transcription of the CVR.
=> BEA is right to describe it as “a part of a literal transcription of the Cockpit Voice Recorder”.

Having read it (and the BEA’s reports), the book from Otelli is not a “revolution” in my opinion, but come with some indications. Note that the BEA is right when it wrote:
“This transcription mentions personal conversations between the crew members that have no bearing on the event, which shows a lack of respect for the memory of the late crew members.”
Indeed, a large part of the “new” elements of the transcription in the book are more or less personal and/or not related to the flight. :hmm:

Indeed, the BEA forgot (?) to publish (or delayed it until the final report?) some parts of the CVR which are, from what I understand, relevant to the flight. One example:

02:11:45.5 (PF) On perd le contrôle de l’avion, là
02:11:46.7 (PNF) On a totalement perdu le contrôle de l’avion… On comprend rien… On a tout tenté…

translation to english, google translate doesn’t do so good, so here we go for non-french readers:

(PF) We are loosing the control of the aircraft, here
(PNF) We have totally lost the control of the aircraft … We understand nothing … We tried everything

=> This is not present in the BEA’s report appendix (but strangely it is mentioned elsewhere in the text, in the “phase 3” of “chapter 2”)
=> This is what the two F/O said to their captain when he came back…

On the other hand, nothing appears in the transcription in the book from 02:10:15.9 to 02:10:27.
I.e. it’s missing the “Alternalte law Protections (lost?)” from the PNF at 02:10:22, which is present in the report from the BEA.

I think Otelli had access to a different version of the transcription (a previous draft, perhaps?) while the BEA has total access, of course, but choose not to publish it in extenso (for the moment, at last).

Overall:
– Neither of the 2 CVR transcripts that I have consulted is complete (the 2 being the one “from” the BEA and the one “from” Otelli)
– The BEA wrote that its transcription is partial. Parts deemed irrelevant are left out. We may not agree with these choices but there they are. And it’s like that in every large safety agencies … NTSB included 😉
– Conversely Otelli claims that its transcription is complete. Just by reading the book (not even comparing with the BEA’s version) is sufficient to see that this is not the case. He made choices, replacing parts with a “digest”. It is probably more fluid to read, but ultimately this is the same process (I publish this, I summarized the rest, or not, and how exactly …?) as that followed by the BEA … And when we compare the 2 versions, there are still other “problems”, ie things “relevant” missing in Otelli’s…

In short … a lot uncomfortable … My advice: be patient & methodical. Take time to check / compare information & sources. Doubt everything rather than nothing (or a single player).
Agree not to “know everything”, we are not investigators.

About this last Otelli’s book in general:
It’s intended to the general public, not to teach flight safety to professional audience. The “popularization” is OK, and that’s pretty important.
It contains a lot of data (and analysis) fairly presented, and not always published before. In this it’s definitely worth the reading (at least until the next report of the BEA).

The book shows two things:
– A crew may be more “relaxed” he ought to have been to fly in the ITCZ (prior problems)
– A crew that does “not understand” the situation, and whose actions are beyond logic or procedure … This is best shown in the book that the report of the BEA.

I regret:
– The emphasis that accompanies the events described (but this is nothing new in his latest book, it’s a rather general characteristic of Otelli’s books); when one is so quick to lecture others (be it deserved or not), one must be irreproachable! And as I noted some errors (see above, but not only), I grind :rolleyes:
– A bias, perhaps? The Airbus aircraft is undoubtedly beautiful, but “forget” to talk about the trim, it’s a shame … and spending some more time (and neutrality) on the stall warning’s stop/start would have been interesting.
– The transcription of personal conversations, uninteresting and “embarrassing” / showing little respect (see press release of BEA)

I am not a pilot

Well… I mean no offense but that is apparent in your post 🙂
And I’m not a pilot either (or so rarely it doesn’t really count).

..16 degs nose up and 5 left bank….is that a super stall attitude in the first place ?

I don’t know. What I do know OTOH is that a stall is not a function of a pitch attitude (16°) but of an AoA (wich was above 35° for the last part of the flight)

Something tells tells me everything was far from OK in the flight 447.

Everything ? Care to be a bit more specific ? Unless you want to hear that we do agree : If everything had been OK on this flight, it would have landed @ CDG.

Why did it take 1 min 30 sec for the chief pilot to get into cockpit ? How far is the rest area from cockpit ?

1 min 30 sec between which events ? Do you know when precisely the captain became aware that his plane got a problem and begin to move to the flight deck ?

Could an extreme build up of ice in the tail cause this kinda flight behaviour ?

That doesn’t fit, IMO.

Cheers
AZ

CVR has been found !

3rd May 2011 briefing (BEA)

AZ

Two french Mirage F1 CR have landed at Malta today, due to an hydraulic issue on one of them.
The french ambassador in Malta said the pilot was to eject within 10 minutes if he hadn’t be able to make an emergency landing @ LMML.

One of the planes is the 112-CL… Did it win a loyalty card? :p

(source)

Snow Monkey, you seem to think the foreign Mirage 2000s (french, qataris…) are in Suda because of the available support for the Mirage 2000 (greek) ?
It’s a good idea, but… From what I see on Google Map, Suda is an F-16 base.

Google Map may be wrong, though. I stand to be corrected.

Cheers
AZ