jackjack :

Here you can see a video with rafale HMS being tested (the one scorpion told you about) :

It starts at 6 minutes and 18 seconds in the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJzQU2SXG-Q

I must say I liked the dark vador style design…:D

The USA have gone threw two major war this decade and the F22 fought none of them while diverting huge amount of money for more useful needs. In the forseeable future there is no threat which justify the aircrafts like the F22which lacks the versatility and flexibility of other aircrafts.

SH, rafale, F35 or other advanced aircrafts are much more efficient platforms which provides a more useful/relevant contribution to the war effort for cheaper while remaining capable of fighting high intensity wars if ever required.

The F22 is just not adapted to its time. That is no wonder there wasnt any follow on orders. Beautiful piece of engineering (but not perfect nor invincible) but expensive and almost useless. NATO is powerfull enough and has such a wide range of military capabilities to perform well without the F22.

Tomahawks, hundreds of F35, rafale, Typhoon, SH with their associated stand off weapons is enough to wipe out any potential ennemies…

For some very specific roles UCAV would be much more relevant and cost effective to fill this niche.

You should be able to answer all points. That is a whole. Take your time…I will only be back latter this evening.

For once it will force you to elaborate and not answering with very short sentences.

regards.

Jessimo,

1) The whole story of the passive engagement by the F22 has been denied by the AdA and never confirmed by the USAF. So that is only speculation from you but this is groundless. I was the one who reporte this rumor from AC, but it was denied the week after in the same magazine as well as in AFM.

2) The F22 is a better BVR platform due to stealth and speed so yes it might have th first look when using its radar (depending on how spectra react) but to win the fight the amram needs to do its job and given the limitation/constraints of a missile seeker versus an integrated jammer I would say that jamming an AMRAM is highly possible.

from Air Cosmos thanks to Olybrius on MP

Home straigh for the Rafale F3
Air&Cosmos , April 30 2010

The commissioning of the new capacities of the F3 standard is expected for 2010. The year looks very busy for operationals and military experimentation centers.

ASMP-A, Reco-NG Damocles: after years of waiting, the new Rafale equipment are scrambling to make their entry into operational service in the AdA and the Navy in 2010. This excitement mark out the entry in the maturity of the “omnirole” Rafale, which is now seeking more than ever to earn a place on the international scene.
For the AdA, the priority today is to prepare the operational commissioning (MSO) of the couple Rafale F3/ASMP-A within the EC-1/91 “Gascogne”, enabled Last year in Saint-Dizier (see box). The payload of the new nuclear missile has been made possible by the commissioning, in last December, of the new standard F3.1 Rafale; to date, all of the Rafale B/C and Rafale M in line are equipped with the new software evolution. The challenge for Gascogne is now to obtain its nuclear qualification by the state higher authorities and the strategic air forces. In the meantime, the crews of the EC-1 / 91 already are training with their new mission, and several shots of techno-operational evaluation (TEE) of the ASMP-A were done to prepare an MPO in early summer.

Priorities. Once it will reach its cruising speed with the “nuc” [nuclear] mission , the Gascogne should quickly be assigned other tasks which could open the door for abroad operations. Thus, the first crew of 1 / 91 should be formed this summer to use the Reco-NG […].because the commissioning of the new reco pod is also one of the priorities of the year 2010.
If the capacity was originally scheduled to be available at the same time as the Rafale F3.1, the technical acceptance by the operationals was longer than expected and its MSO was significantly delayed. The operational tests are continuing in the AdA and the Navy, which provides additional tests on board the aircraft carrier early in May. Because of these delays, the Reco-NG program has virtually telescoped the MSO of the Damocles pod, which is associated with the new standard F3.2 of the aircraft. The work for this qualification are completed by the DGA, and should be announced in the coming days – the software update has already been loaded in the CEAM and CEPA aircrafts , and the green light for a retrofit in the units could be given in late May. It remains to begin the pod experimentation phase in Mont-de-Marsan. […] The first “Air” Damocles MP pods (multiporteurs – Mirage 2000D/Rafale) will then be tested, and seven of them should be delivered by end of 2010. The objective is to deploy a maximum of elements of the new F3.2 air-ground weapon aiming (Canon included) for future deployments in Afghanistan, planned for September for the Navy and the beginning of 2011 for the Air Force.

UAE. Airmen are waiting others significant deadlines: for example, the replacement of the EC-1 / 2 “Cigognes” Mirage 2000-5F, permanently detached in Al Dhafra/UAE, should start after the summer.A first 3 Rafale (2 B and 1 C) of the EC-1 / 7 “Provence” should move to UAE after the summer, replacing much of Mirage 2000-5F.And iIn 2011, these aircrafts will be joined by 3 additional Rafale, which will definitely replace the Mirage 2000.
In Metropolitan France, the future is to activate new units with Rafale in 2011. March of next year, once 50 rafale delivered, the Air Force intends to give its first Rafale to the new fighter squadron to be created in Mont-de-Marsan with the tradition of the famous “Normandy-Niemen”. The new squadron should fill the full spectrum of conventional missions.

At the same time, the Navy is getting ready for the activation of its second Rafale fleet , the 11F. Their first Rafale F3 should be delivered next summer, while the 11F SEM [Super Etendard Modernise] will be reversed to the 17F. In parallel, the Navy is also expected to reach its cruising speed in the nuclear mission Rafale/ASMP-A during year 2010.

GUILLAUME STEUER

some new stuff to fuel the debate;)

The Rafale makes the buzz.

Concurrently, the Rafale shown one’s claws. At the end of the last autumn was held on the Al-Dhafra air base, the annual edition of ATLC (Advanced Tactical Leadership Course). Organized since 2000 by the UAE Air Warfare Center, ATLC aims to help air forces pilots of the Arabian Peninsula to improve their tactics and techniques by confronting them to the pilots of major Western air forces. For this particular case, the Rafale from the Air Force take the opportunity to confront their main competitors on the international scene. Especially since , in parallel , stood the Dubai airshow, which could be used as a sounding board for results obtained during the exercise.

The Army Air has shipped on site for five weeks, from November 8 year December 12, not less than 6 Rafale and 3 Mirage 2000-5E. A detachment served by only 125 people and which required only 60 tons of material. The availability rate of the Rafale, which have accumulated 220 flight-hours in 148 missions, while shotting down – virtually meant – not less than 61 hostile fighters, was 97% for the entire period. And no missions has been canceled . According to Lt. Colonel Fabrice Grandclaudon, squadron leader of the EC 1/7 in Saint-Dizier and commander of the detachment,” the weapon system Rafale, taking its place in COMAO (raids) of thirty different combat aircrafts, made at the ATLC the demonstration of his extraordinary flexibility. And to cite the case of this mission on November 29 during which a Rafale pilot, has launched, in barely 66 seconds, 3 Mica on 3 enemy planes (two virtually destroyed) and six AASM bombs on as many targets, some 48 km far . All destroyed!

Versatility is not an empty word.

Better yet, december 7, a pair of Rafale which protected a SAR combat device shot down 10 incoming hostile fighters while dropping six AASM on 6 different land targets forty km far , everything without leaving their CAP racetrack.In addition, the Rafale OSF allowed the positive identification of hostile fighters forty kilometers far. And, December 6, a MICA has been assigned its target – indeed virtually destroyed – only with the SPECTRA system. SPECTRA which was also capable, twice, to detect and classify – and to propose flight path changes to the pilot to avoid detection-specific envelope – some air defense systems (SA-6) that even the F-16 CJ American specialized in the SEAD mission (suppression of air defense opponents), yet also in flight, were not able to collect.. Certainly, the F-16 CJ in question had not been equipped during the flights with their common SEAD equipment, namely the HTS pod (HARM Targeting System), while their threats library had not been refreshed to integrate some of the air defense radars in the area. SEAD was not their daily mission. But it was not either the case for the Rafale. And yet, the Spectra, with no other equipment than those onboard daily, has done better than the F-16 CJ which, however, are specialized in the SEAD mission. That’s the difference between multirole who need to return to land on its base to switch from one type to another mission and versatility that allows flight operations at the same time in different roles. It also demonstrates, incidentally, the ability of the AdA to quickly take advantage of “hostile” ground-radar records tunes operated the day before and to integrate them into the rafale SPECTRA library. This allowed the Rafale to classify them without any difficulty. In short, the performance was moderately appreciated by our American allies! Especially since the six F-22 Raptor deployed there by the 27th FW Langley FS/1st proved incapable of giving the beating promised to the Rafale. Of the six dofights – gun limited – which pitted the two types of aircraft in the Emirians skies in late 2009, only two saw the virtual destruction of a Rafale. Other meetings were concluded without a winner. A “performance” for the Rafale against the most modern [and most expensive] fighter in the world, presented as particularly agile thanks to its steering nozzles and moreover stealthy. Because the Rafale was, according to the lieutenant-colonel Grandclaudon, “a serious challenger in matter of maneuverability ” And the french pilot to regret that his USAF colleagues had not allowed the simulated employment of MICA missiles during these confrontations.

The Typhoon were inferiors.

Concurrently, November 16, the Rafale gave, according to the french pilot, a memorable beating to the RAF Typhoon – the most recent version – which were also deployed in the UAE for the ATLC. To put it bluntly, Lieutenant-Colonel Grandclaudon said the two air battles – battles with IR-guided missile and cannon – which opposed Rafale and Typhoon gave a score of 7 wins for the first and 0 for the second, the only Rafale considered as having been destroyed flew below the allowed flight floor ! Obviously this statement has immediately raised an outcry among British pilots, relayed by the media and the Anglo-Saxon specialized blogosphere, including claims that the Typhoon does not fly as such during the fighting, but simulated “red” attackers, MiG-29 and Su-27 in that case. So ,the 1/7 Provence squadron leader made a point to recall that 2 of his Rafale were also”red chest” (MiG-29 index “Charlie”) when they shot down 4 “blue” Typhoon – flying as Typhoon – while being reduced to use virtual russians AA-10C missiles to be guided by the Rafale until the impact on their target, which forbade to shoot multiple targets at once . For Fabrice Grandclaudon, the limitations of the “red” plastron role don’t prevent a weapons system to show its real capabilities, because the pilots are taking advantage of the real human-machine interfaces and sensors on board, one of the Rafale has benefited from a refresh of its tactical situation by his teammate via Link-16. In other words, even if some of them simluated Su-27, the British pilots virtually shoot down were using the sensors and the avionics of their Typhoon and not those of a Su-27! And the french pilot to recognize, with great sportsmanship, that the Typhoon pilots who had been opposed to the Rafale the week preceding the ATLC were young and relatively inexperienced, as the French already benefits from lessons learned from 3 operational detachments in Afghanistan (one year of presence in all) and 4 of its pilots had participated in Red Flag 2008.

Some advantages that make the difference.

However, he heavily emphasized the performance of the french system in the field of arms data fusion, from his point of view, the main reason of the superiority obtained. Instead of each sensor to display its studs (aircraft detected) on a specific screen, forcing the Typhoon pilot to operate an intellectual gymnastics , annoying in combat stress, to check if the plot of its corresponding screen of electronic warfare was or was not the one visible on the radar screen or IRST, the Rafale’s systems present to the pilot a single plot on a screen, the system automatically compared the plots provided by the various sensors on board and decided if it was or not the same plane. The french pilots have also appreciated the agility of the antenna of the electronics RBE2 radar – The Typhoon has for now only a mechanical antenna – allowing to refresh the situation in the whole volume monitored. But they insist, for close combat, on the perfect controllability of their Rafale, thanks to the excellence of FBW, to the extreme limits of the flight envelope.. To point the nose toward the target and to design it to the weapons system in the absence of a viewfinder-HMD while operating at very low speed. What are not necessarily capable of the main opponents of the Rafale …
Well obviously, one should not rejoice in excess. The extremely positive results of these meetings have been obtained in special circumstances. The pilots had been set specific roles by the commander of the COMAO device and were therefore not free to exploit in depth all the potentials of their weapons system. The results have been different perhaps in other circumstances (nevertheless, some time ago, another meeting between Typhoon and Rafale, in Corsica, was also turned into “massacre” at the expense of the first 8 losses to 0 ). But, simply put, the EC 1 / 7 pilots are particularly satisfied with their stay in UAE. Their demonstration has , aptly, made a strong buzz [noise] among the aviators of the region and troubled the Anglo-Saxons until now convinced of the utter superiority of their planes. A disturbance also compounded by the loss – virtual of course – of an F-22 gun shot by an UAE Mirage 2000-9 flown, this time, by a French experimented pilot. Really, when everything goes wrong … P

Again>..

The Rafale on the starting blocks! Brazil and the UAE: the unbearable suspense…
DSI 59 mai 2010

Whether be it Brazil or the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Rafale now seems close to winning. Certainly, its not won because the french negotiators are forced to navigate among particularly complex local circumstances and foreign pressures using and abusing powerful media relays. Unfortunate precedents, in Singapore and South Korea, or in Morocco, are there to soothe any unbridled optimism. Nevertheless it seems certain that the Rafale is close to a decision. Enough to justify a point in the program:

[…]
June or nothing at all.

Certainly, with the Gripen NG, which is yet to develop, the Brazilian industry could participate more in early research and development, but the operational and technological levels are not the same as with the Rafale. The latter, even offered “all developed” is intended to make a career for forty years in the Brazilian forces, while remaining efficient. It will have therefore to evolve during its life. And the weapons system of the Rafale seems more promising than the Swedish one, which is also single-engined and with many U.S. equipments subject to the approval of Washington for potential exports, such as units sold by Brazil to its Latin American neighbors. This is not the case of the Rafale. And the French offer, which price wouldn’t be as exaggerated as announced by the local press, granted to Brazil the exclusivity of the sales of the aircraft on the of South American continent, with no further restrictions on french technologies transferred to Brazil. The french manufacturers say they will facilitate the emergence of local partners, which could be a second source of supply components (eg modules for the AESA antenna) and equipments, for example in favor of other export customers. The approval is also granted for the provision of the complete source code – what Washington does not offer for its F/A-18E/F – and thus the possibility to evolve locally the contents of the weapon system including SPECTRA, without control of the french manufacturer.
[…]

UAE nationals are negotiating fiercely.

Thus, a possible lack of announcement before the beginning of June would lead a report , at best, at the beginning of the next year or perhaps even beyond, or even to lose the contract. If the announcement of the choice of the Rafale by Brazil must be made, it will be during the month of May, otherwise … A new executive will be in place. It may need to reconsider the geopolitical and industrial interest and then undergoing new pressures. Sweden, which is delivering the latest Gripen in command, has proposed to transfer to Brazil the current production chain (and not just the final assembly) of Linkoping. In short, everything could then be questioned. And the arrival on site , next autumn, of french Rafale for a Franco-Brazilian air exercise, would no longer litter the symbolism which the political authorities of Brazil and France wanted to surround …

Beyond of Brazil (108 machines in three batchs), the other potential customer which currently make fantasize industrial and french political authorities, it is the UAE. And there, unlike in Brazil, the official choice for the Rafale has already been announced, what is generally overlooked. What remains under discussion, the technical content of the contract, which covers 60 machines. The UAE pretensions as to their standard appear have been corrected to the decline. Applications would remain for an M-88 with 9 tons of thrust , for the Meteor air-air missile and the viewfinder HMD. The money to finance the development of the IR channel of OSF-IT has not – yet – been found.

Otherwise, it would be a classic Rafale F3 standard french “road map”. The french government seems to have now accepted the principle of acquisition of 60 Mirage 2000-9 (likely to be subsequently resold to a third country) demanded by the UAE. According to french stakeholders, the UAE team of negotiators who alternates stays in France and the UAE since early 2010 is composed of real experts who do not hesitate to examine in detail every technical elements. These same french stakeholders do not exclude that the contract notifying the UAE order can be signed in June.

An imperative: export!

That’s the most promising prospects in the short term. Come s’ to add to it, obviously, the negotiations with India (126 machines). The opening of the commercial offers of various competitor may occur this summer. But the selection process will still take years. With regard to Switzerland (11-22), it is still up on political debates about the desirability of such an acquisition program. And the budget currently provided for is markedly insufficient. For Libya (14 to 40) and Kuwait (28), these are State to State negotiations of which the eventual outcome obeys to very specific considerations … A Kuwaiti team has recently come to France and the contact was extremely positive.

As for export shipments, they could start very soon after the signing of the contract if the customer is satisfied with the french standard. Brazil, for example, could receive its first six aircraft in 2012 or 2013 by levying French aircraft on the production line. This would relieve the public finances. Because budgetary resources provided by the LPM [law] can not fund all the commitments recently made by the french government to ensure the industry at least11 Rafale deliveries per year in 2012 and 2013- the minimum to maintain industrial skills and competitiveness -. In fact, the credits of the LPM provide only half of that commitment. The authorities played poker by betting on obtaining an export command that would result from this commitment. In absence of export command, the state will have to find an additional envelope to take its commitment, cropped heavily on other programs. In contrast, a Brazilian command served very quickly relieve this commitment. For Emirates, development and integration of M88 9 tons will not make possible to withdraw planes from the production line […]. It will take 36 to 42 months between signing the contract and the delivery of the first aircraft. Deliveries can begin as late 2013/early 2014 to reach 2018 with a rate around 15 per year.[…]. The Rafale production line was calibrated to be able to deliver 33 aircraft per year without additional investment. This leaves scope for prospective customers to meet additional export!

The Rafale makes the buzz.

Concurrently, the Rafale shown one’s claws. At the end of the last autumn was held on the Al-Dhafra air base, the annual edition of ATLC (Advanced Tactical Leadership Course). Organized since 2000 by the UAE Air Warfare Center, ATLC aims to help air forces pilots of the Arabian Peninsula to improve their tactics and techniques by confronting them to the pilots of major Western air forces. For this particular case, the Rafale from the Air Force take the opportunity to confront their main competitors on the international scene. Especially since , in parallel , stood the Dubai airshow, which could be used as a sounding board for results obtained during the exercise.

The Army Air has shipped on site for five weeks, from November 8 year December 12, not less than 6 Rafale and 3 Mirage 2000-5E. A detachment served by only 125 people and which required only 60 tons of material. The availability rate of the Rafale, which have accumulated 220 flight-hours in 148 missions, while shotting down – virtually meant – not less than 61 hostile fighters, was 97% for the entire period. And no missions has been canceled . According to Lt. Colonel Fabrice Grandclaudon, squadron leader of the EC 1/7 in Saint-Dizier and commander of the detachment,” the weapon system Rafale, taking its place in COMAO (raids) of thirty different combat aircrafts, made at the ATLC the demonstration of his extraordinary flexibility. And to cite the case of this mission on November 29 during which a Rafale pilot, has launched, in barely 66 seconds, 3 Mica on 3 enemy planes (two virtually destroyed) and six AASM bombs on as many targets, some 48 km far . All destroyed!

Versatility is not an empty word.

Better yet, december 7, a pair of Rafale which protected a SAR combat device shot down 10 incoming hostile fighters while dropping six AASM on 6 different land targets forty km far , everything without leaving their CAP racetrack.In addition, the Rafale OSF allowed the positive identification of hostile fighters forty kilometers far. And, December 6, a MICA has been assigned its target – indeed virtually destroyed – only with the SPECTRA system. SPECTRA which was also capable, twice, to detect and classify – and to propose flight path changes to the pilot to avoid detection-specific envelope – some air defense systems (SA-6) that even the F-16 CJ American specialized in the SEAD mission (suppression of air defense opponents), yet also in flight, were not able to collect.. Certainly, the F-16 CJ in question had not been equipped during the flights with their common SEAD equipment, namely the HTS pod (HARM Targeting System), while their threats library had not been refreshed to integrate some of the air defense radars in the area. SEAD was not their daily mission. But it was not either the case for the Rafale. And yet, the Spectra, with no other equipment than those onboard daily, has done better than the F-16 CJ which, however, are specialized in the SEAD mission. That’s the difference between multirole who need to return to land on its base to switch from one type to another mission and versatility that allows flight operations at the same time in different roles. It also demonstrates, incidentally, the ability of the AdA to quickly take advantage of “hostile” ground-radar records tunes operated the day before and to integrate them into the rafale SPECTRA library. This allowed the Rafale to classify them without any difficulty. In short, the performance was moderately appreciated by our American allies! Especially since the six F-22 Raptor deployed there by the 27th FW Langley FS/1st proved incapable of giving the beating promised to the Rafale. Of the six dofights – gun limited – which pitted the two types of aircraft in the Emirians skies in late 2009, only two saw the virtual destruction of a Rafale. Other meetings were concluded without a winner. A “performance” for the Rafale against the most modern [and most expensive] fighter in the world, presented as particularly agile thanks to its steering nozzles and moreover stealthy. Because the Rafale was, according to the lieutenant-colonel Grandclaudon, “a serious challenger in matter of maneuverability ” And the french pilot to regret that his USAF colleagues had not allowed the simulated employment of MICA missiles during these confrontations.

The Typhoon were inferiors.

Concurrently, November 16, the Rafale gave, according to the french pilot, a memorable beating to the RAF Typhoon – the most recent version – which were also deployed in the UAE for the ATLC. To put it bluntly, Lieutenant-Colonel Grandclaudon said the two air battles – battles with IR-guided missile and cannon – which opposed Rafale and Typhoon gave a score of 7 wins for the first and 0 for the second, the only Rafale considered as having been destroyed flew below the allowed flight floor ! Obviously this statement has immediately raised an outcry among British pilots, relayed by the media and the Anglo-Saxon specialized blogosphere, including claims that the Typhoon does not fly as such during the fighting, but simulated “red” attackers, MiG-29 and Su-27 in that case. So ,the 1/7 Provence squadron leader made a point to recall that 2 of his Rafale were also”red chest” (MiG-29 index “Charlie”) when they shot down 4 “blue” Typhoon – flying as Typhoon – while being reduced to use virtual russians AA-10C missiles to be guided by the Rafale until the impact on their target, which forbade to shoot multiple targets at once . For Fabrice Grandclaudon, the limitations of the “red” plastron role don’t prevent a weapons system to show its real capabilities, because the pilots are taking advantage of the real human-machine interfaces and sensors on board, one of the Rafale has benefited from a refresh of its tactical situation by his teammate via Link-16. In other words, even if some of them simluated Su-27, the British pilots virtually shoot down were using the sensors and the avionics of their Typhoon and not those of a Su-27! And the french pilot to recognize, with great sportsmanship, that the Typhoon pilots who had been opposed to the Rafale the week preceding the ATLC were young and relatively inexperienced, as the French already benefits from lessons learned from 3 operational detachments in Afghanistan (one year of presence in all) and 4 of its pilots had participated in Red Flag 2008.

Some advantages that make the difference.

However, he heavily emphasized the performance of the french system in the field of arms data fusion, from his point of view, the main reason of the superiority obtained. Instead of each sensor to display its studs (aircraft detected) on a specific screen, forcing the Typhoon pilot to operate an intellectual gymnastics , annoying in combat stress, to check if the plot of its corresponding screen of electronic warfare was or was not the one visible on the radar screen or IRST, the Rafale’s systems present to the pilot a single plot on a screen, the system automatically compared the plots provided by the various sensors on board and decided if it was or not the same plane. The french pilots have also appreciated the agility of the antenna of the electronics RBE2 radar – The Typhoon has for now only a mechanical antenna – allowing to refresh the situation in the whole volume monitored. But they insist, for close combat, on the perfect controllability of their Rafale, thanks to the excellence of FBW, to the extreme limits of the flight envelope.. To point the nose toward the target and to design it to the weapons system in the absence of a viewfinder-HMD while operating at very low speed. What are not necessarily capable of the main opponents of the Rafale …
Well obviously, one should not rejoice in excess. The extremely positive results of these meetings have been obtained in special circumstances. The pilots had been set specific roles by the commander of the COMAO device and were therefore not free to exploit in depth all the potentials of their weapons system. The results have been different perhaps in other circumstances (nevertheless, some time ago, another meeting between Typhoon and Rafale, in Corsica, was also turned into “massacre” at the expense of the first 8 losses to 0 ). But, simply put, the EC 1 / 7 pilots are particularly satisfied with their stay in UAE. Their demonstration has , aptly, made a strong buzz [noise] among the aviators of the region and troubled the Anglo-Saxons until now convinced of the utter superiority of their planes. A disturbance also compounded by the loss – virtual of course – of an F-22 gun shot by an UAE Mirage 2000-9 flown, this time, by a French experimented pilot. Really, when everything goes wrong … P

Courtesy of olybrius :

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?137433-Rafale-News/page92

RECO NG: France sees far
DSI 59 mai 2010

The RECO NG brought France into the world of 100% digital recognition. Its experimentation in the CEAM Mont-de-Marsan precedes with a few months its entry into service in the forces.

Omnirole aircraft , the Rafale will gradually replace seven or eight different aircraft models within the carrier aviation or the Air Force. Setting in service the RECO NG pod shares the same logic of versatility, since the Thales pod replace three systems: the Mirage IVP container CT52 for strategical recognition , the sensors of the Mirage F1 CR and the Super Etendard ModerniseC RM 280 photo frame for tactical reconnaissance. All with a wider range of use, a better image quality and of course all the advantages inherent to digital imaging and real time use. The couple Rafale/RECO NG will therefore fully occupy the operational space between the UAV and the satellite […]

Happy medium.

The RECO NG pod was raised for the first time in the late 1990s, in 2000 with the drafting of a first sheet of military characteristics. Ten years later, how is it? The program gave birth to a beautiful baby of 4.6 m long and 1100 kg, characteristics compatible with the Rafale and Mirage 2000 [..] Twelve RECO NG have been ordered by the Air Force and eight by naval aviation. The first two copies of series are used since November 2009 by CEAM Mont-de-Marsan in the context of an experiment. At the end of March 2010, forty flights have already been made on the hundred planned. And the pod is gradually showing the immense field of its capabilities. The optical of the HA/MA (high altitude / medium altitude) sensor located in the front offers a large lens for mapping and shooting at middle range, or a long lens for a clear picture from a safe distance. The precise number of the focal length is not public “but it is between the Presto which is 610 mm and the UK Raptor sensor is 110 inches (2800 mm)” one says in Mont-de- Marsan. As impressive as it is, the focus displayed by the Raptor would be difficult to use in operation as requiring an optimum visibility. The shooting at very long distance generally requires to climb beyond the level 300 (30,000 feet or 9144 m) altitude difficult to reach for the Tornado with the Raptor under the fuselage … The RECO NG would have an effective range of 50 kilometers, so two or three times the one currently allowed by the Presto used in Afghanistan. At the rear of the pod, the low altitude sensor allows shot from horizon to horizon only 30m from the soil and at very high speeds (1000 km / h) by using a prism tower rotating at 12000 t/mn. A computer processing of the image (the “morphism”) allows further to “expand” the image on the horizon to bring out details and gain further information.[…]

Computing power

Working in “punctual” mode, “area coverage” mode or “itinerary” mode, the pod runs automatically and continuously knows its precise position in space, which allows it to roll and pitch the pointing optics. It uses this information provided by its own gyro system correlated with those provided by the SNA of the aircraft. The shooting images are realized automatically copied from a numerical ground model, geographically referenced and assembled to form a panorama before being stored in the pod on a hard drive. One indicates in Mont-de-Marsan that the operating system for the pod alone has as many lines of code as the Rafale! The definition of images are then combined with the accumulation of views and a cross-checking can be done to provide exceptional resolution. In other words, the operator in its station can zoom within a landscape created by assembling multiple views to achieve a level of detail impossible to obtain with a single photo.[…].
Three reception towers have been ordered by the Air Force and two by the Navy (one of them will be permanently installed on the Charles de Gaulle), each with an associated cabin for image processing. The combination of the cabin and the turret forms a “data receiving station”, aka SRD. The image processing itself is done with a SAIM NG console distinguished from current SAIM by a very large increase of computing power. The SAIM-NG prototype used by the CEAM has a 8 Go memory and this will increase to 16 Go on stations Series. Everything to handle new concepts under study in Mont-de-Marsan, including stereoscopic vision or 3D images manufacturing. With ,at the end, new capabilities of “un-camouflage” and “unmasking” and also of targeting for AASM and SCALP arms.