Have you contacted the Provence squadron ? Because it seems that your way of working is to get as many sources against the press conference as if you were seeking a personal revenge. Which other journalists is spending so much effort on this matter ? (none!) And who is the only journalist who spared no effort to debunk any positive report about the rafale ? answer you/JL. Kinda suspect. There is obviously something personal in this…And that will certainly lessen the credibility of your article.
Ideally an inquiry should have been done by another journalist than you…Because you are far from being neutral in this affair. But if you get both side of the story you can manage to diffuse some expected criticisms. You can manage to have names from the french party at least even if unnamed sources are far from ideal for the other party. Why don’t you try to reach Lt cl Grandclaudon ? He seems willing to speak and his not affraid to give his name !

Jackonicko questions Lt cl grandclaudon’s statement as he believes he is not neutral. He is right to ask this question…Why not ?

But he forgets that he is not in the best position to right about ATLC because one can question his independence. He is certainly not neutral as well in this affair to say the least ! I don’t pretend we are but he is absolutely not a neutral observer who could give a balanced view.

When you start a thread (in another forum) by calling french porkies (in reference to the AdA guys) with obvious passion that tells a lot about his state of mind.

That would be just as we asked thunder/fonk/globalpres etc to right an article on the topic:D

The only thing he could do to defuse these attacks is to give both side of the story (right of answer) and quoting the guys he is interviewing. Otherwise any article from him will be less credible than an official statement from an official pilot.

No offense meant but you know that I always take your articles with a big pinch of salt given your preferences. So an advice that would be appriciated by french posters I guess;)

A good thing would be to inquire to get a clearer picture but with the two versions of the story. I mean if you get a RAF or industry answer for instance, go see the AdA and tell them : “what is your answer to this ?…”

Otherwise it gives the feeling that the article is a tribune for one party and hinders the credibility. You would be more prone to criticisms and accused of being one sided.

And don’t forget to give names ! For the AdA you shouldn’t have issues 😀

A small detail you forgot Cola is that some UAE pilots were onboard the rafale, so what would be the point to distort the truth ?

Don’t forget that this communication exercise is not aimed to fool you but is aimed to other airforces/potential buyers.

If what you said was true that could be easily debunked among professionals and would be a shame for the french airforce.

If they told this story it is certainly relevant.

Or did you copy paste JL arguments on eurofighterstarstreak ? You are posting there currently…

Nothing is certain for the rockets : I had an interesting discussion with some rafale pilots as well as with the person from the DGA (french MoD) in charge of all the AtG weaponry integration on the rafale. I discussed this precise topic with them.

Basically this need was advertise by the AdA from Astan experience. The industry guys listened and thought that could be some business for them…So they made some technical proposal, displayed the rocket pods with the AdA (both of them have some interest in this capability) and crossed their finger to get a funding…

But that funding is not coming…Although they keep advertising it and still hope to get this capability in a not too distant future.

translation from istoe newspaper :

January 12, 2010 10:52 min ISTOE
The Hunt for Leak

Government investigates disclosure of secret report on purchase of fighter planes and reaffirms French favorites in the race.
[…]
Lula and Jobim wonder how a statement of the Gripen NG, the Swedish company Saab, as the favorite to win the military competition – also held by the French Rafale, Dassault, and the American F-18 Super Hornet, Boeing – leaked the press at the beginning of last week, embarrassing the president and the minister and sharpening a crisis between them and commands the armed forces.
[…]
As ISTOE revealed in December, the full report of the FX-2 program, with 30 thousand pages, provides several tables showing the pros and cons of each plane using color coding (blue, yellow and red) instead of notes. Of the three, for example, the French jet introduced more comprehensive technology package, while the Swede is the cheapest. Armed with this paperwork, the Copac decided to make an executive summary and he attempted to register classification: Gripen NG appeared in 1st place, followed by the F-18 and Rafale in third.

The document passed into the hands of Saito and Jobim, who ordered the military to draw up a new version, without the ranking. This was done, but the previous document, instead of being destroyed, leaked. For the national security adviser Salvador Ghelfi Raza, the University of Defense, the academic arm of the Pentagon, leaks like this should be cleared. “We need to investigate whether there is a manipulation of the outcome of competition by vested interests,” he said. The fact is that there is an ongoing war of powerful lobbies, involving the world’s largest manufacturers, to grab a contract of up to $ 10 billion.

Until proven otherwise, there is nothing illegal about the action of these pressure groups. However, sometimes the interests seem diffuse. To try to craft the Gripen NG, the Saab has hired retired brigadier Fernando Cima, former coordinator of Copac the first edition of FX. With influence over many officers, Up is always received in the FAB with the reverence that his patent upon, right up to salute the committee members themselves. Another manufacturer hired by a Swedish engineer Anastasios Katsanos, who was vice president of Embraer.

Embraer has come to consider the purchase of part of the Saab through a swap of shares, considering the possible selection of the Gripen NG.Within the company, there is the understanding that the Swedish game gives the opportunity of a joint development project. But it is precisely the fact that only a project that brings uncertainty to the government. There is no way of knowing when the aircraft will be operational. Likewise, it is impossible to define what will be your final price. The value of U.S. $ 50 million, announced by Saab, is an estimate.

Quite different from what occurs with the Super Hornet (U.S. $ 55 million) and Rafale (64 million, $ 91.6 million), aircraft fully operational and the price stabilized. “You can not compare the Rafale, which is already operational, with the Gripen, a plane that does not exist”, responded the French defense minister, Herve Morin. This logic also wraps the discussions on the cost of flight-hours. The time of flight of the F-18 is $ 11 thousand, while the Rafale is 9.8 euros ($ 14 thousand). On the other hand the Gripen, according to Saab, it would be $ 4 mil.

The problem is that the very technical committee FAB, from calculations based on data extrapolated maintenance Gripen C / D (prior to version NG), found a different value than reported: $ 8 mil. In Norway, specialists estimated the cost at $ 10 mil. The divergence of information weighs against the Swedish option. Another important factor seems to have been forgotten in the summary that was leaked to the press: the test pilot.

In October, Jobim called the pilots who tested the fighters to give an opinion. The military stressed the performance of the Rafale and also praised the F-18, but did not say what the Gripen NG, the simple fact that they could not fly it.. What is available for testing is a “demonstrator”, a kind of prototype made based on a training model that has very little to do with the version

There is a distortion here…

Rafale will get the damocles pod in the next months and this capability was already demonstrated to foreign customer in real conditions.

Besides it has already dropped many lgbs with third party targeting.

So I really don’t understand the fake polemic from jackonicko.

You can’t compare the situation where an aircraft is about to get this specific capability in the coming weeks versus a situation where the typhoon is still not sure to get a decent stand off capability in the next decade (cruise missiles, antiship, sead, jdam/aasm etc…). So this is just spinning.

A specific asset of the AASM for CAS as described by rafale pilots is to engage time sensitive targets in any weather conditions. It’s booster and its important control surfaces allows to shoot the AASM over the shoulder with exotic trajectories for a bomb diminishing the reaction time before shooting.

yes indeed, it seems that this article was related to the last version of the evaluation.

Here is the link of the last article :

http://oglobo.globo.com/mundo/mat/2010/01/08/entenda-que-esta-em-jogo-na-compra-dos-novos-cacas-915493798.asp