jack

I agree on the overhall, but all these interceptions are a cat and mouse game. an aircraft flying/supercruising at mach 1,6 is probably in a near clean configuration.
If thanks to your links 16 or RWR you can turn 180° when the other aircraft is shooting at max range at mach1,6 you have good chance to escape the missile (even greater with jamming). then it might be the hunter wich might be hunted if the first attack fail. You cannot sustain those speed for very time due to the lack of fuel.
Combat persistence is another very important factor with speed first see…

I heard that vs the Mki it was roughly this scenario: typhoon better supersonic speeds and the Mki better persistence.?

sorry I forgot the video!

http://www.dailymotion.com/Mobylette64/video/x2l8u1_le-rafale-sur-france2-14-juillet-20_news

here are two awsome rafale video from a tv report in july.

the first one (two parts) is about rafale test pilots and their aircraft aboard the CdG. There are some very nice footage of the rafale demo at the latest paris airshow with embeded cameras. You can also see the firing of an AASM weapon.

http://www.dailymotion.com/search/rafale/video/x2ke80_pilote-dessai-sur-rafale-1-ere-part_news

http://www.dailymotion.com/search/rafale/video/x2kefm_pilote-dessai-sur-rafale-2-eme-part_news

the last one is about actual combat in afganistan from the CdG and Duchambe.

http://www.dailymotion.com/search/rafale/video/x2kdu5_le-rafale_events

all the videos are in french but I think it is worth watching them for the great quality of the footage. It is also “quite” informative on a fiew points. Nothing new but cofirmations about korea or singapore.
there are many interviews with pilots or dassault’s executives. If you wish a translation on a precise point I am sure me or another french poster can do it for you.

regards.

this picture reminds me good memories…

I had access to this stand (sagem) as a friend of mine was working as a trainee for this firm.
I had the opportunity to talk with a geman legionnaire about the felin programme and try the sperwer’s working station or play with an infrared turet camera with a powerful zoom watching the raid’s or gign’s snipers on the roof of a close building protecting the president visiting dassault static display….

about the rafale, I saw the gerfault HMS.

ps : I just see the camera on the mast on the left of the picture!:D You can also see the cops on the roof on the right!:D 😀

I agree SH may have an advantage in BVR for the moment.

But when rafale is going to have AESA and meteor combo it is going to change. Plus I belive rafale has a lower RCS and all around stealth (smaller and a kind of V shapes fuselage like F22 or f35). rectangular air intakes are not the only way to achieve stealth, look B2 or UCAV air intakes they are more circular. rafale semi ventral air intakes are also very stealthy.

So I would pick the rafale in the F3+ standart vs SH block2 in 2011-2012. But as I said the SH is ahead in devlopment for the moment, so until this date the SH block2 have the upper hand theorically; Theorically because we don’t know anything precise about EW of both aircraft, passive sensors…So it could change the outcome or maybe not…we don’t know.

Ah! I have the answer I think! There are plans to increase the MTOW to 27 000kg if my memory is correct, without any structural modifications. But it requires a new campaign of test flight, and that cost money. So it will be developped if required. But I am pretty sure to have read that it was possible if asked.

it is funny, some of the people here argued the opposite! hum…
jackoniko?

a new article:

Rafale comes battle hardened

By Chris Pocock

Paris Air Show >> June 19 2007
Aircraft

In the fighter aircraft business, there’s no substitute for combat experience, if you want to impress potential customers. The Dassault Rafale has now dropped bombs in anger as part of NATO’s stabilization effort in Afghanistan. Here at the show, the Rafale team (which also includes Snecma and Thales) and the French government are briefing several export delegations about this, as well as the aircraft’s steady progress toward full operational capability.

Rafales from the French air force and navy have flown 150 sorties and 640 hours over Afghanistan since March. Tasked with close air support (CAS), the air force has been flying two-ship sorties comprising one Rafale and one Mirage 2000D out of Dushanbe airbase in Tajikistan. The navy has similarly flown mixed sorties–Rafale plus Super Etendard–from the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, located in the Arabian Sea. It has been a 500-mile transit from each location to the area of interest and each sortie has required three air-to-air refuelings.

GBU-12 bombs have been dropped on six occasions. Because the Rafales have not yet achieved a self-designation capability, their targets are being laser-illuminated by pods on the Mirages and Super Etendards. The Thales Damocles pod is not due to enter service on the Rafale until February 2009. The Sagem AASM GPS-guided bomb is now in final flight tests on the Rafale and will be available for operations later this year.

The Rafales that have flown over Afghanistan are F2 standard jets, with a more capable mission computer than on the first 13 aircraft that went into service with the navy back in 2004. The Rafale team is now working on the F3 upgrade, which adds the Reco-NG reconnaissance pod, the ASMP-A nuclear strike missile and the AM39 Exocet antiship missile.

Since last October, the Rafale team has also been working on an F3-Plus version, also known as the Roadmap contract. This will add a new-generation missile-warning system, a more complete laser-guided bomb capability to include GBU-24 and a new-generation Forward Sector Optronics (FSO) system (the EO/IR system that gives pilots visual identification of targets). But the most important part of F3+ is the addition of an active-array antenna to the aircraft’s Thales RBE2 radar. (For more detail on the RBE2 AA, see page 6 of tomorrow’s edition.)

To pay for this contract, the French government stretched delivery of some of the 120 Rafales that are already on order, of which nearly 50 have been delivered. Dassault said that the ultimate French objective is still to acquire 294 of these warplanes. All of them, except possibly those first 13 aircraft, will eventually be upgraded to F3 standard.

The first French air force Rafale squadron was declared operational exactly one year ago, at St. Dizier airbase. Before the deployment to Tajikistan, the squadron participated in a NATO Tiger Meet last October and a NATO Tactical Leadership Program (TLP) exercise early this year. The second Air Force squadron is due to start working-up this summer.

The Rafale has yet to attract an export order, though it came close in Korea and Singapore. Earlier this year, Dassault made a pitch to India for the sale of 40 Rafales to the F3+ standard. India is expected to issue a formal RFP for 120 new fighters.

Operational Impressions
Aviation International News spoke with two French military staff officers who have also been Rafale pilots, one from the air force, one from the navy, about the aircraft’s recent operational experience. Here’s what they said:

“We tested our swing role during the Tiger Meet, with good results. We could play in the air-to-ground role, while still monitoring air-to-air. We flew fighter sweep missions, then switched to strike and force protection. The strike missions included supersonic dash, and took place in a dense adversary environment.

“At the Tiger Meet, our two aircraft achieved 100-percent availability for the entire week. On the ramp, we demonstrated how the aircraft can be turned around by just one ground crew. The other teams were very impressed by that.

“The FSO also worked very well. It allowed us to identify our opponents at longer ranges than they could see us, while still complying with the RoE [rules of engagement]. So we won all our air-to-air battles, which were against
F-16 MLUs and Tornado F3s.

“We think that our Link 16 [NATO-standard secure data communications system] is the key to interoperability. Using it, we were able to keep very quiet in combat. Lots of air forces say they are compliant with it, but some of their aircraft don’t have the data keys.

“We were surprised by the efficiency of the Spectra electronic warfare system. It gave us a DEAD [destruction of enemy air defenses] capability that we had not envisaged. Spectra gave us a bearing on a [simulated] SAM site, despite our having been deliberately given the wrong location by intelligence. Then the FSO slewed to confirm the location.

“At Dushanbe, we’ve achieved 12 maintenance man-hours per flying hour with three Rafales. That’s the same rate as our Mirage 2000Ds–which is a mature weapons system.

“I have flown foreign evaluation pilots in our two-seaters, who have also flown the Eurofighter and the Gripen. They told me that our man-machine interface and data fusion is better than those aircraft.”

Rafales for Saudi Arabia? The Facts

There has been some speculation that Saudi Arabia has evaluated the Rafale as an alternative to the Eurofighter Typhoon, because of the row in the UK over alleged corrupt dealings between the UK and the Kingdom in the previous Al Yamamah contracts. In particular, the recent BBC-TV Panorama program suggested that Prince Bandar, the son of the Saudi defense minister, flew to Paris for a meeting with then-President Jacques Chirac late last year, thereby prompting the UK government to call off a government investigation into the dealings.

AIN has learned that although Chirac hoped that Prince Bandar would express interest in the Rafale, he did not. Instead, Bandar discussed other French defense kit that could go to Saudi Arabia.

A couple of Saudi pilots have flown in a two-seat Rafale. But “there have never been any real negotiations, and certainly no discussions on price or standards,” a well-placed source told AIN.