H_KBTW Reco-NG was also flown on the Rafale during the evaluation. Is it known of B307 is already F3 standard?
B307 should still be F2 standard, though the pictures from Switzerland show it flying with a Damocles laser designator, which is part of the F3 standard. Not clear whether Damocles is functional or not (IIRC, the F2 to F3 upgrade is mostly software related).
The first confirmed F3s are B301 (which carryied Reco-NG for the Swiss evaluation), and B302. However, they are still with Dassault. The first F3s for the French Air Force are new builds (F3-O), starting with B328 delivered last July.
H_KIs it me, or has Fonk/Thunder/Sampaix now spawned two alteregos – LordAssap & GlobalPress?
Maybe we should vote on which one we prefer? I like GlobalPress – he’s more concise & polite… :p
H_KIt turns out that Gripen has a approaching speed of only 97kt because of its large, highangle of attack, canards which generate alot of lift.
To compare approaching speed of:
Rafale 120kt
F-18 134kt
F-35 142ktThe canards also used as a airbrake, and generates lots of downforce when landed(for even more wheelbraking).
Sign,
You are comparing Gripen’s stall speed (97kts) with Rafale’s approach speed (120kts). 😮 To be brutally frank, you are completely discrediting yourself as a so called “expert”… 🙁
FYI, the Gripen’s approach speed is about 125kts.
http://www.gripen.com/NR/rdonlyres/D477E794-3F21-45AC-BBC3-D0E535F446E3/0/GRI9182AirDisplay_low060620.pdf
FYI, the Rafale’s stall speed is below 100 knots. Rafale A flew at 100kts on flight #16 (1 Aug 1986) and 81kts (150kph) on flight #460 (12 Jul 1989). http://www.avions-militaires.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3859&start=0
So Gripen & Rafale are in roughly the same category as far as lift & minimum speeds go. Since Gripen NG will be heavier than Gripen, it will comparatively disadvantaged in terms of lift and maneuverability.
H_KThey were fully tested and developed as well as ready for production for export customers, please read GIE own documentation of the time…
IIRC, the CFTs flown on the Rafale B were aerodynamic mock-ups, not functional CFTs with plumbing & all. That’s why I said the CFTs have been “partially tested”: we know that the CFTs’ aerodynamics are OK, but we don’t know for sure whether Dassault finished redesigning the FCS software to accomodate changes in the center of gravity etc.
See DGA/SNECMA stament, ECO was fully tested years ago and the programme is now well completed, some are simply missing a few years of information here.
Yes, the M-88 ECO programme has been completed, but it’s focus was on reducing fuel consumption. IIRC, some more work would have to be done on the ECO’s components to create a higher thrust version. This work wouldn’t be very complicated or expensive, but I think it’s more accurate to say that as of right now the higher thrust M-88 has only been “partially tested”.
H_KRafale F2 – In Service
Air defense & air-to-ground: MICA RF/IR AAMs, GBU-12 laser guided bombs, AASM GPS/infrared standoff bombs, SCALP cruise missile, buddy refueling pod, 2000 & 1250 liter tanks
Full Spectra ECM and A2A/A2G optronics (OSF IR/TV/laser)
Silent/off-boresight interceptions with Mica RF/Link 16 and Mica IR/OSF combos
Rafale F3 – Finished testing, in service Q1 2009
Anti-ship (Exocet), nuclear strike (ASMP-A), reconnaissance (RECO-NG pod)
Terrain-following radar modes
Rafale F3+ – Funded improvements 2009-2012
Damocles laser designator & Rover capability
RBE2 AESA + Meteor missile
GBU-24 laser guided bombs (2000lb)
New TV optronics (OSF-IT – no IR/night sensor) and new missile warning detectors
Currently unfunded improvements
Digital Voice Input
Helmet Mounted Sight
Conformal Fuel Tanks (testing partially completed)
Higher thrust engine (testing partially completed – M-88 ECO)
H_KAt first observation the P400’s seem to present less of an issue to address than the Floreals. CMN still offer the basic P400 in the Vigilante design and have sold a couple to Brazil recently in the form of the NAPA-500 class boats. Directly replacing the existing P400’s with new builds wouldnt seem to be an absurdity unless the boats have been unsuccessful in service….something there is no evidence of that I’ve ever seen…apart from a few initial teething troubles?.
The P400 is apparently not a success. The 2nd most senior French admiral (in charge of the surface fleet), has described it as “too small, too fragile, and too slow”, especially for missions in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. He’s suggested that the P400, Floreal and avisos should all be replaced by one class of ocean-going, helicopter capable ships.
Adding more complexity to this problem, the Batral LSTs and BSM small support ships also need to be replaced within the same timeframe. Their tonnage and “public service” / coast guard missions overlap somewhat with the P400 and Floreals… Several suppliers are therefore positioning themselves to replace all or part of this highly eclectic fleet:
Rolls-Royce UT designs
http://www.meretmarine.com/article.cfm?id=102955
CNIM Multipurpose Patrol Vessel
http://www.meretmarine.com/article.cfm?id=108582
H_K-Never seen anything about Rafale supercruise, enlighten me. ok maybe on the new engines, how much add thust in the dry part?
– the Gripen in the other hand is doing it todate sustain 1,1, and will add at least 15% dry thust(as the SH engine), so it should handel the new belly.
Rafale’s supercruise performance has been debated at length on this forum as well as others. The fact that you didn’t even bother to look up Rafale’s performance before making your claims doesn’t exactly add to the credibility of your statements.
IIRC, Dassault & Rafale pilots have publicly stated that Rafale can supercruise:
– At Mach 1.2 (exact configuration unclear)
– With one belly 1,250 tank and 4 Mica (standard A2A configuration)
IIRC, a French forumer on this forum talked to someone at Dassault, who confirmed that these two statements were one & the same, i.e. that the Mach 1.2 figure referred to the standard configuration including belly tank. A supercruise figure of Mach 1.4 with upgraded engines and 6 AAMs has also been thrown around.
So that’s why I don’t believe your claims about the Gripen supercruising better than the Rafale.
H_KYour quite the man aren´t you? 😮
You still compare rafale and f-16 with C/D gripens? this is not the threed for that. Never stated that rafale lacks power.This is facts, not “i think”, if official statments are correct(not the roomer thou) and so why doubt saab?, have they ever failed in deliver?, no not in over 60 years..
The effort at saab has always been the compactness and the LCC of the systems, so yes you can fit a great system in a small compact form. Look at your mobilephone for god sake… and the fact that they can always pick the best of things at a balanced price from the world market, swedish, french, american it doesn´t matter. In the NG program they even got the biggest supplyers onboard, no pay for the engine!.
When size does matter is the antenna size, but the fact is rafale hasn´t got bigger randome, dont no about the other antennas thou.EF is not in, why is that? is it too big? no!, f-18 is still in, is it maybe not in the same league. :rolleyes:
Infact EF has never won a non-fixt offer. Bae was the only contractor i Austria, and they priced gripen too high…And they still got the contract and got more cash out of it…and dont mention Saudi..Were are your facts?
why dont you get down to biz, and compare the facts. Not your speculations of “how can the manage to that” its in the offical specifications and thats that. The proved many of those things before and now the have a much bigger engine..so?
When comparing keep i simple, otherwise you get stuck in tactics and training, jammerfunctions etc. which i did before.
The comparison was only to prove my point “big trunk” isnt everything that counts in delivering the goods.But if you go a long way its best to have the “biggest trunk of them all” (read deep penetration )
And i still wants a comparison, not “stuck in the wrong league” bull****.
Which buy the way, is the lamest i heard in years..
Gripen was the fist of the 4 gen and the first that went through an update, so dont give me that crap.Dont get me wrong, Rafale is a really lovely jet, but get the facts, and prove my wrong!
Well then, show me your “facts”. Because, if you haven’t noticed, I’m the one calling bulls*** on your statements:
– You said that the Gripen NG would supercruise better than a Rafale. I pointed out that the original Gripen is already underpowered versus its peers, and that the NG will have more drag. The engine upgrade you talk about is just a rumor, and it would have to make up for the two problems above and then some…
– You said that the Gripen NG could operate from 600m runways and be rearmed in 10 minutes. I pointed out that doing so with a heavy weapons load is just a pipedream.
– You said that the Gripen’s avionics are better than the Rafale’s. I pointed out that the problem is airframe size, as proven by the fact that Gripen has neither the internal ECM suite nor the optronics of the Rafale. I agree that the Gripen does have a better datalink, but you still haven’t answered my point.
– You used some unrealistic scenarios and I called you out on it
Your insults reminds me of Thunder, Swedish-style. 😡
H_KYes i know thales AESA antenna(not backend), and yes i know more then most about the competion.. time will tell…and i´ll be right. 😎
The problem for Thales is that they are a generation behind(in Fighter AESA) some of those out there(maybe you can figure this one out:rolleyes:).
You just cant say that “rafale match the SU better?” i say you dont have any arguments, and dont i believe you until i stand corrected.
Just like a gripen pilot, the rafale pilot dont want a SU in close combat. They both would just shoot down the big bird meteorvise BVR, and make use of the netrification/sensors of there fighters. And again Gripen NG will be better at it with its more powerful radar(if im right), and Gripen NG can go faster so(and truly supercruise).. And maybe the LO features adds up for rafale, but i havent seen any data of the RCS reduction.Maybe im not updated in Rafale as much, then help me get the numbers right!
Ok, MIDAS can really do that same stunt? To date in F2? do you have a source?
thou not swap radar rawdata?So Rafale F3 does not have a scheduled engineupgrade for france? or in F4?
Ok, so let me put the nerworking in simple terms:
So you say Midas is as capable? so why does SAAB even bother to:
first, keep the TIDLS in NG
two, add MIDAS (if you ask me, to fight well together with your nato friends)
Three bother to add even more netrification with Satcom??!So Gripen NG has Link16, TIDLS, MIDAS, Satcom.
And rafale has Link16 and MIDAS.Which fighter has most hardware/bandwith and possibility to be the most netrific fighter?
If you say Rafale, you just won the fanboy of the year award..:eek:Yes, again Rafale is wonderful in one wave action, it really excels. But the time on the ground, the inflexiblility with larger landingstrips plus probably a lot higher MTBF(especially as you say, The french does not excel at engines). No HOT engineswap, Hot fuel and so on. No 10 minuts pitstops here..
In this case you cant say rafale is better in multible wave CAS, and just refer to the “big load”. With 6,3t MTOW, especially when taking of takeoff and land in less than 600m*9m, is also Gripen NG is also “amazing”.SO, if you have to look at the math.
If a conflict starts 30 minuts away from your nearest landing strip, and assume that rafale can land there :D. And the planes have the mission to deliver GBU-12:s at highest rate.. if we skip the part of MTBF and the speeddifference, then the maths is as follows.
Gripen NG Rafale F3
time to theater 30 min time to theater 30 min
time/bomb 5 min time/bomb 5 min
Total bombtime 40 min Total bombtime 50 min
time to fly home 25 min time to fly home 25 min
capacity 8 min capacity 10 min
time to land/refuel/rearm/takeoff 10 min time to land/refuel/rearm/takeoff 30 min
time per wave 118 min time per wave 150 min
gripen waves 15 waves 12
Delivered bombs 120 Delivered bombs 120
Total time 29,5 Hours Total time 30 HoursAfter about 30 hours Gripen has delivered 120 GBU-12 class bombs in 15 waves.
The same time Rafale has delivered also 120 in 12 waves!?.
This is a result of not being in the air!
I you extrapolate this to approx. 88 hours thentime to theater 30 min time to theater 30 min
time/bomb 5 min time/bomb 5 min
Total bombtime 40 min Total bombtime 50 min
time to fly home 25 min time to fly home 25 min
capacity 8 min capacity 10 min
time to land/refuel/rearm/takeoff 10 min time to land/refuel/rearm/takeoff 30 min
time per wave 118 min time per wave 150 min
gripen waves 45 waves 35
Delivered bombs 360 Delivered bombs 350
Total time 88,5 Hours Total time 87,5 HoursAnyone that tends to disagree on the stated? cant seems to find the gbu-12 class numbers for Rafale, so correct me!
And again on the stated enginepower of gripen NG, heard a roomer(yes a roomer!?) from a wellknown company that they looking for between 26400lb and 29000lb as target output.. guess that up to the customer to balance the maintnence of engineparts.
Note that it is not SAAB thats pulling the strings, its General Electric (think they have a cloe how to get there already).
But then again its not for comparison, just a roomer.
Sign,
If you think a Gripen NG loaded with 8 GBU-12s and AAMs is going to take-off from a 600 meter runway and be rearmed in 10 minutes
If you think you can fit the same avionics in a 7.1t airframe as a 9.5t airframe (especially ECM and optronics)
If you think the Gripen NG’s higher MTOW and bulged fuselage won’t affect its lift/drag ratio, maneuvrability and take-off performance
If you think the Rafale is more underpowered than the Gripen, when the Gripen has proven inferior in sustained maneuvering to both the Rafale and F-16
If you think the scenarios you gave above are even remotely realistic in terms of their rearm times and sortie radiuses
And finally, if you like ifs so much
Then now’s probably the time to ask yourself whether you really know as much as you pretend you do…
(P.S. I love the Gripen NG, but I think we should stick to comparing it with the F-16/Mirage 2000/Mig-29, not force it into the same league as a Typhoon or Rafale…)
H_Kanyone know what the typical air wing of CDG is now? Numbers and types 🙂
It’s hard to know for sure, because CdG’s airwings have been increasing in size as Rafale M deliveries progress. For next spring’s deployment, my best guess is 16 Rafale and 10 Super Etendard. The Super Etendards will be around until at least 2012, even though there are almost enough Rafale available to retire them now (extra 10 Rafale F1 in storage). The Super Etendards are simply cheaper to operate, and their avionics are quite modern.
Here are the historical airgroups for Indian Ocean deployments:
2007: 35 aircraft – 12 Rafale, 16 Super Etendard, 2 Hawkeye, 2 Puma, 2 Dauphin, 1 Alouette III
2006: 29 aircraft – 9 Rafale, 14 Super Etendard, 2 Hawkeye, 2 Puma, 2 Dauphin
2004: 26 aircraft – 8 Rafale, 10 Super Etendard, 2 Hawkeye, 3 Puma, 2 Dauphin, 1 Alouette III
2002: 29 aircraft – 7 Rafale, 16 Super Etendard, 2 Hawkeye, 2 Puma, 2 Dauphin
H_K6 T45, 12 Direct T23 replacements for a total of 18 escorts.
Cuts to the MCM fleet.
Ark Royal not retained as an LPH, Ocean replaced, Argus not replaced.
Cuts to the rest of the RFA fleet.
Cuts to the number of days spent at sea.
I would add:
– Cancellation of the 7th Astute
– CVF construction stretched out & in-service dates delayed until 2018-2020 (under the excuse that the F-35B won’t reach FOC until then)
– MASC canceled and Sea King AEWs retired in ~2015 without replacement (under the excuse that drones will be able to do the job in 2025, and coalition operations will be the norm until then)
H_KI’m sure someone will correct me if I am wrong but the Typhoon is about 20% heavier than the Rafale. I would have expected a design optimised for air to air to work out lighter than one optimised for air to ground. What are the relative features of the designs that leads to this?
Weight is not necessarily the most important airframe criteria in A2A – just look at the F-22 or Su-35. I would say the 4 most important airframe criteria in A2A are (in no particular order):
– Low drag (–> high acceleration)
– Low wing loading (–> high maneuverability)
– Efficient control mechanisms – canards, thrust vectoring etc. (–> high maneouvrability)
– Large nose (–> powerful radar)
If you compare the Rafale and Typhoon along these criteria, then you can see that the Typhoon is more optimized for A2A.
– Higher wing sweep –> lower drag
– Canards further from center of gravity –> higher maneuverability
– Bigger nose –> More powerful radar
But, these optimizations have a cascading effect on airframe weight:
– The bigger radar is heavier and draggier –> the wing needs to be even more swept to reduce drag
– Typhoon’s wing/canard configuration is less efficient at generating lift than Rafale’s close-coupled canard/lower swept wing –> Typhoon’s wing needs to be bigger
The bigger wing leads to a bigger airframe, which needs more powerful engines, which in turn leads to a bigger airframe, which needs a bigger wing etc. And at the end of this cascading cycle, Typhoon’s airframe ends up being slightly less draggy and slightly more maneuverable at supersonic speeds, but 10-15% heavier…
H_KI don’t think the Russians will ever be able to post a major threat in the Med. They’d have no strategic depth – nowhere to hide, no naval bases to fall back on, no air cover. Even if the RN & USN were kept busy elsewhere, the traditional Med powers (France, Italy & Spain) would seriously maul the Russians. The Russians might stand a chance if they had air and naval bases across the south Mediterranean arc (Algeria, Libya, Syria) and if Turkey gave their fleet safe passage to enter/escape through the Black Sea. Unlikely…
For the Marine Nationale, the first priority would be on re-equiping its underarmed ships. That’s where they’d have the biggest return on investment.
– Close-in air defenses: Sadral/Tetral across the fleet and Davide rounds for 76mm guns
– Long range air-defenses: Additional Aster 30s for its Horizons & FREMMs, upgraded radars
– ASW capabilities: sonars for La Fayette frigates, more NH90 ASW helos, Milas missiles
Only then should they consider additional hulls so that they could deploy a 3rd taskforce:
– 2-4 more FREMMs (air-defense & ASW)
– 2 more Barracudas
– PA2
H_KGot a single photo to back it up? On the photos I have, Belgian F-16s carry Sidewinders.
Apologies. You’re correct. My claim was based on an internet source, and I didn’t question it because the FAB had Magics in inventory for its Mirage 5s, so it seemed plausible. I checked, and no other sources mention it. They either say that only Pakistan uses Magics on its F-16s, or that the Magic has been qualified on the F-16 but never used…
H_KThat claim of the French pilot does seem questionable to stay polite. The Belgian F-16As did field an internal EW-system taken by the IDF-AF too.
When and all Belgian F-16As were equipped with that was another question. 😉http://www.f-16.net/f-16_users_article2.html ….red after posting about Carapace ECM equipment and real introduction.
Carapace was delivered in 1994. Prior to that, Belgian F-16As had no internal ECM, and apparently no external ECM either. All other F-16s in the European theatre used external ECM pods, as did Mirage F1s. However, U.S. F-16Cs did not have BVR capability until AMRAAM entered service in 1992, and European F-16As only got BVR capability with the MLU upgrades in the late 1990s.
So Mirage F1s would have held an advantage over all F-16s in the European theatre throughout the 1980s and until the early/mid-1990s, thanks to their BVR capability (Matra Super 530F). In WVR, the Magic 2 was superior to the AIM-9L/M, so from 1986 onwards the Mirage F1 would not have been totally outclassed even in WVR (except against Belgian F-16s which fielded the Magic 2!).
The French pilot I talked to was flying in the early 1990s, so his claims do fit the context at that time.
Sign In
