Well the rafale already had a smaller radar than the Typhoon in 2008 and 2009 yet it did score higher in detection etc etc…It is not all about size but about quality. And advantage of GaN technology over GaaS is not only about range you know. Even the older PESA radar which everyone said would be no match to the Captor-M beated the Typhoon at its own game.

The F35 will certainly be upgraded but I haven’t heard of an imminent MFAs upgrade. This feature is rather unique to the rafale for this competition.

You are right that F35 VLO design is an advantage for EW/EA but it is also more limited in that role than a rafale F4 which will perform EA not only restricted to the frontal emisphere like the F35 due to its multiple MFAs.

Irrelevant. PESA vs mech scan. PESA has a faster scan rate and hence better detection. The size only factored into engagement, where RBE2 lost. The advantage of GaN is power, which affects range, it does not change beamwidth, it’s also not on the Rafale yet. By 2025 it could be GaN vs GaN for all 3 jets.

The feature isn’t on the Rafale for this competition. The development and integration contract was only awarded last week. It’s not set in stone that it would even be ready for 2025, 6 years is a long time.
https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-n…ale-f4-upgrade

The F-35 EA is not only restricted to the frontal hemisphere, that’s an old wives tale. AN/ASQ-239 has apertures all across the wing LE and TE and tail plane for EA and ESM. Read 5th bullet point of features.
http://f35jsf.wiki.fc2.com/upload_di…01ebf6671.jpeg

[QUOTE]The F-35 EW system provides radar alert (improves analysis, identification and tracking of enemy radar emissions) and multispectral (multi-wavelength) interference for self-protection against radar and infrared induced threats.[/QUOTE]

http://f35jsf.wiki.fc2.com/wiki/%E9%…80%A7%E8%83%BD

▼ BAE Systems’ patent ▼ Reference example: actual Vivaldi antenna

https://patents.google.com/patent/US20050024281

• One such traveling wave antenna is a Vivaldi notch antenna. The Vivaldi notch antennas are those which have exponentially tapered notches which open outwardly from a feed at the throat of the notch. Typically, in such a Vivaldi notch antenna there is a cavity behind the feed point which prevents energy from flowing back away from the feed point to the back end of the Vivaldi notch. As a result, in these antennas, one obtains radiation in the forward direction, and obtains a single lobe beam over a 10:1 frequency range. One can obtain a VSWR less than 3:1 with the beams staying fairly constant at about 80° or 90° beam widths.
• [0006]
  As can be seen, the Vivaldi notch antennas are single lobe antennas which have a very wide bandwidth and are unidirectional in that the beam remains relatively constant as a single lobe over a 10:1 bandwidth both in elevation and in azimuth.
• [0007]
  Note that a constant beam width is maintained because at high frequencies at the throat of the notch only a small area radiates. As one goes lower and lower in frequency, the wider parts of the notch are responsible for the radiating. As a result, the beam width tends to remain constant and presents itself as a single lobe.

Furthermore it has more than 3 EA emitters that aren’t partially blocked by the aircraft in certain directions. The Rafale is a decent aircraft but you’re massively overselling it.

In terms of technology the F4 standard burries the competition, even the F35 should be worried as it is equalled or surpassed in many areas. Full GaN for MFAs/frontal radar/Spectra used for detection, EW, EA and communication to be performed simultaneously, all that fed by AI is certainly a big selling point even compared to the F35.
Apart from its stealthier design the F35 seems equalled or surpassed in almost every area although I am sure I will eventually get GaN at some points (but not MFA).

That’s why I believe that if the swiss choose capacity as the main driver for their choice it will boils down to rafale and F35 with the Typhoon as an outsider for its kinetic performance.
But the Gripen E/F could emerge as a cheaper “good enough” solution that would be more politically sustainable.

The F-35 has little to worry about since it too will be upgraded by then. 6 years is a long time.

GaN does not solve all the Rafale’s problems, it barely even makes up for the radar size deficit against the F-35 and Typhoon in terms of range potential and it can’t solve the beamwidth disadvantage, which is a major factor in determining discrimination of separate targets, bearing and azimuth accuracy, NCTR, SAR resolution etc.

The other problem is that the F-35’s stealthy design multiplies the effectiveness of EW and radar by many times over. If you put all F-35 systems in a Rafale or Typhoon right now, they would still lose easily on effectiveness.

Quite possibly.

But the rafale proposed to the swiss will have GaN AESA radar and not only in the nose but on six additional conformal arrays.

The F4 isn’t due to be operational until 2024. So if that’s included, Typhoon could also offer radar 2 and integrated DASS upgrade.

There are significant detection, ident and acquisition performance differences between any ESA radar (PESA or AESA) and a mechanically scanned one in any case. And very large ECCM/LPD/LPI differences with AESA. That AESA upgrade will affect most categories where the Typhoon was mediocre last time.

EDIT – I menat smaller aircraft for line 3.

https://fullfact.org/europe/irish-border-trade/