If it’s credited to someone with names beginning with J and N (John or Jack, Nicholls, Nichols, or even Nicholas on one beautifully mis-spelled occasion), then it’s my article. If it’s anonymous, it may be my article. If it’s credited to anybody else, then it’s probably not.

Which article do you mean?

Singapore’s Mindef announcement stated that:

“In response to media queries, MINDEF confirms that it has narrowed down the selection for the next fighter replacement programme to Dassault’s Rafale and Boeing’s F-15. MINDEF has decided not to consider the proposal from BAE Systems any further.

The Typhoon is a very capable aircraft. However, the committed schedule for the delivery of the Typhoon and its systems did not meet the requirements of the RSAF.”

Eurofighter’s in-house magazine said:

“In the Export market, despite proving its capabilities to be above and beyond those of the rival aircraft, Eurofighter Typhoon was
eliminated from the Singapore Fighter Competition. Singaporean officials acknowledged the capability supremacy, but added that the core programme schedule did not match the time schedules of the Singapore Air Force.”

Flight Daily said:

“http://www.flightinternational.com/Articles/2005/06/13/199178/Typhoon+h…

Flight Daily News

DATE:13/06/05
SOURCE:Flight Daily News

Typhoon hit by Singapore
Singapore’s decision to drop one of the three contenders for its Next Generation Fighter requirement only months before a final decision is expected was not only unexpected but has left the bidding team looking for answers to some searching questions.
Eurofighter GmbH and BAE Systems had some reason to be optimistic after the Typhoon reportedly ‘won’ the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) evaluation.
This was not a competitive fly-off, and was only one element in a broad evaluation, but the Typhoon demonstrated impeccable serviceability. It was able to delivery everything they wanted, including supercruise, when its competitors could not. Radar performance was reportedly far in excess of what Singapore had expected to see, and the aircraft was able to climb to operating altitude without making a tortuous series of turns to avoid Malaysian air space.
Neither the Typhoon, nor the Dassault Rafale, nor the Boeing F-15 can meet the RSAF’s requirements in their present form. But there was every reason to believe that the Typhoon in its Tranche 2+ configuration could meet – and comfortably exceed – Singapore’s requirement.
The fact that Eurofighter GmbH was able to fly Singaporean pilots in the active cockpit, demonstrating the planned capabilities and enhancements in a realistic simulated sortie, reportedly impressed the evaluation team. By the end of the evaluation phase, the Typhoon was, apparently, the RSAF’s favoured technical solution.
The aircraft was then rejected before either of its competitors, showing that it not only ‘failed to win’, but that it had become the ‘third choice.’
It is believed that the decision had little, if anything, to do with the Typhoon’s capability and planned capability per se, but was instead a natural reaction to what insiders called “a shambolic performance” by BAE Systems during the early part of the bidding process. It also apparently reflected Singaporean unease about the risks surrounding the advanced Tranche 2 capabilities it required.
In particular, the Singaporeans were concerned about delivery timescales and were said to be worried by the continuing inability by the Eurofighter partner nations to finally define the Tranche 2 and Tranche 3 Typhoon specifications.
Singapore wanted a delivery timescale that could “just about have been met with Tranche 1 aircraft”, but required Tranche 2 capabilities that are “road-mapped” but still unfunded, and whose development has not yet been started. Only a basic air-to-ground capability (using the Litening 3 laser designator and enhanced Paveway LGBs) has been set in stone, and this falls far short of the capability required by the RSAF.
Confidence in the Typhoon’s future capabilities may have been undermined by continuing doubts about the programme’s long-term future, with Britain’s Chief of the Air Staff casting doubt on Britain’s need for Tranche 3, and with the Liberal Democrat party seizing on cancellation of the project in the recent UK general election.
BAE insiders say that while in days gone by BAE had a formidable reputation for putting together watertight bids, with a highly-regarded bid centre and “red teams”, these withered after the merger with GEC. By the time the Typhoon campaign in Singapore began, the company no longer had the structures in place to put together a winning bid, with a sensible price and a convincing technical specification.
Belatedly recognising this, one of the company’s remaining marketing gurus (who had reportedly been responsible for the biggest recent Hawk sales successes) was drafted in to oversee the bid last autumn, and a price and specification was submitted to the Singaporeans in February.
Sources close to the bid have been scathing about BAE Systems and UK MoD middle/senior management, who are said to have been inefficient, obstructive or unhelpful to the bid team, though dealings with industry in the other three partner nations have reportedly been trouble-free.
Others criticised industry’s commercial performance, and compared it with Dassault’s “hunger”. The French bid was made by one government and one contractor, working closely together with a real need for a sale, and willing to make some offers which a consortium of four nations/industries, with a huge Tranche 2 order book already in place, were unable or unwilling to make.
After a week of frantic media speculation, Singapore’s MINDEF confirmed that it had “narrowed down the selection for the next fighter replacement programme to Dassault’s Rafale and Boeing’s F-15” and that it had “decided not to consider the proposal from BAE Systems any further.”
It added that the Typhoon was a “very capable aircraft”, but pointed out that “the committed schedule for the delivery of the Typhoon and its systems did not meet the requirements.”
Eurofighter GmbH has officially denied that there were any problems with the bid, and chief executive Aloysius Rauen praised BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, the UK government, Procurement Minister Lord Bach, the RAF, and DESO for their “excellent support”.
There seems to be a new willingness in the consortium to offer greater flexibility, and to consider the early adoption of particular capabilities to meet the requirements of export customers, after the failed Singapore bid.”

JDW said:

“Eurofighter Typhoon takes a nosedive in Singapore

By ROBERT HEWSON Editor of Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons
London

A shock decision by Singapore to drop the Eurofighter Typhoon from a shortlist of contenders vying to be the Republic’s next-generation fighter has thrown the aircraft’s manufacturing consortium, comprising BAE Systems, EADS and Alenia, into disarray.

JDW understands that Singapore¹s Defence Science and Technology Agency, an arm of the Ministry of Defence (MinDef), has delivered a letter to the Eurofighter team formally discounting the Typhoon from the NFRP competition.

While no official statement has been made by Singaporean authorities, and the Eurofighter partners have declined to comment, several sources close to the programme have confirmed the unexpected development.

The Eurofighter sales effort in Singapore is being led by BAE Systems.

Singapore’s letter of rejection was delivered to BAE Systems’ local office late last week. JDW understands that issues of pricing and the reliable release of capability within the RSAF’s required timeframe were the key concerns that derailed Eurofighter’s bid. Until recently Eurofighter was confident that its performance in Singapore’s 2004 evaluation had gone a long way to answering critics questioning the aircraft’s capabilities. The securing of funds in December 2004 for Eurofighter Tranche 2 production and development was also seen as a significant boost to Eurofighter’s export prospects.”

1) “jounaliste de connivence”: I have never received a single penny from BAE Systems or from Eurofighter GmbH, nor from Saab, nor from Dassault.

I have been paid for consultancy work (not for writing published material) by Sukhoi and a ‘major US aerospace company’.

You should apologise for imputing otherwise, as you are libelling me.

2) “Dassault in another hand are stingy to make advertizing”: In point of fact, the publications for which I work tell me that Dassault’s advertising spend is not appreciably smaller than Eurofighter’s. If you look at the Show Dailies at Paris this year, you’ll find that there are just as many full page Rafale ads as there are Typhoon ads, for example.

3) [b]”I don’t belive also that……:”[/b] I can’t help it if nationalistic pride blinds you to the facts. Rafale’s a fine aeroplane, and the programme has been a conspicuous success. So has the Typhoon programme. I’d be stupid to try to deny the overall superiority of the F-22, and you’re just as stupid if you deny the specific strengths of Typhoon (or indeed of Rafale). Typhoon is more agile. Typhoon is more powerful. Typhoon enjoys an edge in the A-A role. Rafale has longer legs. Rafale enjoys an edge in the A-G role. The Rafale programme has been less subject to delay and political interference.

4) [b]Specifics:[/b]
Concerning the radar, you miss the entire point. It doesn’t matter whether the Captor is the same generation as the RDY2 (it’s not, it’s a much more advanced radar, albeit with a mechanically scanned array). The RBE-2 is technically advanced, and an interesting concept, but has real limitations in performance (especially range), reliability (MTBF) and cooling, which is why Dassault are in such a hurry to replace it. If RBE2 had better range performance and reliability, you’d have a point, but it doesn’t.

The M88 is not as efficient as the EJ200 and the Rafale does not have a better T/W ratio.

Full standard DASS is no less advanced than full standard SPECTRA, and more of the ‘bells and whistles’ are in service NOW.

The idea that the Typhoon partners “missed one generation while Dassault built the M2K” is false. In terms of Flight Control Systems and instability, BAE and MBB pressed ahead with FBW/ACT Jaguar, CCV-F-104, participation in X-31 and EAP. Dassault remain behind in this area.

While no-one would pretend that Tornado is an agile fighter, the F.Mk 3 with full standard Foxhunter, IFF and datalink is every bit as advanced from a systems point of view.

OPIT,

I don’t understand what you’re saying. I agree that Singapore bent to US pressure, as Poland did.

Madrat,

A compact, tightly packed airframe screams “efficient use of space” to me.

I’d like to see a bigger diameter nose on Rafale to allow a bigger array to be fitted, but I see no real advantage in a longer nose. A plug behind the cockpit might give space for more internal fuel, but Rafale has more range than Typhoon, and giving the canards a longer moment arm would increase instability and would have real implications for the FCS. Dassault went for a more stable, more conservative configuration than Typhoon quite deliberately, recognising that higher instability makes for more difficulties with FCS design, just as the Typhoon partners went for a more conservative radar.

Nonsense!

Bob Kemp had NOTHING to do with the Singapore NGF competition – since Gripen were not short-listed for that requirement. He’s not a credible witness on this, and he has a commercial axe to grind.

The French Government, Dassault and the Colonel Moussez were never, ever, going to publicly admit that Rafale lost out in Singapore on political grounds – the least embarrassing excuse for failure is to claim a (subsidised) low priced bid by the USA, so this is exactly what you would expect them to say.

I really can’t help you if you seriously think that Dassault couldn’t put together a winning bid for Rafale. This is an aircraft designed for low cost, designed for low support costs, designed for lean production, whose unit flyaway cost is claimed to be just €47 m, and with far lower through life costs than the 1970s technology F-15. This was a competition with the potential for netting the company its badly-needed first export order, where Dassault and the French Government had powerful reasons for keeping the price ‘competitive’, and where everyone connected with the programme suggests that they did exactly that.

Israel (Israel!!!) paid $84 m for each of its F-15Is. Saudi paid more. The price of F-15 has crept up, slowly but surely. And up-front sticker price is just a tiny proportion of cost, and the Singaporeans are switched on enough to know that. And of course the new generation of fighters are designed to have low operating and through life support costs, and to be able to guarantee lower MMH/FH in a way that aircraft of the F-15’s generation cannot.

So if you seriously think that Boeing could beat Typhoon (let alone Rafale) on cost OR capability that’s your prerogative, but I think that you’re deluded.

As to politics – look back at what was happening at the time and look at the way in which the USA was selling aircraft. (The “you’re either with us or you’re against us” approach, when salesmen would seriously tell customers that buying the F-16/F-15/F-35 wasn’t just about buying an aeroplane, it was tokenistic of being one of the USA’s valued allies). And Singapore was under additional pressure, with a perceived need for a high degree of interoperability with the US forces.

The F-15 offered powerful political advantages. It was a platform which promised to allow Singapore to further its co-operation with Israel (successful on the F-16). It was available in the required timescale.

And Dassault had really terrible luck. They bid an aircraft that looked great (not just good, but really great) on paper, and were hungry enough to be able to promise a great price and to develop everything Singapore wanted. But after the preliminary evaluations in France, Spain, the UK and the USA, the Typhoon gained an unexpected advantage. And then the deployment of aircraft to Singapore for evaluation went badly for Dassault, who had really appalling bad luck. I still don’t know why the aircraft that did so well on the deck of the Charles de Gaulle, and at TLP had any problems with serviceability and availability in Singapore, nor why B302 was unable to demonstrate the radar, nor why the aircraft failed to demonstrate supercruise in Singapore.

But if you want to believe the International Herald Tribune (quoting ‘impartial’ sources like Colonel Moussez and Bob Kemp), then I can only conclude either that you only believe what you want to hear, or that you simply don’t have a functioning “bull$hit filter”. Either way, fact and logic are unlikely to sway you, and further argument is pointless.

And to reinforce what my learned friend says, No.17 Squadron (the OEU) fired ASRAAM years ago.

This isn’t a development milestone – it’s an OPERATIONAL milestone.

This is equivalent to EC 1/7 firing IR Mica (they haven’t yet) or the 1st FW firing AIM-9X.

TMor,

I’ve always said that I was a big admirer of Rafale, which I’ve always viewed as the pre-eminent achievement of the French aerospace industry.

I’ve always admired the energy and ability of Dassault when it comes to promoting the aircraft.

I really admire commonsense French engineering solutions – like that triple pylon for 500-lb bombs in the photos above. Carry six Paveways and use only two hardpoints. Simple, but effective, and with less potential for asymmetric problems. Far better than twin carriers or (worse still) single carriage.

I’d need a lot of convincing that (especially for an air-to-ground aircraft) that a fixed refuelling probe wasn’t a great idea.

I’ve always been extremely envious of the way in which the French Government have supported the programme, and of the lack of internal argument and delay that have so often characterised the Eurofighter programme.

But while being a “single nation fighter programme” has brought with it these advantages, there are also disadvantages – it’s simply impossible for a company of Dassault’s size (and its French industrial partners) to dedicate the resources to all of the disparate elements of the development programme as you could with a multi-national programme.

Dassault has been extremely skillful in ‘cutting its coat according to its cloth’, but inevitably there have been compromises and difficult choices as a result of being a solely French programme. (For starters, just look at all of the development work that was delayed while waiting for an export order to provide funding).

To point this out isn’t to be patronising, and to dispute it is silly.

And while the Rafale is a very competent all-rounder, the aircraft is tailored to meet the requirements of the AdlA and MN. I’ll avoid using the word ‘optimised’ as this so often seems to cause the Rafale fans to become apopleptic with rage. To say that the aircraft is tailored to be able to operate from carriers and to the low level ground attack role does not mean that the aircraft is not also a formidable air-to-air aeroplane, only that it is likely to be marginally better at air-to-ground than a multi-role aeroplane designed with other priorities in mind, just as an aircraft tailored for air-to-air is likely to be marginally better in the air-to-air role, and marginally less useful in the air-to-ground role.

This seems to be something that upsets the Rafale side on this and other internet fora, but it’s patently and palpably true, and to say so does not mean that one is “Bashing” Rafale or Typhoon for the marginal effect of the different priorities that shaped their design.

Nor is it contradictory to admire a programme and an aircraft, and yet still to be a stern critic.

I’m happy to write about the very poor programme management that has sometimes afflicted Typhoon, the political factors that have bedevilled it, the huge delays we’ve had, the messing about we’ve witnessed on the DASS, the cost increases, and the various (mercifully short-lived and minor) problems that the aircraft has suffered. I’m happy to point out that without tanks, the Typhoon is a mite short-legged. I’m even happy to criticise the slow pace of clearance, resulting in unnecessarily conservative speed and g limits in certain configurations that are supposed to be fully carefree. (But before any Rafalistas gloat, Rafale’s tanks were never even planned to be carefree).

And I’m equally happy to point out that Rafale in its current service form is under-powered (that became apparent even before the Singapore evaluation underlined the problem). No big deal, engine growth is underway.

Nor is it difficult for me to frankly point out that (though I’d never have expected it when France made the bold and logical decision to go with PESA rather than M-Scan) the RBE-2 is not up to the standard of the latest US AESA radars, nor the Typhoon’s Captor-M. That’s bad luck, but denying RBE-2’s problems seems to me to be pointless and unprofessional.

And I’m happy to point out that Rafale’s MMI (while impressive by comparison with F-15/F-16C/M2K standards) is poor by comparison with that of the Typhoon and Gripen.

And you’d have to be a fool to ignore it when an experienced test pilot says that:

“What was apparent during this demo was the fact that the pilot’s hands were a blur around the cockpit displays, on and off the throttle and stick to operate the “mini joysticks” which they use to swap display format (as we subsequently discovered).”

and when another says:

“I was able to get a good impression of the “head level” display that they seem so excited about. This is the central display which is collimated at infinity and supposed to eliminate time lost refocusing when you glance from out to in or vice versa. But to me this was almost like a trip back to the Lightning, looking at the radar display down the ‘boot’.”

Or when another says:

“The Korea and Singapore evaluation teams had some concerns over its ability to switch roles effectively in flight. In addition, they thought that some of the symbology in Rafale was “cartoon” like.”

Or when a Singaporean pilot says:

“If you compare the glossy brochure stuff Typhoon and Rafale both have all the right features and technolgies – HMD, advanced radar, IRST, data link, DVI, sensor fusion, etc. Until I saw the Typhoon radar in action I was very sceptical that a mechanically scanned array would be adequate, and I’d still like to see a realistic timescale for AESA on Typhoon before I ‘ticked the box’. But equally, while the Rafale radar seemed to ‘tick the box’ from what I’d read about it, it’s actually not as good, and Rafale needs an AESA just as much – more, in fact – than Typhoon does. And when you fly the aircraft as they are today, we gained the impression that much of the most advanced, the most ‘clever’ things in Rafale were not really there yet, and that the DVI, some of the sensor fusion, and the HMD was sitting on what you Brits call the ‘Back Burner’ – waiting for an order from us, or Korea, or the Saudis, or whoever, to allow them to share the development costs with the export customer. The Typhoon industrial partners either already have the funding, or have pushed ahead at their own cost, so that DVI is already in and working (apparently very well) and the sensor fusion is impressive (they could only show us radar and DASS in the air, of course, since like Rafale the Eurofighter team don’t have IRST to fuse yet, but fly in the Active Cockpit and it shows you that they’re well ahead with adding the rest). But what happens if Tranche 2 is delayed again? There’s a risk with either aircraft, whereas you can be pretty sure than F-15 will do exactly what they say it will, when it will. Just look at the F-15 that Israel has – the F-15 is aleady doing almost everything that we need it to.”

Or when another Singaporean pilot says:

“I really enjoyed flying the Rafale, and (though this is only my opinion, and though my CO preferred the Eurofoon as a flying machine – what do you expect from a Skyhawk man?) I thought the French aeroplane was the nicest aeroplane to fly, with beautifully harmonised controls and HOTAS controls that felt as though they had come from a Rolls Royce. So I’d rather go and fly Rafale, but I’d rather fight in Typhoon – much better performance, better radar, and more agile. Who cares that Typhoon won’t have all the bombing capabilities we need initially – for the first two years we’re going to be flying to Tengah, Changi and Paya Lebar and showing everyone else what they’re missing by waxing them air-to-air, whether they give us Rafale or Typhoon. That’s what fighter pilots do! I just hope it’s not F-15, which will make it that little bit harder to impress the guys who are still flying F-16s! And, being serious, I don’t think we need Sky (SiC) Shadow or Scalp on day one – our most vital air-to-ground capability will centre on being able to take out relatively low value targets with cheaper weapons – using Paveway to ‘plink’ landing craft, rather than some swept up missile to take out an enemy carrier, for example.”

(Guess who just found his MMI notebook!)

In the interests of dragging the thread back to the Rafale, can anyone tell me, definitively, how the conversion syllabus is structured, with numbers of sim trips before flying starts, sortie numbers and flying hours in each phase, etc.

Signatory,

I love Bob Kemp like a brother, but I wouldn’t count him as any kind of impartial witness, while the Mackenzie article in which Moussez was quoted was written by a general (non-specialist) aviation reporter who may have been less discerning than you or I might have been in weighing up what she was told.

And the bottom line is that it wasn’t about money in Singapore. The Singaporeans (“the Swiss of Asia!”) are a canny lot, and with its higher support and sustainment costs, the F-15 was rated as the most expensive option on a through-life basis. I believe that Typhoon was marginally cheaper, but that no-one was confident in BAE’s figures (you must remember that the Tranche 2 production contract had still to be finalised, leading to massive uncertainty about Typhoon’s likely price).

BAE and Singaporean sources told me at the time that Dassault did very well on price and bid terms and conditions in Singapore, contrasting British industry’s poor (‘lackadaisical’) commercial performance with Dassault’s “hunger” and professionalism. They pointed out that French bid was made by one government and one contractor, working closely together with a real need for a sale, and willing to make some offers (on timescale and advanced weapons integrations) which a consortium of four nations/industries, with a huge Tranche 2 order book already in place, were unable or unwilling to make.

Make no mistake – there was unqualified respect and admiration for a well argued case and a well-constructed and well-priced bid by the French, even among Boeing folk. By contrast, until BAE belatedly brought in a guru from the Hawk export sales world, the Typhoon bid was unprofessional and “shambolic”.

And until the aircraft arrived in country (and especially before RSAF pilots flew the jet from Merignac), the Rafale was viewed by many as a potential front-runner. The Singaporeans are a tech-savvy lot, after all, and many of the features that dazzle many on these boards were attractive to the Sings.

Where the Rafale bid team came unstuck was in their inability to seriously dent the political advantages that were perceived to be available by buying the F-15.

There were also concerns among the Singaporeans about the actual performance of the aircraft in the evaluation. More recent experience (in TLP for example) has shown the Rafale to have excellent serviceability and availability, but for whatever reasons, in Singapore the aircraft deployed gave quite a different impression. They were plagued by unserviceability and by a succession of equipment failures, which saw the aircraft failing to display on several days during the Asian Aerospace show, and then going tech on several occasions during the evaluation that followed. You may recall that a Mirage had to be used to demonstrate the radar because B302 went ‘tech’.

Only a BAE fanboy would pretend that Dassault weren’t incredibly unlucky in having worse-than-expected serviceability, while the Typhoon team were equally lucky in demonstrating much better serviceability than anyone dared expect! When it comes to serviceability, the Singapore evaluation was not truly representative.

But fair or unfair, lucky or unlucky, the damage was done, and the problems were exacerbated by the extraordinary performance demonstrated by Typhoon (the supercruising with 4+2 after a heavy take off in the midday sun impressed the evaluators) and by Captor M, which were better than EF GmbH had claimed.

Rafale was much better placed than Typhoon in Korea, but both jets were too immature to meet Korea’s timescales – the Koreans have a full squadron of their F-15Ks operational already, which they could not have achieved with Rafale, let alone Typhoon. No use beating yourself up – the Korean contest simply arose too early to be a realistic hope.

Oh do toughen up a bit Zedders!

I was just using humour (is that really such an alien concept) to point out that there’s NOTHING new about LCD displays, and that making a big deal about Rafale having LCDs and not CRTs is pretty silly.

Even the C-130J and RAF Jag upgrade used active matrix LCDs.

And if you want confirmation of the Singapore story, look what Aviation Week said at the time, and read Francis Tusa’s excellent ‘Defence Analysis’.

There’s more than one journalist telling the story of what really happened in Singapore, old chap.

But I thought we were supposed to be being rigorous about Rafale…..