Toan,
I take the AdlA claims about F-22/Typhoon in ATLC with a grain of salt not because I don’t know about RoE, but because they’re wrong.

The first thing was that they sounded wrong. They sounded unexpected and exaggerated.

The second thing was that with a little digging, it became apparent that they were misleading, and that sources from ATLC did not accept them.

As to Typhoon exchange rates on exercise – I don’t recall specific rates being PUBLICLY claimed by any user air force, but those we’ve heard about have been exactly what you’d expect.

TMor,
Your attempts to discredit me as a troll and a liar amuse me, as you are far from neutral or open-minded yourself.

I’ve always been a great deal more ready to acknowledge Rafale strengths and Typhoon weaknesses than you are to acknowledge Rafale weaknesses and Typhoon strengths.

You really don’t like the truth, do you?

Loke,
I’m a journalist. I have patchy connections.

My RAF connections are patchy (I could not phone anyone on Harrier, as of today).

My US connections are patchy.

My French connections are patchy.

French industry is relatively easy. The Aéronavale is harder (but they’ve had Rafale longer and have that natural flair for comms that many naval air arms share, and thus I have a very small handful of good contacts). The Armée de l’Air is harder still.

It is, of course, easier for a UK journo to learn about Typhoon than Rafale, but Dassault are pros, and deal with foreign journalists with charm and courtesy, and privately, French engineers and industry people are much the same as their English, German, Italian, Spanish, American and Swedish counterparts. Many of them wouldn’t dream of talking to a journalist off the record, but some will.

Kovy,

Firstly: You’ll believe whatever you like.

But you are making an interpretation that simply never even crossed my mind.

I don’t even understand ‘Porkies’ in the sense you mean – if an English person wanted to call someone a pig, he’d say pig or porker. Not porky. English is my mother tongue, and I can tell you that while ‘Porky’ can be an adjective, meaning fat, but I’ve never heard it used as a noun in common English usage.

Whereas ‘Porkies’ as rhyming slang for untruths is entirely routine.

Though why would you know that?

I suspect that only someone with very good English (but to whom it was not their first language) would make the interpretation that you did. I hope that my explanation allays your concerns.

Moreover, I am aware that to call a Frenchman a ‘Cochon’ is extremely rude, just as ‘stupide’ is inexplicably ruder than ‘con’. I’d therefore take particular care to avoid calling a French person a pig.

(The reverse is true in the UK. Call me a pig, call me stupid, and you’re not being all that rude, but don’t call me a ‘ladypart’…..)

Secondly: If you had the faintest clue about what is required to get information you’d understand why many journos use Baseops and PPRuNe to augment information from many other sources.

As ATLC ended, I made formal requests to the US DoD and to the participating USAF units (the squadrons finally responded – most helpfully – earlier this week – very useful but quite a delay). The Baseops thread netted me a number of PMs and e-mails that were helpful, and it led to a number of useful phone conversations, and it did so almost immediately.

In the case of the F-16CJ unit, it was especially useful since, despite my ‘many sources around the world” (your sarcasm is noted and dismissed with derision!) I did not previously have a single contact in the Carolina ANG. Now I do.

I’m still waiting for any material help from the DoD itself.

I don’t care what you’d like, Kovy.

What the Colonel said was clearly misleading. I have not said that he was lying.

I don’t need to name my sources for what I say to be true. Anonymous sources are entirely legitimate.

By contrast, you are accusing me of lying.

If anyone should shvt up, as you put it, it is you.

Firstly: There’s no sophistry, TMor.

It’s cold hard fact that there is some difference between an official statement and a statement made by an official.

The latter could, in theory, subsequently be disowned. Eg: “That was just the Colonel’s opinion.”

An official statement would be one made by the Minister, the Ministry, or by the Air Force, and not one made by a Colonel.

Secondly: I do not believe that an official statement will always be more accurate than what a journalist writes, though I would always INITIALLY tend to place more weight on the official statement, until I started to engage my own critical faculties.

And if an official statement sounds like nonsense, then I’d question it.

A recent UK official statement suggested that 22 new Chinooks were being purchased to “deliver a 40 per cent increase in the number of lift helicopters for use on operations in Afghanistan.” How can that be when the first of them won’t arrive until 2013, and won’t be available to deploy until 2014?

The statement is nonsense! As a number of journos have pointed out.

Finally: The 7:1 claim is counter-intuitive to anyone with a trace of commonsense. (Like Nicholas 10). That’s not because we’re used to reading ‘sophisms’, but because we have a feel for what’s likely, based on what we know of previous encounters, and what we know about the aircraft.

Personally, I’d be pretty surprised by a 7:1 ratio Typhoon:Rafale – that’s the kind of ratio I’d expect against Su-27/MiG-29, not against another 4.5 gen fighter.

“The news come out almost instantly every time after such exercises when someone has something positive to report.”

Not true. Not in my experience. And certainly not in the case of the UK RAF.

Whole exercises go completely unreported and unremarked (eg the Typhoon in Oman, the Typhoon on Anatolian Eagle, etc.)

In fact, I’d go as far as to say that official comment is rare unless industry pushes the RAF to ‘go public’.

As a result of his claims, I’d say that Colonel Grandclaudon has left a question mark over his credibility, though I would of course NOT impugn or question his honour.

As to the rest:

The truth will out.

TMor,

I have certainly commented on reports by some of those who praised Rafale, including Glen Torpy, Peter Collins, and Francois Moussez.

Moussez because he has been employed as an official Rafale PR mouthpiece, which, in view of your own comments about the EF comments about the ATLC claims, I’m sure you’ll appreciate why I take what he says with a ‘pinch of salt’.

When it comes to Glen Torpy and Peter Collins, my objections are that neither have the right experience to be able to make much of a judgement of Rafale on the basis of a single flight.

Torpy was a Jaguar fighter-bomber pilot (and latterly a Tornado bomber/recce guy), and, as a senior RAF officer, was never going to be anything but politely effusive about the opportunity that he was afforded by his opposite number.

If you track down a senior AdlA commander who has flown Typhoon on the same basis (especially if his experience was on Jaguar and Mirage 2000N, some years ago), I will be equally unimpressed by the polite praise that he will inevitably lavish on Typhoon.

Collins hasn’t flown a frontline jet since the late 1980s (that’s 20 years ago) and his point of comparison for Rafale was the BAE Harrier GR3, the Sea Harrier FRS1, and the Lightning. Though he did the ETPS course, he never did a TP job that involved ‘fitness for purpose’ testing and evaluation, since he went from ETPS to the RAE at Bedford.

He’s still more qualified than I am to comment, and I’m not saying that what he says is entirely without value or interest, but he was bound to be blown away by any modern fighter. Look what he was comparing it with!

If we ever see a Typhoon flight test by an ex-AdlA test pilot from the same era, whose operational experience is on Mirage IIIC, Super Mystere and something broadly equivalent to Sea Harrier, or by Collins himself, I will be equally critical, whether that pilot loves or loathes Typhoon. Because he simply won’t have an appropriate basis for comparison. Any 4th Gen fighter is going to impress the heck out of a Harrier pilot.

Tell me what someone who has flown Gripen//Rafale, Mirage 2000-5, late-model F-16 and F-15 thinks of Typhoon, or who has flown Typhoon/Gripen, F-16, F-15 and MiG-29 thinks of Rafale and I’ll be very much more interested.

Indeed, I am sure the EF PR gents would have been all over the place if things would’ve gone in their favor, which only lends further credibility to the French claim.

I’m not. EF GmbH have not been good at highlighting previous successes (eg the JG73 incident).

The most one can glean from this EF- above and rafale below is that the rafale, played to its strengths, and it is stronger at lower altitude than the EF2k.

That’s not the case.

It seems that both types flew similar sorties blue and red – why are the EF folks quiet? Traditionally, they’d jump on such scores if they were in favor of the EF.

That’s not ‘traditionally’ true. Nor is it clear that whether Rafale flew ‘red’, and, to be fair, whether it suffered losses while doing so.

In light of this unorthodox EF position, one concludes that the actions of the Rafale did in fact speak louder than the wonderful simulations and tall talk of EF reps. This is not to diss the EF-2K, but I think WVR, the Rafale has an edge.

I think that Rafale has an edge in some areas, WVR, if its pilots can force Typhoon to fight on their terms. That’s the case with almost any pair of dissimilar fighters you can think of. I don’t think that EF GmbH’s lack of response indicates that Colonel Grandclaudon was necessarily being entirely accurate, or wholly truthful, however tempting it may be for a Rafale fan to believe what he said.

Sorry, if things were that partial as you point out esp. since it came from a professional source, there would’ve been some rebuttals and retractions.

Nonsense. The RAF are notoriously unwilling to comment on the results of training exercises (eg the F-15 DACT at Coningsby) and are always keen to avoid getting into unseemly ‘pis.sing matches’, however frustrating that may be for the Typhoon fanboys. You certainly cannot conclude from the lack of response that the only logical explanation is the one put forth by Lt. colonel Grandclaudon. As Nicholas 10 was gracious enough to accept.

Ahem, I thought the declaration came at an official press conference. Can some more informed poster confirm?

Yes, it did. As a journalist I know how often people look you in the eye and tell outright lies at such events. Merely being misleading, or not telling the whole truth is entirely routine.

I dunno about French posters and “dumb” conclusions, but I am not French, and hopefully not too dumb either but it seems that the Rafale has done well to shut up critics that were quick to jump on its inadequacy as an A2A bird.

I’m not going to be rude and suggest that such a conclusion is ‘dumb’ but I would suggest that it’s premature on the basis of the evidence so far.

A good bit of much needed PR

Indeed!

As an aviation enthusiast, I am happy for the Rafale, hopefully it will influence some exports.

The professionals who determine procurement decisions will already know exactly what happened. Rafale’s performance at ATLC will not swing any extra sales. That said, I must say that I hope that Rafale soon gains an export order, as I believe that it’s essential for Europe that Dassault survives as a centre of manned combat aircraft design and production excellence.

In this particular event I think the spectra/osf/mica iir combo has sprung a bit of a surprise although I’d bet that it could’ve been more equal under other circumstances. JMT.

That’s entirely speculative.

I have to agree with TMor’s comment as to the relative worth of user community/industry sources in his post 266.

Generally, I do not view a comment by a company source as being as interesting as one from a frontline pilot. Occasionally, of course, the PR source may tell the truth and be entirely accurate, and occasionally, the pilot may talk bol.locks.

But generally speaking, I’d normally be inclined to take Grandclaudon more seriously than this nameless industry source.

But then I exercise my critical faculties, find out what other people are saying, and then make a judgement.

In this case, what Grandclaudon said was counter-intuitive and sounded improbable, and with a little digging, it transpires that there are explanations for what he said. I’m sure that these will emerge in the fullness of time.

However, I also believe that the EF statement is not entirely accurate.

As to telling you who told me about a press briefing that I didn’t attend…. don’t you know that a journalist doesn’t reveal his sources?

I will, however, endeavour to find out who the French journo was. No promises, mind.