JackonickoNow that’s compelling!
I wonder how closely spaced the firings were?
JackonickoIt’s certainly the case that Dassault do at least get other pilots into Rafale, for which they deserve our thanks and congratulations, whereas any EF Typhoon ‘media’ flights tend to go to non-pilot journos (the Sun, James May, Craig Hoyle) or to Celebrities.
If you were being charitable, you might think that EF were taking account of the fact that so many frontline Typhoon pilots come from a very wide range of flying backgrounds (from four air forces, plus a lot of US and NATO exchange tours) with lots of experience of the teen series, and so intelligent comparative views are relatively easy to hear, whereas the background of AdlA and MN Rafale pilots is naturally a little more narrow (primarily M2K, Jaguar and SuE).
Or if you weren’t minded to be charitable you might assume that EF had something to fear in letting independent evaluators fly the jet?
At least we get some intelligent output from Rafale media flights (and that’s better than we get from Typhoon media flights) – I’m just sore because I’d like more.
JackonickoTwist and spin as much as you like, Fonky, but it’s clear that the reason you’re so keen on Collins is because he said nice things about Rafale, and had he been negative, you’d have been the first here criticising him.
I’m glad that he was nice about Rafale. Dassault badly need some good luck.
This was a flight test.
As an experienced military pilot and a former military test pilot, Pete Collins is obviously better qualified to judge a current fast jet than anyone on this bulletin board.
You naturally want an experienced military pilot to write a flight test about a military aircraft – preferably a military test pilot. Because you want the flight test to be informed by relevant experience.
However, his frontline military experience is of aircraft from two generations ago (first generation Harrier and Sea Harrier) and his military test flying experience is 15 years out of date.
While he was a good choice to write the flight test, someone with more recent military flight test experience, and with more and more recent experience of more comparable and more relevant aircraft would clearly have been a BETTER choice.
The irony is that praise from someone who was really familiar with current generation, all glass, agile fighters would have been even more compelling and persuasive.
This was a missed opportunity for Flight and for Dassault.
JackonickoDare,
Your allegations are as unsubstantiated as most of the tripe you come out with.
Nowhere have I bashed Craig Hoyle.
Nowhere have I bashed Geoff Cairns.
Nor have I bashed Pete Collins, just stated the opinion that a flight test by someone with more recent, more relevant experience would have been more interesting.
Quote the post number where I’m supposed to have bashed any of them, or apologise.
JackonickoIt is a quite magnificent achievement, to be sure. And in some campaigns, to meet some requirements, it ‘deserves’ to win orders.
In many export campaigns it was never likely to win – sometimes because of political factors, sometimes because another aircraft more closely met a particular requirement.
In other campaigns, Dassault’s failure to get orders is more puzzling. I still can’t really get my head around the failures in Morocco and Libya.
I think that the tide in India is moving away from Rafale, and that the entire process in Switzerland may yet stall.
Perhaps the much anticipated UAE order for Rafale will come closer to reality next week? I wouldn’t hold my breath, as I think nothing substantive will happen there until IDEX.
I think that Rafale will win in Brazil, but that the achievement in Brazil will be soured when the FAB report is made public.
I suspect that Kuwait may also be a good chance for Rafale.
I’m with Dare and you on preferring to read what a pilot says about flying an aircraft rather than the words of a journo, incidentally.
JackonickoThanks, Mick. Most kind.
I’d want to stress that Craig’s a really good guy, with a very sharp mind, and he is a good writer. We have slightly different skill sets and different strengths and weaknesses. Different. Not better/worse. I have longer experience, and have done more flying, whereas he’s written more important stories, and has worked as a staffer for the most prestigious titles. He has the access that Flight gives, I may have a wider network of contacts. At the end of the day, I’m flattered to be compared with Craig and I would make no claim to being a better journo.
JackonickoYou really are obtuse, Fonky.
The point about the Mirage 2000 is not that it isn’t a modern fighter, it’s that PC had only one or two flights in it, and I’d rather read someone’s opinion of Rafale who is really used to flying modern, agile, all glass fighters – preferably Gripen, F-16MLU and Super Bug as they are the closest (non-Dassault) equivalents to Rafale.
The further point about the Mirage 2000 is that it’s avionics are too similar to those of Rafale, and I’d rather see the opinion of someone to whom the French way of doing things is new.
I haven’t ripped anyone to pieces, either.
I haven’t quoted Creg Hoyle in a negative way, I’ve pointed out that I’m more interested in what a military FJ pilot (and ideally a TP) has to say about flying any modern FJ than what any journo has to say. ‘Creg’ would be the first to tell you that he is not a pilot (he doesn’t even have a PPL) and that he suffers from quite severe air sickness. I’ve compared his experience to my own (though I do have a PPL and have flown many hours in FJs).
I haven’t quoted Geoff Cairns in a negative way, either, though I would point out that he was even more ‘out of date’ than Pete Collins, before he died, aged about 82, earlier this year. That’s because he stopped active military test flying in about 1970. I flew with him more than ten years ago (probably nearer 20). Quite what he might have said about Rafale is a mystery, as he’d retired long before it flew…..
I am not “knocking down everyone who can make positive comments about the aircraft”, I’m only saying that you’d get a more useful view from someone with relevant experience. I’d rather read Pete Collins on flying Rafale than Craig Hoyle or me, and I’d rather read Craig Hoyle on Rafale than you. But for me, best of all would be to read what a neutral professional, with relevant experience, thinks.
Whereas you will clearly lick the boots of anyone, however unqualified they are to make a judgement, as long as they fulsomely praise your precious Rafale.
While you may be pleased with Brazil’s eventual decision, you are going to be so upset when the FAB report is released.
JackonickoI don’t know whether you genuinely can’t understand, or whether you’re just being deliberately argumentative.
It’s clear that someone whose operational experience is Harrier GR3/Sea Harrier FRS1 and who retired from military flying 15 years ago (even if he had one or two trips in a Mirage 2000 for his ETPS course evaluation) is less qualified to judge the merits of Rafale than a more current, more recent pilot with operational experience of a more modern fighter.
Had Collins done a full tour on the Mirage 2000-5 that would make his opinion more useful, but it would be most interesting if his experience was on an advanced fighter from a different manufacturer, with a different design philosophy, and better still if he’d flown several comparable types.
Nor is it a case of needing a comparison with Typhoon – in many respects it would be most interesting if an F-16MLU/F/A-18E/F/Gripen experienced pilot flew Rafale.
If I were to be pretentious enough to correct Collins, you’d have good grounds for questioning my credentials. I am, however, qualified enough to point out that Collins is not very current, and that he has relatively little recent relevant operational experience. It’s not that he hasn’t been flying Typhoon, it’s that he hasn’t been flying anything relevant for more than 15 years, and hasn’t flown any of Rafale’s competitors.
And that’s a missed opportunity, if you want to learn.
If however, you just want someone to be blown away and enthusiastic, then a low baseline for comparison is a great thing.
Come on Yves Robin, let me fly Rafale. I’ll be even more enthusiastic….
JackonickoFirstly, this is not about me, nor my qualifications to conduct a Rafale flight test. I have made it completely clear, I hope, that any military TP is better qualified to write a flight test than a mere journalist. I do not, as you put it: “pretend be anywhere near” Pete Collins’ “qualifications to give an expert opinion”. But I do say that there are others (though I am not one of them) who could have given an even more useful and informed opinion.
But it is about relevant experience, and the point here is that it would have been more interesting to read the views of someone who was used to modern, agile fighters, with modern, glass cockpits than someone who retired from frontline fast jet flying in the late 1980s, and from military flying more than 15 years ago.
A pilot whose frontline experience was of Harrier GR3 and Sea Harrier FRS1. (Neither of which are exactly comparable to a modern fighter in Rafale’s class).
Without much effort, Flight could have found an ex-RAF pilot with experience of the F-16MLU and Typhoon, and such a pilot would have been able to make much more interesting comparisons.
This is NOT about knocking Rafale – indeed a ringing endorsement by someone who has not flown another advanced Gen 4 fighter is a less convincing and less powerful statement that I’d have expected.
If you’re road-testing one of today’s Formula 1 cars, of course it’s better to have a 1980s rally driver (Collins) than an ordinary driver of private cars, but it would be better still to find someone who has actually driven formula one cars.
JackonickoDare,
If you gave me a Hunter FGA9 to go and play with, and then asked me to write about my experiences, you’d get to read about the best aircraft I’d ever flown solo, you’d read of the unsurpassed performance, the firepower, etc.
But it would all be a bit meaningless, because of my points of comparison are so limited, and so irrelevant (Jet Provost, Bulldog, Chipmunk, and a few snatched trips in Hawk/Jag/Canberra, etc.).
I wouldn’t know any different, and I wouldn’t know any better.
If you want to actually learn what Rafale is all about, then you want someone to fly it who is trained to evaluate aircraft (massive tick in the box for PC there), who has bags of fast jet experience (and another tick) and who can make meaningful comparisons with other similar types – preferably someone who has also flown as many of the following list as possible:
Gripen, Typhoon, F-15, F-16, F/A-18, MiG-29M, and Su-35.
The opinions of someone who doesn’t have that experience are bound to be less useful, less interesting, and less relevant.
Asking Pete Collins about Rafale is a bit like asking a homosexual about having sex with Brigitte Bardot. He may have lots of experience, but it’s not exactly directly relevant!
Jackonicko“What exactly is your own credential as a combat or test pilot for jets?”
I have no combat experience of any kind, and no test pilot qualification either.
As a PPL with some stick time in military jets, I’m no more than an interested observer.
Giving the test to Pete Collins is obviously infinitely better than giving it to me or to someone like Craig Hoyle, since Collins is a trained test pilot, and I’m not.
But it would have been FAR better to give it to someone who could make meaningful comparisons with Rafale’s competitors.
JackonickoLoke,
I would not for one moment want to take anything away from this rave review of a great aeroplane, which is clearly a joy to fly, and I’m glad that Dare/Global has given us the chance to see the unexpurgated version.
Pete Collins was the ASTOR test pilot at Broughton. He left the RAF in the early 1990s (1993). Though an ex-leader of the Reds, and a qualified and experienced Harrier GR and SHar pilot, he does not have much recent fast jet experience.
Apart from Hawk, Harrier, Sea Harrier, Mirage 2000 and Rafale, we simply don’t know what other types he has flown.
As a 1989 ETPS graduate, and later OC flying at RAE Bedford you can add Jaguar, Hunter and Canberra to the tally, as a definite, and would expect some or all of Phantom/Tornado/Buccaneer/Teen series during his ETPS course. That’s probably when he flew the Mirage 2000.
Since leaving the RAF, he was a TP for Fokker and later for KLM, and subsequently for RSL (Bombardier).
You may be surprised at the lack of any mention of Typhoon – I am not. There is no suggestion (nor even much likelihood) that he has flown Gripen, Super Hornet, Typhoon, nor even the Typhoon active cockpit. What a pity that Flight did not nominate someone with more experience of Rafale’s direct contemporaries and competitors (and preferably someone with operational flying experience of one of them), rather than someone whose FJ experience is 15 years out of date.
One hopes that Saab will now give him a ride in the Gripen NG, and that EF GmbH will fly him in Typhoon, so that we can get the perspective of someone who has flown all three. He may, of course, still rate Rafale highest, but it would be interesting to know.
Or perhaps a French magazine will have the wit to get an experienced Rafale pilot to do a Typhoon flight test. This is like getting a Mirage IIIE pilot to do one. It’s still interesting, he’s still a trained FJ TP, and he still makes interesting points, but it is a bit of a missed opportunity.
JackonickoIt’s great that they finally integrated the AESA, catching up with Rafale
1)
They haven’t integrated their definitive planned operational AESA, they’ve mated its ‘front end’ to an existing PS-05 ‘back end’ for testing. They haven’t even turned it on in the air!
2)
You could say that represents catching up with Rafale, in that the AESA RBE-2 is still far short of the planned operational standard, though in fairness, it is worth pointing out that the French AESA has undergone a great deal more development and testing in Rafale.
On the other hand, this isn’t just an AESA, it’s a Swashplate AESA, so when the Swede’s do reach the same development status, they won’t have ‘caught up’ Rafale, they’ll have overtaken it by a huge margin, by effectively jumping forward by a generation of AESA technology.
I’d say that that hasn’t happened YET.
JackonickoBloodshot.
Deluded.
The limiting factor in the MKI is not the pilot. India’s are among the world’s best.
You could put Biggles himself in an MKI and he’d lose to a Typhoon.
Jackonicko……….. and ordering ‘off the shelf’ from ‘proven’ US suppliers does not always save you from delay, cost growth and the kind of monumental problems that make BAE’s and Westland’s ****-ups look like ‘minor difficulties’.
Eg: C-130J……….
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