I recall that Gripen International handled the Austrian sale.

But even if BAE did it, there were strict firewalls between Gripen and Typhoon sales.

And the Austrian Typhoon sale was handled by EADS anyway.

The idea of BAE ‘dirty tricks’ is therefore a lot of bol.locks

Arthuro,

The only allegations of bribery in Saudi Arabia relate to the earlier Al Yamamah (Typhoon/Hawk) programme and those charges remain unsubstantiated. The UK’s senior law officer decided that there was insufficient evidence to justify further action, and the circumstances of the payments (from HMG to the Saudi MODA, using BAE as the channel, but with all payments authorised by the UK government) have been made pretty clear.

There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever of bribes relating to the Typhoon contract, and it is dishonest and dishonourable to suggest otherwise. Were your professor to make such allegations, he’d find himself sued.

Whereas Dassault have historically been found guilty of using outright bribes – though never in support of selling Rafale. Dragging up unproven allegations from ancient history, that are irrelevant to present campaigns, is a useless and shabby smear.

Toan,

It should be very natural that both F-15K and Rafale had much better score than Eurofighter, since at that time (2001-2003), the A to G capability of Eurofighter is near zero.

It’s depressing that so little has changed on this front.

Bgnewf,

You’ve had some fairly one-sided tub-thumping answers so far.

Suffice it to say that the Dutch evaluation was a paperwork exercise concentrating on economic and industrial factors, between an unflown F-35, an immature Typhoon, and an in service Rafale. At that time, the Rafale deservedly won over the Eurofighter. Then (and at many times since) the Rafale programme has looked well-run and on-track. That has rarely been the case for Typhoon.

In Korea, Typhoon was firmly in third place, and at that stage of its development probably didn’t deserve that. The Koreans who flew it loved the aircraft, but it simply wasn’t mature enough to meet Korean timescales, and you must bear in mind that the Koreans wanted an operational strike fighter, not a pilot-pleasing airshow aircraft, which is what Typhoon was, at the time. Rafale came first or second, depending on who you believe. History records that the F-15 was selected and procured.

Singapore is controversial. I am just one of a number of journos who spoke to RSAF pilots on the evaluation team, who said that Typhoon was their favoured choice, but that they were overruled by MinDef because Typhoon could not (or might not) meet Singaporean timescales for particular capability requirements. With the Tranche 2 production contract signed late, and the NETMA nations unable to get their ducks in a row to get Tranche 2 capabilities on contract, I think that the Singaporean MinDEF were absolutely right to reject Typhoon, and after the badly run campaign, to do so in as humiliating a manner as was possible. The Rafale fans like to say that Rafale beat Typhoon in Singapore, but while I believe that that’s true overall in Korea, I don’t believe it to be the case in Singapore. Again history records that the F-15 was selected and procured.

In both cases, the geopolitical advantages of buying American may have been absolutely compelling, and there would have been a lot of arm-twisting tactics along the lines we’ve seen in so many F-16 sales. “This is a token of being an ally of the USA in the war against terror….”, “You’re either with us or against us…” arguments that have hit Gripen International hard, and have doubtless been marshalled against Dassault.

There will now be howls of anguish and anger because I’m making claims based on “what I’ve been told”, and because there aren’t handy internet links backing up what I say. Believe me/don’t believe me, I don’t really care. To be honest, Singapore and Korea are ancient history, and both Typhoon and Rafale are very different programmes today, and customers can have a much higher degree of confidence in both aircraft.

Rafale’s lack of export success is surprising. The aircraft is more competitively priced than Typhoon, and has been chronologically ahead of Typhoon in development and delivery of useable capabilities for years. The aircraft’s multi role capabilities are real, demonstrated and combat proven.

However, some customers are willing to wait for capabilities, and some may have been put off by Rafale’s PESA radar. Others may have been deterred by mistakes in some campaigns. I remember hearing that in at least one campaign, Dassault and the French defence export organisation were quoting dramatically different prices, and that the offer of Rafale was being made contingent on the country in question purchasing other French equipment. Dassault, in other words, were having their efforts sabotaged by an arm of their own government, which is frustrating and depressing (and entirely familiar to a Brit!).

It’s a good aircraft, and Dassault are EXTREMELY unlucky not to have clocked up a sale. The failure to sell to Morocco and Libya is especially puzzling.

Rafale’s big opportunity for a breakthrough, in my view, is right now. Typhoon is again mired in uncertainty (when are they going to sign the Tranche 3 production contract?), and there are real doubts as to how real the RAF’s austere air to ground declaration was (they declared the capability before a frontline aircraft had dropped a live bomb!). The aircraft failed to make the much anticipated ‘flag waving’ deployment to Kandahar and more advanced air-to-ground capabilities than those outlined in P1E remain poorly defined. However good Typhoon looks as an A-A aircraft (and the Rafale fans here will, no doubt, fiercely dispute that!), and however great its potential might be, “right here, right now” Typhoon has something of a credibility problem. That problem should be easy to overcome, but there’s no sign of that happening.

Rafale needs a launch export customer, because some of its prospects may be unlikely as first overseas customers, but might sign up more readily if others had already done so.

The Mirage 2000 is fantastically well regarded in India, and Rafale must therefore have a core of support among sections of the IAF. India want multi-role, and Rafale’s A-G credibility is riding high, while Typhoon’s has been eroded in recent months. India is a carrier nation, and there is a carrier version of Rafale.

Rafale must be in with a good chance in India.

There is a similar Dassault/Mirage heritage in Brazil, and in the Gulf States, and indeed in Switzerland. I’d suspect that those existing links are important in Brazil, significant in the Gulf, and less so in Switzerland.

The Swiss are smart cookies, and I’d expect them to cut through the hype. Will they see Typhoon as being close to ready for multi-role, or still very much an AD fighter? What will they make of Rafale? Would they be happy to be potentially a first/only export customer, even if they do like it?

The Swiss have threatened to make a lot of their decision making/evaluation public, which should be interesting. 😀

They’re ‘Hips’. Two are already painted up.

I’d treat these reports with some caution, personally.

They may well turn out to be true, but so far, they’re from a Greek site and an obscure US site, which isn’t where you’d necessarily expect the first such news to come from.

The talk about Raptor RCS doesn’t ring right, to me. I believe that Typhoon may be able to detect a full-up, stealthy F-22 at ranges that might surprise us, but I don’t see the USAF allowing that at this stage. In exercises with foreign air forces, the F-22s inevitably fly unstealthed, with radar reflectors and transponders on. And if 17 flew with them in any other configuration, I can’t imagine anyone talking about it. The Typhoon force has proved to be very good at keeping the lid on both good and bad news in recent months.

And there still aren’t many PIRATE equipped jets, either, for there to be a lot of comment about its performance from line pilots.

The Typhoon boys are obviously co.ck a hoop with the aircraft, and enjoyed the US deployment. They obviously feel that they have the measure of any teen series fighter, but the F-22 seems to be viewed with great respect, and they remain as frustratingly tight lipped as ever about kill ratios on exercise.

I’d want a lot more evidence before I accepted these reports uncritically.

Arthuro,

Jean Paul Latrige is a Dassault employee – quoting him on Rafale is like quoting Ays Rauen or Brian Phillipson on Typhoon. I’m not saying that he’s a Typhon basher, just that he’s a patriotic Frenchman, and a loyal Dassault employee, so he naturally ‘talks up’ his own company’s product.

The Dutch CBP evaluation was a paperwork exercise, concentrating on industrial economic factors. Like the Korean evaluation, it came way too early for Typhoon – the aircraft was simply too immature, and the programme was in too much of a mess to compete. Bear in mind that the Dutch evaluation was won by a ‘paper aircraft’ that hadn’t even flown, and whose capabilities were largely undefined.

I’m quite prepared to believe that Rafale ‘beat’ the F-15 in Korea – though I don’t have reliable evidence to support that contention. I do know that the Koreans liked Typhoon, but that the evaluation team felt that the aircraft was immature, and that timescales were at such risk that Typhoon simply could not be procured, and was not viewed as a serious contender.

On Singapore, I know from neutral, non company sources that Typhoon was preferred by the RSAF evaluation team. It’s a moot point. The MinDEF overruled the team, rejected Typhoon in the most humiliating way that they could find, and then selected the F-15. At the time that they did so, the EF partner nations were still messing about not signing the Tranche 2 production contract, and the capabilities packages which Singapore needed certainty on were even further from being finalised. The reasons for Singapore’s rejection of Typhoon are obvious – there was simply too much risk in terms of timescale and capability, and I don’t blame them.

Quite the reverse. I think that they were absolutely right to reject Typhoon at that time.

Even today, I think that there is an unacceptable degree of risk on Typhoon air-to-ground packages beyond CP193 (the RAF austere A-G package). Not that they won’t happen, or that they won’t work, but that they will not happen within the currently planned timescales. For that reason it won’t surprise me if the aircraft is rejected in India and in Switzerland, though naturally I would hope that it succeeds. But when competing with Rafale for export orders, it is still a matter of ‘proven capability available now’ versus ‘promises and potential’ to some extent.

I wonder what reasons M Latrigue gave (or would give) for Rafale’s elimination in Korea and Singapore in view of his claim that it ‘won’ in both countries. (It may have done in one, it certainly didn’t in the other).

While looking at evaluations is interesting (and I think provides some comfort to both camps) we should not forget real world sales, and it is unarguable that Typhoon has 87 firm export orders, from two customers, while Rafale has none. That doesn’t prove anything, but it is part of the equation, unless you’re the kind of extreme fanboy who claims that the Saudis don’t evaluate what they buy, and who were bribed anyway, or that BAE deliberately sabotaged the Gripen bid in Austria.

With regard to MMI, I have no doubt that Rafale’s MMI marks a dramatic improvement over what has gone before, but (in my opinion) quoting Rafale pilots (who don’t know any better) is as useful as quoting a line RAF pilot’s opinion of Typhoon’s MMI, if all he knows is the Tornado, or a USAF exchange pilot whose only point of comparison is the F-15, though naturally, they all say that Typhoon’s MMI is the best thing since sliced bread. And I’m sure that you’d find the same thing if you spoke to Gripen pilots about Gripen’s MMI.

It’s the Mandy Rice Davis thing all over again. (She famously observed that: “He would say that, wouldn’t he?”)

I believe that Typhoon’s MMI is superior because that is what experienced test and evaluation pilots who have flown many types, and who have flown both Typhoon and Rafale (for real or in the respective active cockpits) have told me. Nor is the measurement of MMI entirely subjective, as there are a number of tools used to quantify it, as I’ve previously referred to.

I can guarantee that when you meet someone qualified to judge, with experience of both, you will hear the same thing. Don’t believe me, just file it away and see whether what I’ve said doesn’t make sense to you when you are exposed to such a person.

You accuse me of bias, though I’m an independent writer, with a track record of criticising Typhoon, of acknowledging Typhoon weaknesses and of acknowledging Rafale strengths, and then quote a Dassault employee at me. Do you not see a vague irony there? Do you not think that M Latrigue might not be slightly biased? Do you have examples of M Latrigue being open about Rafale weaknesses?

He might be, in private, but I can guarantee you that if he told you anything he’d prefix it with a “strictly off the record”.

Bon Chance!

I’ve got DA going back years, mostly as paper magazines. It’s simply not a priority to me to go searching for an article just to confirm something to you. I know that the stories about the different aspects of the Singaporean evaluation were not single source, and that there were things that other journos got that I didn’t.

I’d remember had I got an exclusive………

You wouldn’t believe anything I said about any conversation that showed Typhoon in a good light. “I’ve been told” is fine if it concerns Rafale, and articles from Dassault publications are taken seriously but even if I provided “details about a conversation, where and when it took place” you’d howl in protest if that conversation indicated anything negative about Rafale. Nothing that contradicts the “Rafale is 100% better than Typhoon in every respect” will ever be viewed as credible.

Only if I say something that doesn’t matter to you (or that you can use to criticise the hated Typhoon) will you accept it.

For example, at Coningsby last week, Quentin Davis (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Defence), told me that the overall, total programme cost for Typhoon, including all through life costs and support (and including disposal costs) would be £30 Bn. A senior RAF officer (who I’m not going to name) told me that £30 Bn was a figure that he “recognised”, effectively confirming the figure. Am I telling the truth? Was I at Coningsby? Have I ever spoken to an RAF officer, let alone . I can’t easily prove it, so you’ll have to use your judgement. Is it likely that a professional journo was at the handover of the first two Tranche 2 Typhoons?

And I don’t excuse your rudeness. It was unnecessary.

It would be interesting to know how many aircraft Dassault is offering the Swiss.

The requirement is thirty-odd (forgive my not looking it up) at the given total programme cost.

Gripen International claim to be the only ones who can deliver the right number of aircraft within the required total cost.

EF GmbH have offered a smaller number (22?) for that price, and hope to show that this will give the same or better capability, but are also offering the full required number at higher cost.

I wonder whether Dassault are doing something similar?

GP,

I have plenty of sources to persuade me to believe what I believe. Actually talking to people who have flown and evaluated the jets ‘trumps’ what I can find on public internet sites for me, but you can believe whatever you like, and if you rate ‘solid sources’ (company literature, press reports based on what named spokesmen have said – usually approved, party line stuff) as being more useful than real insight, then that’s your choice. There will always be people who recognise pearls when they see them, and people who won’t.

I’d gently suggest to you that anyone who doubts that Typhoon enjoys some significant advantages over Rafale in some areas probably isn’t open minded, and has no real appreciation of what balance means. (It fascinates me that you can hardly find a Typhoon fan who doesn’t acknowledge Typhoon weaknesses in some areas, whereas that most Rafale fans will never acknowledge that Typhoon has any meaningful advantages). Nonetheless, I note (and thank you for) using a less aggressive and offensive tone. Perhaps you and LardAssup aren’t one and the same person, or perhaps you’re mellowed out after a nice big French brandy……