“the saw tooth for RCS reduction a very visible on theese pics.”

So’s the fixed refuelling probe, and the boxy RWRs…..

I wonder whether the probe was retractable when the bulk of the RCS reduction design was done…..

It’s a pretty aeroplane, to be sure.

For Typhoon to be a true long range bomber (as opposed to a BAI/CAS platform) they’ll have to use the CFTs. They seem to be looking hard at these, right now.

The reason you don’t see Rafale at Farnborough is because Dassault choose not to send one. You can ask the SBAC, or you can ask Dassault themselves. It’s simply not true that the SBAC are not welcoming of foreign participation, nor that they have not tried to encourage Dassault to send the aircraft. You’ll notice that Dassault didn’t send a jet to Dubai, either, and have been much more focused in where they spend their marketing Euros for several years.

Rafale has fired Scalp, and it’s notionally in frontline service. I use the term notionally because (as I understand) it full operational clearance has not been completed. AASM is in a similar position – available for use in extremis but not fully cleared.

ASMP is further down the track.

Rafale has a significant range advantage over Typhoon, and can carry considerably more external fuel. It is also cleared to carry smaller, lighter, more useful weapons, which allow fuel to account for more of the payload.

Rafale is more stable than Typhoon, and promises to be more stable at low level. The FCS will have to work less hard when it comes to gust alleviation, etc.

What a pity that intelligent French aviation enthusiasts can’t take gentle, measured criticism of Rafale without descending into petulance and abuse.

I’m a huge admirer of Rafale’s air-to-ground potential, and I’ve always acknowledged that the Rafale programme has often been better managed than Typhoon’s, resulting in more rapid progress and better cost control.

I’ve always acknowledged Rafale’s superior range, and its suitability for French requirements. I’ve always said that Rafale makes a better carrier aircraft than Typhoon ever would, and I’ve always praised the aircraft’s low level capabilities and impressive range. I’ve frequently praised and envied the more advanced state of weapons integrations on Rafale, and the simple but very useful triple carriage arrangement for LGBs and the AASM.

I didn’t mention Typhoon in my last post, except to acknowledge that Rafale’s current A-G capabilities are “far and away better than Typhoon.”

I’m hardly a dyed in the wool Rafale hater, as TMor tries to paint me.

Nor am I an unqualified admirer of Typhoon (and you raised the subject of Typhoon on this thread, TMor). I’ve written about the programme’s poor management, about the political in-fighting and delays, about the development difficulties (including the fin skin problem), and about the mismanaged early export campaigns. I’ve criticised the delays to the in service date, and the slow and unduly conservative approach to incorporating air-to-ground capabilities, conformal fuel tanks, and about the failure to provide an interim helmet mounted sight. I’ve stepped in on another thread to counter over-exaggerated claims about Typhoon’s A-G capabilities.

As to TMor’s questions:

-what are the LERX on the DA5,
I don’t know, nor do you. EADS won’t talk about them and won’t show the jet to journos. I’m not going to speculate on the basis of two photos. Fine tuning AoA handling? Perhaps. RCS tailoring? Less likely, but possible. Dealing with a possible gun gas ingestion problem? Who can say?

-did the Typhoon trained against F-22?
I don’t know, nor do you. It’s explicitely denied by some, and claimed by others. When the claims were originally made, I now believe that they were mistaken – with confusion arising over a different incident, involving a different stealthy platform. I suspect that the two types may have had some kind of DACT evaluation since then, though I wouldn’t think that ordinary squadron aircrew have trained against each other.

-what the problem with vibrations around the air intake at Mach1.6 on your ugly Typhoon?
There are no aerodynamic, flutter, vibration or structural problems that affect the in service clearance or limit the envelope.

Why over costs?
Typhoon’s unit flyaway cost is higher than that of Rafale. Higher than it should be. The Austrian’s paid €62 m per jet, the RAF paid £45.5 m for its Tranche 1 jets, and £42 m for the Tranche 2 aircraft. That’s a unit flyaway, as we understand it – and higher figures have been published, but these included big elements of programme costs.

So what has provoked this outburst?

TMor asked: “And how many of them can do it efficiently, with a kill ratio only second to a dedicated fighter ? I mean NOW.” This inferred that Rafale was the best swing role fighter in service today – which is a questionable claim, at best.

I had the cheek to suggest that when it comes to air-to-ground capabilities integrated and cleared for real frontline service today (that’s TODAY), the F-15E offers more than Rafale (just as Rafale enjoys that same advantage over Typhoon). Only a fool would deny that the F-15E doesn’t have more weapons and more A-G capability TODAY, and NOW is what we were talking about. If that’s “disgusting to French posters” then they need to put the nationalism aside and recognise reality.

The Rafale is a good A-G aircraft, and will be a great one, but today (and only today), the F-15E is more useful and more capable. As I said, I’d rather wait for Rafale, if I had to choose between the two.

In the short term, Rafale enjoys a significant A-G advantage – as of today it has a cleared frontline A-G capability (albeit with a slender selection of weapons), while Typhoon has not.

Even when the Typhoon does have its Austere A-G capability cleared, it will be cleared with just the gun, 1,000-lb Enhanced Paveways and dumb 1,000-lb bombs, while the Rafale will have (or will soon have) LGBs, Scalp, and AASM, and will get further A-G clearances before Typhoon does. If I were a betting man, I’d lay money on Rafale getting mixed A-G loads before Typhoon does, too.

Rafale will also continue to enjoy a range advantage in many A-G configurations until the Typhoon’s CFTs are road-mapped and developed.

So you’re wrong, Planeman, to claim that there is “no signinficant gap between the Rafale AtoG compared to the Typhoon.” There is a gap now, and it will remain significant for some time.

That’s hardly a surprise, since Rafale was always more optimised for A-G missions than Typhoon. The question is whether Typhoon’s A-G capabilities are ‘good enough’?

As JW Cook points out, the radar’s A-G capabilities are robust and entirely consistent with ‘omni role’ scenarios, while in the post Cold War world, EPW and Litening are the single most useful capability you can have. Would I like to see triple carriage of smaller weapons? Of course. Do I envy Rafale its AASM capability? Sure – a useful version of Brimstone is still years away.

Typhoon’s A-G capabilities are good enough for a bit of BAI/CAS, but if you need a real long range strike capability, and you need it quickly (not sometime after 2012) then no, they probably aren’t good enough.

But Arthuro and all the other French Rafale fans are badly (if understandably) mistaken when they attempt to play down the even more significant advantages that the Typhoon enjoys over Rafale in the A-A role, especially since Typhoon’s edge (conferred by a superior radar, better supersonic agility, better acceleration, better rate of climb, a better helmet, better DVI, and a vastly superior MMI) is only being increased by recent decisions on Rafale’s OSF, and on the Gerfaut helmet.

The question is whether Rafale’s A-A capabilities are ‘good enough’? If your requirement is merely to achieve a favourable exchange rate, then yes, probably, and once the aircraft gets rid of RBE2, reinstates the helmet and full OSF, then yes, certainly.

But if losing one of your own aircraft for every two or three enemy aircraft you shoot down is not acceptable, then no, Rafale’s A-A capabilities are not good enough.

SoC,

Two UK TPs (Dave Southwood and Colin Cruikshank) flew the F-117 before the aircraft was in full operational service, and there was a UK exchange officer on the type almost from the start. There must now be about nine RAF ‘Bandits’.

Bandit number>name>previous type>qualification date
1) Bandit 282 – Squadron Leader Graham Wardell, RAF, (ex-Jags) 14 DEC 88
2) Bandit 354 – Squadron Leader Chris Topham, RAF, (ex-Jags) 27 FEB 91
3) Bandit 436 – Squadron Leader Ian Wood, RAF, (ex-Jags) 11 JAN 94
4) Bandit 481 – Squadron Leader Mark Sutton, RAF, 21 FEB 96
5) Bandit 540? – Squadron Leader Al Monkman, RAF, (ex-Tornado) 3 APR 98
6) Bandit ??? – Squadron Leader Linc (Link?) Taylor, RAF, (ex Harrier)
7) Bandit 625 – Squadron Leader Ritchie Matthews, RAF, (ex-Jags) 2003
8) Bandit ??? – Squadron Leader Charlie Cooke, RAF, (ex-Jags) (2005-2007)
plus
Colin Cruikshank and Dave Southwood of FJTS who had five flights each in 1985 or 1986 at Groom Lake or Tonopah (sources differ).

The first RAF B-2 pilot was Flight Lieutenant David Arthurton.

Arthuro,

You talk both sense, and nonsense.

Certainly the lack of priority accorded to A-G capabilities make both F-22 and Typhoon much less useful for current operations – where the air threat is entirely absent, though I would question the assumption that A-A capability may not one day be pivotal (in a world in which the Su-27/30/35 and MiG-29 family are being widely ‘proliferated’), and it’s certainly extremely debateable as to whether F-15, Rafale or F-35 have sufficient A-A capability to give them a big enough advantage over developed threat aircraft.

It’s also simplistic to dismiss the A-G potential of either the F-22 or Typhoon – though Typhoon’s range will be a limiting factor in some ops unless or until CFTs are incorporated.

But (as I’ve pointed out in a number of recent posts) the Rafale is already an excellent A-G aircraft, and will remain more useful than Typhoon for current operations for some time to come, though it needs investment if it is to fully realise its considerable potential in the A-G role in general, and the CAS role in particular.

And it is simplistic to brand Typhoon as a Cold War dinosaur simply because of the emphasis on A-A capabilities in the initial release to service. The aircraft’s deployability, maintainability and guaranteed availability make it very much a great post Cold War aircraft, with contractually guaranteed low costs of ownership and an ability to be deployed out of area with little support infrastructure, and to operate from austere locations.

You talk absolute nonsense about Rafale winning technical evaluations. It certainly did not do so in Singapore (as was WIDELY reported in JDW, Flight, and Av Week at the time, and not just by one journalist), and I have seen no more than claims that it did so in Korea, though I am personally inclined to give the claims some credence in Korea.

Nor is the piece in the Trib credible. Out of date even when it was written, and penned by a general reporter with no specialist knowledge, on the basis of interviews with Bob Kemp (Gripen’s marketing manager) and Francois Moussez (an Armee de l’Air officer, but openly and deliberately used by Dassault as a Rafale mouthpiece in just the same way as EF GmbH have used people like Charlie Chan or Matt Elliott, or Bob Judson), even you must realise that it’s far from representing any kind of independent (let alone balanced thought).

Nice videos, I suppose, Hyperwarp, but these, like all of the Typhoon vids on the internet, seem to show the least impressive displays.

The HAVV roll on the first link (video ‘part 2’ at about 2 mins 50, and at about 2m55 on the second link) is extremely timid and half hearted, and the display lacks the energy, agility and aggression of the earlier displays – especially those by Keith Hartley, which really demonstrated Typhoon’s superiority.

There’s a marginally better HAVV roll at about 1.20 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S-Ae0WzGiY&feature=related