I didn’t count, but the Mustang seems to get a lot of votes.

For me it goes something like this:-

and I guess the Mustang would be there somewhere too.

it get my vote too.

For some reason, I always rated the P-51 over the spitfire which I think is too girly for a war plane… at least in its earlier versions: the MKXIV is much cooler.

The P-51 has a very high cool factor.

I think it is important to distinguish between ‘beautiful’ and ‘cool’ – they are not the same thing and not many aircraft manage to be both. Let me explain: ‘beautiful’ is pleasing in the same sense as a Crane or, for lack of a better simile, a pretty woman. (Military) aircraft examples would be Rafale, F-16XL, the Hawker Hunter, Vigilante and the B-1B.

However while nice to look at, they aren’t necessarily scary or imposing – that’s what makes an aircraft ‘cool’, in the same way that a bull Bison or a Great White Shark (neither of which looks particularly dainty) are. Lots of classic aircraft designs fit this description, such as the B-52, F-14, EE Lightning, Saab Viggen, HP Victor, MiG-25 and even really ugly stuff like the A-10, Tu-95 and F-117.

And then there’s the exclusive group that combines both traits, elegance and brute power, like a Tiger or a Golden Eagle do. Among this rare breed are the Su-27, SR-71, Mirage IV, Tu-22M3 and TSR.2.

Fortunately there aren’t many aircraft (especially combat aircraft) that are just plain ugly, full stop. The Seamew is a good example.

I Agree
It’s time to have a scientific approch of the suject 😀 :

Mother nature gannet design
Slick, elegant, fast.. super cool

And the british interpretation of the same bird
pregnant… :p

in fact, a surface gives you a big RCS spike if it’s oriented at 90° towards the emitter… a vertical tail as such, when the aircraft is flying level, won’t give a big RCS spike unless the emitter is at the same altitude, or else, the “spike” will be reflected “upwards. The canted tails had the advantage with horizontal pitch controls as they didn’t allow a right angle between two aircraft surfaces, which could act as big reflectors to the whole portions of the space around the aircraft. On the other hand, canted tails will, necessarily, face the surface of the ground by their external surface, which make them potentially “big radar reflectors” even for the aircraft flying level, for a ground based radar that may be positioned by their 3-9 o’clock line. that RCS spike they’ll cause will be limited to the moment where their surface is facing exactly the emitter (a pretty short time, if any)

The rafale has no surfaces that are perpendicular to the tail, except the canards which, by their positioning, make it extremely improbable to have any reflection that may hurt the aircraft’s RCS by that means

More simply, it is not the fact that a tail is vertical that make it a bad choice for RCS reduction, it is the fact that IF the tail is pependicular to the fuselage or the horizontal stabilizer or the delta wing then that geometry will reflect the secondary waves directly to the emiter (whatever the emiting angle at which the radar waves hit that right angle corner reflector)

But even with that that in mind you also have to take into account the type of materials involved to be able to draw conclusions on the RCS.

In the case of the rafale,
1- a big part of the tail is behind the surface of the delta wing and as such doesn’t shape a reflection corner
2- the delta wings are tilted about 5° downward, therefore the angle between the tail and wing is not 90° but 95° which makes a difference (don’t know how much though)… As a comparison, the gripen shows an almost perfect right angle between the wings and the tail which is indeed not good as far as RCS is concerned even though, again, it doesn’t tell the whole story.
3- the surface of the wing and tail is made of carbon fiber type material completed with radar absorbing paint. Only the internal metalic structure will reflect radar emissions significantly.

So given new government has there been any news on French military acquiring additional Rafales?

From memory plan is for 272 (212 for air force and 60 for Navy). However only 180 a/c have been ordered to date.

Each order is usually for 60 units at a delivery rate of 10 to 12 a/c a year.
Each order delivery spread over 5 to 6 years.

Previous order occured in 2009 and deliveries for that order haven’t started yet. So don’t expect the next one before 2014-2015 at least…. especially if the delivery rate for the French Air Force decreases due to the Indian order.

I think 2+2+2 is a good bet, and I think this air to air configuration will make use of the two yet unused outermost wing stations thus allowing for 3 external drop tanks.

Opit, you don’t need to open new wing stations to have 6 AA missile and 3 tanks on a Rafale 😉

nice EAP video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMAM5ByBN1I