Pilots commented that the Captor tracks
I have underlined “tracks” as some people tend to over read this.

Well it still doesn’t tell if it’s in STT or TWS tracking mode. And if it is in TWS, it doesn’t tell what scan volume (both azimut and elevation) is considered.

BTW, It also doesn’t tell the LPI efficiency.

And how many times do you and everybody else have to be told that JOUST is nothing to do with the Eurofighter consortium.

And how many times should we recall that the real joust simulation was never ment to compare fighters based on wrong data as BAE did for marketing purpose.

Again Joust purpose was to assess typhoon – and typhoon only – A2A efficiency improvment with various sensors, missiles, engine upgrades when confront to a standard virtual threat (approaching something in the class of the SU-35)

I don’t believe that these commonalities will impact either proposal by a significant amount, because at the end of the day, IAF Mirage fleet is just 50 odd planes strong. The equipment for stuff like testing, maintenance etc is totally different in many cases from what would be used for Rafale etc. Its also been indigenized and sourced from local vendors in some cases.

….

Also, I dont believe that commonalities in weapons etc will also impact costs for each bid itself. Weapons packages for all types are negotiated separately. Some Rafale supporters have believed that because IAF negotiated for the Mirage 2000 package, that will help Rafale. Well, yes, in terms of commonly used weapons, sure – but at the end of the day, thats an addition but not the main deal by itself because the weapons package for each MMRCA bid are part of the proposal itself and for those 126 or 189 planes. Not dependent on using existing or previously negotiated weapons.

…

But all said and done, the Rafale is no Mirage 2000-5. It will come with significantly different systems in several cases. Yes, some may be common and help IAF, but its not likely to be the decider for the bid.

In some ways, similar to the debate about how choosing the EJ-200 for LCA MK2 would help EF for the MMRCA. Ultimately, MOD and IAF treated it like a completely different proposal.

Well in the hypothesis of a rafale victory, evething will make sens

If you ask me, everything seems to converge inexorably toward the Rafale.
I may be wrong, but It just looks as if the Rafale was the chosen one since the end of the trials and that the typhoon had just been added in the shortlist to pressure Dassault on the price and tot

Do they really claim “huge” superiority? They claim superiority, but do they claim that the Rafale is a bad or incompetent fighter? I don’t think so!

Well yes, they did give figures with their JOUST interpretation…showing the Rafale as cleary (not slitly) inferior.

And the result is that (Quoting Seer a few post above) :

“Even a top of the line upgraded Flanker, at Chinese levels of tech., will at best be equal to the Rafale in A2A IMO, and worse than the EF which is optimized for A2A.”

This is not proven and only based on Eurofighter wild claims
Tell me why the Rafale could not performed as well as the EF against Seer’s “top of the line upgraded Flanker” ?
Both aircraft may use different ways to achieve air superiority but I would certainly not rank the EF way of doing A2A (raw force) above the Rafale one (smart force)

That being said, I agree with you that Dassault was not smart to let eurofighter spread the picture of a rafale with an average A2A capability without responding (comparative advertising is not a French habits). They also obviously underestimated the power of new media such as internet to spread that image all over the english speaking world (ie all the world minus France)
Now, they have waken up (a bit late though) and you can see that through the various French Air Force debriefings.

In the end the Rafale holds its promises. However, I wouldn’t describe the Typhoon as a failure or as having not proven to be a good fighter per se. It’s largely oversimplified to conclude this from two DACT events, when the aircraft has been in service for years and performing well during countless different exercises and evaluations as well.

That’s my point. I’ve just said that the Typhoon didn’t manage to show any superiority over the Rafale and you interpret that as “The Typhoon has not proven to be a good fighter” …
…as if being equal to the Rafale was meaning “not very good in A2A”.

Typhoon is a tremendous A2A fighter, there is no question about that. But the fact is that the Rafale is as good (but for different reasons).

That’s strange because I’ve seen them close and they do look different fit and finish wise.

For those that have not seen them up close this may help you decide on fit and finish.

Cheers

Band x spectrum pictures would be more relevant IMHO.

JOUST is a man in the loop simulator network for study purposes and these studies were conducted by DERA, not Eurofighter. We have been through all of this counless times since years and I think we can all agree on the fact that those study results from the early 90s are hardly representive or relevant today. And for the record the Rafale was apparently the third best western fighter in that study! Actually not too bad and certainly not a “bomb truck only certification”! Anyway I think it’s long overdue to move ahead, but it looks like many of you French guys are stuck with JOUST. I always understood the French frustration in the past, but nowadays I have to say that I’m disappointed by the course many of you have taken. You can’t complain all the time about the evil (often falsly assigned) Eurofighter propaganda and prejudices against the Rafale

Eurofighter Gmbh has been insidiously undermining the Rafale A2A capabilities since the JOUST times. JOUST is a DERA study indeed, but perfidiously used by the eurofighter consortium to present the Rafale as vastly inferior to the Typhoon to counter su-27 types threat.
The damages of this propaganda on the Rafale A2A capabilities perception are still there despite what you say, and the Eurofigter gmbh own interpretation of the Joust sim pops up on a regular basis even nowadays in very popular and specialized aviation website (and almost everytime in non specialized media). Here in Brazil in 2010 for example:

http://www.aereo.jor.br/2010/03/19/opeval-do-eurofighter/

Feel free to show us a single source from Eurofighter itself stating that the Rafale is just a low level bomb truck!

Besides joust, eurofigter is still denigrating the A2A value of the Rafale in its official pubilications…
Of course their tone is more polite (hypocrite) than mine but everybody get the picture. BTW, I don’t have to dig deep to satisfy your request. from EF world march 2010 :

when many of you are just as ignorant, unfair towards other non French types, the much hated Typhoon in particular! I see so many prejudices and myths spread about the Typhoon that it’s not even remotely funny anymore! What’s even more curious is that most of you should know better, but you don’t. I really wonder whether I was just utterly wrong when it came to my perception of you guys or whether you just have changed? I want to note tgat this later part isn’t specifically aimed at you TMor, more to some of your colleges about whom I had a higher opinion in the past than I have today. Just food for thought and my 2ct

The gut and sometimes irrational reaction of many frenchmen (including me, I admit) regarding typhoon today is the result of a decade of eurofighter communication patronizing the Rafale and belittleing its A2A merits, based on nothing.
So when somebody ask me to provide “the list of results of every single Typhoon deployment in A/A engagements that took place at every altitudes other than high” in order to disprove this selfclamed superiority I hope you understand how puzzled I am.

Really? Can you back those up with sufficiant, reliable data or is it just hot air?

Do you really want to compare the scan speed and beam agility of the PESA RBE-2 to the MSA captor ?
The factor is something around 100 to 1 or so
In TWS mode, the mode of choice for BVR engagement with maximum SA, the captor scan volume and range is reduced quite a bit, whereas the RBE-2 can work at its full potential.
Typhoon suporters always like to point out the lower raw range of the RBE-2, forgeting all the advadtages brought by the electronic scaning technology : far better TWS scan volume, less track loss, better LPI capability, 3 key feature during a BVR engagment.

Who by?

Eurofighter Gmbh in various publications, official power points and web sites

Wrt the bold bit, I’m not quite sure what you mean, is it better or isn’t it?

better at intercepting high altitude soviet bombers.
Unfortunatetly for the typhoon this this not the only air threat around.

The rest, well lets be fair for both fighters & give them AESA radars that will be integrated for both of them to make it more clear.

or let’s talk about the Typhoon A2A efficiency with an AESA radar when it will actually get it.

Rafale’s RBE2-AA: IIRC(? – corrections welcome) around 1000 TR modules, not fitted to a ‘Repositioner’ giving it a much lower WFoR than the Captor-E and a much smaller radar in general due to the limited small size of Rafale’s nose area.

So the typhoon can have its repositionner but the Rafale can’t have its side antennas ?
again, let’s talk about all those upgrades when they will be there (do you want to bet what plane will get them first ?)

In terms of performance; at much higher altitudes it’s no secret that the Typhoon is regarded one of the best in these regimes of which its not quite the case with Rafale if recent reports are anything to go by, however thats not to say the latter is a slouch.

again good to intercept high altitude air threats, not so good to deal with low altitude intruders.
BTW, very high altitude cruising does have drawbacks regarding detection range. You are easier to detect in both the IR and EM spectrum from below and your radar has to deal with the ground clutter.

Concerning systems such as DASS and SPECTRA; well since these systems are very classified and very little is known about these its next to impossible to define anything. I understand that in the RAF at least, DASS is a “We DO NOT talk about this” subject, and I’m sure its the same for SPECTRA’s case in France.

Did i say something on those systems ? I think not.

Do you know the reasons why they’re not operating over Afghanistan? Germany, Italy and Spain’s contribution over Afghanistan in the past 10 years wrt to fixed wing fighters, or bombers in this case, have been quite little, the Luftwaffe deployed Tornados for recce roles I remember. The RAF on the other hand have had quite a significant presence in Afghanistan wrt to fixed wing fighter/bombers with the Harrier GR7/9 and now currently with Tornado GR4. RAF Typhoons were due to be deployed to Afghanistan in 2008/9 but was soon called off because RAF Typhoon crews were tasked to help train Saudi Typhoon crews in the UK. Because of that, there were not enough RAF Typhoons and pilots to train future Saudi pilots, operate QRA/CAP sorties over the UK, The Falklands, parts of Europe and be deployed to Afghanistan. One of them had to be dropped and it was the deployment to Afghanistan. It wasn’t because the Typhoons couldn’t perform CAS roles, it was small numbers.

All those “reasons” looks like poor excuses that are difficult to swallow after all the noise made by eurofighter Gmbh about the typhoon multirole capabilities since the last 3 years.

And yes, people keep saying how many sorties the Rafale flew, what do you want, a medal?

No, I just want lies written in the press to be corrected.
The Telegraph article says that the Typhoon campaign in Libya is the factor that make it leads the MMRCA contest. That is simply wrong.
It give the impression to the reader that the Typhoon has outperformed the Rafale in Libya which is false by an enormous margin.

And the past 20+ years the FAF/Navy has destroyed a tiny portion through various conflicts when compared the RAF. The US even more so than ours put together. Big deal.

irrelevant to the debate unless the typhoon destroyed at least one of these tagets
Did it ?

Theres no secret that the Rafale is more up to date in A/G than the Typhoon is

As we speak today, it is also more advanced in A2A. the slight kinetic advandage that the Typhoon might have does not compensate for it’s slow radar scaning/agility, average RCS/IR signature management and long range target identification. Not to mention the lack of IIR medium range A2A missile.

The assertion spread during 15 years that the typhoon was the 2nd best (in A2A) only to the F-22 has proven to be wrong.

Ok, It might be a better raw cold war bomber interceptor… but as far as the whole spectrum of A2A missions is concerned it doesn’t show anything special facing the Rafale (quite the contrary in fact).

Oh, just like the Mirage did for the Rafale over Afghanistan? Of course.

What does it have to do with the libyan operation ?
It’s true, that the Rafale used Mirage, sem and TacP laser targeting in Afghanistan but that was 4 years ago (and it did that from both land and aircraft carrier BTW).
As early as 2008 the Rafale was autonomous in Afghanistan with the AASM.

BTW, we are still waiting for the Typhoon to show its wings in Afghanistan but I’m affraid that we will never see that miracle happen. 300 typhoon delivered to 4 countries that are actually involved in Afghanistan for 10 years and none of them managed to send a single Typhoon over there.

In 2011, in Libya, the gap with the Typhoon is even more huge. The Rafale was able to perform every missions from day one (day -21 some might even say) SWEEP, SEAD, CAS, interdiction, stand off strike, recce, elint, b-b refueling.
Hopefully the Libyan navy stayed in the ports ortherwise the Rafale would have demonstrated how deadly the last version of the exocet is.

Those articles published in the UK press spreading the idea that the Typhoon did more or as well as the Rafale in Libya are simply big lies.

The fact is that the Rafale flew 2000 sorties, almost all multirole, while the Typhoon flew only 600 many of them being pure A2A sorties (with nothing to shoot at).

Sorry but for a plane developped at the same time as the Rafale, by 4 countries, the actual available capabilities in 2011 are very very desapointing.

Buildings, armour, satelite/radar & communication systems, anti-aircraft batteries, weapons depots, other various vehicles, ships, boats etc.

That’s nice but again that’s only a tiny portion of the targets destroyed by the Rafale fleet.