I’ve already evidenced my claim above. You should read, before you write. To repeat myself, the Typhoons are fairly busy with air taskings, the Tornadoes have much less to do, therefore its not worth sending a Typhoon to A’stan. Sure, if Tornado GR4 could properly cover QRA, then maybe we could debate which of Typhoon and Tornado should do the QRA and which should do A’stan. The Tornado is also going to reach its end of service before Typhoon, so if we are going to use up airframe hours, it would be best to do so on the Tornado GR4, not the Typhoons.

To take the “experience” point, how much experience will a Tornado pilot get sitting in a hangar whilst Typhoon pilots do all the strike taskings and all the air defence taskings? 😎

Or they just won’t deploy any ever 🙂

What about Germany, Italy and spain ?

……

Awaiting the UAE
DSI special edition , August 2010

With the general Alain SILVY
Deputy Chief Plans within the Staff of the Air Force.

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?137433-Rafale-News&p=5133158&viewfull=1#post5133158

I stand corrected then.
10% is not much though.

http://rafalenews.blogspot.com/2011/02/thales-aesa-rbe-2-modules-pattern.html

Comes close to the mathematical prediction based on diameter of 840 😉

The real question is why Dassault kept misinform with “around 1000” 😮

May be because it is the truth ?

Also, You should have quoted the whole paragraph :

The RBE-2 AA picture released yesterday by Thales has raised a polemic all around the web. Indeed, the number of modules of the presented antenna is exacly 838, which is almost 20% less than the usually advertised “1000 modules” for this radar.
However it is not known if the picture shows the actual radar. It could be an earlier prototype or a dummy. One thing is sure, though: it is exactly the same antenna (same pattern) as the one shown in the previous pictures of the RBE-2 AA

Rafale will be a ripoff now or in the future (with spare parts prices, often has been termed highway robbery).

Tech transfer means that Brazil will make most of its own spare parts.

As far as the “robbery” part of your message is concerned, I think you should have a look at the aerospace roberry log book of a certain asian country.

Su-27/33, dolphins and Super Frelon (just to name a few examples among many) should ring a bell.

Remember the RAFALE was eliminated once and reinstated after Sarkozy called the Indian PM personally and ask him to let it in the pipeline

and 1 year after that, the Rafale was said to be among the 2 finalists…

Virtually every aircrafts of the MMRCA has been eliminated or announced as being the winner a least once. And each time it was bogus info.

You aren’t serious, are you? Is it unusual to use a dedicated fighter for such roles? The vast majority of AFs around the world must be fools to employ fighters in that role rather than trainers, which aren’t much faster than an airliner, have no radar etc.

The problem is not the role. it’s the place.
A £70 millions fighter to defend a piece of rocks that nobody will attack and 10000 km away any current hot war zone.
That’s a waste of british taxpayer money. period.

Good god and Dassault, LM, Sukhoi and insert what ever manufacturer you like doesn’t try to sell their products as the greatest thing since sliced bread

Well it’s BAE, not the others who claims to be the 2nd best in A2A, one inch behing the F-22 and far above everything else.
After many exercices, it has failed to prove any superiority at all over the Rafale… just to name one.

And that the F-22 is the most capable aerial fighter in service today is no news and acknowledged virtually everywhere.

Apparently, it is usefull to remind the fact that the typhoon is far inferior to the F-22 in A2A, and not just slightly inferior as many people think in the UK.

Why should the RAF send their Typhoons to Afghanistan when the Tornado GR4’s are already doing a fine job in CAS?

As I said, to confront the plane and the men serving it to the reality of a war deployment, operate it in rude conditions, far from its usual cosy base

No need to deploy a full squadron for that. A 3-4 aircrafts would be enough

Good for them, they’ve been in service bit longer than Typhoon so they’ve had more time it’s A/G abilities to be developed.

Typhoon is supposed to be ready for A/G mission.

My point is UK is sending her best fighter jet, the typhoon, to the Falklands … where there is absolutly no threat at all !

And it is even more bizarre when, at the same time, UK is at war in Afghanistan.

Deployment of the Typhoon to Afghanistan was advertise by UK 3 years ago, so despite what you say, the RAF did feel the need to send them over there.

Reasons for that are obvious :
1- As said, testing the plane at war
2- real combat experience for pilots and ground crews (don’t tell me Typhoon pilots are happy to go to the Falklands where they will learn nothing because nothing happens there :rolleyes:)
3- combat proven label for the eurofighter GmBh com.

My conclusion is that
either Typhoon is simply not ready for A2G mission, even in a low intensity theatre like Afghanistan.
or the RAF came to realize that it is so expensive to operate that it is better to send them where they will have no chance to see action.

No need to invent bogus excuses like “there is not enough planes” or “we need to protects the Falklands from sea gull attacks” :diablo: