More of the same legends and commercials…

“The issue here is I have yet to read arguments as to why (and in what area) the EF would be superior to the Rafale?”

“The key area is BVR. The argument is that Typhoon has superior supersonic acceleration and better supersonic instantaneous turn rate.”

We already established that to be a legend as for the radar range as it is not level to RBE2 in LPI it would give Typhoon position away before the pilot haver any target return. Plus you’re welcome to tell us what RBE2 classified range is.

About for the gimbal angle, this will be sorted with the AESA version which as opposed to what was writen by guys like you will equip the MN/AdA aircrafts too. The difference is 10* and is the only reason why it is inferior in any way to a mechanical array.

2 Nicolas10

“Turn rate for BVR? “

He is reffering to the old cold war engagement scenario, high speed, 9 G break after AAMs firing on a target supposed to be a Russian invader.

Obviously he doesn’t know any better than the theories dated from the late 70 and the commercial stuff writen by QuinetiQ as a “simulation” to try to prove Typhoon better.

At the same supersonic speed 9 G is 9 mG and both would be able to pull 9 G or a little more, the difference is Rafale woud loose less energy at any speed to do so and will still boost a higher instantaneous turn rate too.

This advantage increasing with altitude and/or warload…

These datas were writen when Typhoon was actually weighted at 9.900 kg and are now obviously totally false guess why he insist in saying that it was always designed as a multi-role?.

Obviously he doesn’t talk about RCS at any angles nor the obvious higher IR signature of EJ-200 there…

“DVI and MMI… please elaborate as to why you would consider thenm superior. Unlike my reply to your previous arguments, this is a guenine question, and I would sure like to know more about those.”

Like the rest of it, an AdA friend of mine commented “I guess he didn’t get on with the basic explainations he was given or is there anything else???”

End of the argument.

For the real enthusiats with the guts to learn…

We got a defection here, pitty it’s not going to help him making progresses in his understanding of ther matter…

I still post this for the one who are interested on the subject…

“However I found no reliable and newer sources which gives a higher operational AoA nor a higher AoA was confirmed may be by the manufacturer or a pilot for example.”

Rafale To Offer Multirole
Mission Capability
DAVID M. NORTH/ISTRES, FRANCE

Philippe Rebourg, Dassault test pilot for the Rafale programme.

More to the point, previous to this (1991), ONERA simulated the cobra maneouvre and you can check for yourself on their site.

“Maximum angle of attack in the heavy configuration is 25 deg., while it is 30 deg. when clean. Minimum airspeed is 100 kt. for the Rafale in any configuration.”

The 30* Alopha/100 kts are given as operational, software limitations and not absolutly representative of what the aircraft can really do.

It is what they call a “soft” limit, if needed Rafale can pull a lot more AoA than this and will always be capable of generating a better lkift/drag ratio atany AoA than Typhoon by design.

To illustrate this have a look at the picture provided previous to this post, the Rafale pilot pulled a manoeuvre a little low and had to break the limiter bonus by a fair margin.

I had to correct the all frame geometry in 3DSMax but it is accurate to 1/2* and it is over 40* easly, on the video, the aircraft pull up quiet sharply and seems to be bouncing off the water.

“The pilots all said Eurofighters aerodynamics and performance is much more advanced/better than that of the MiG-29.”

Mig 29 is of the previous generation. Even if Typhoon’s aerodynamics aren’t as developed as that of Rafale it was designed to be better than these and it is.

In fact the target for manoeuvrability for Typhoon was the Su-30 serie and its primary role was BVR hig/speed high altitude interception of the threat.

“It is given with 350-360 kts for Rafale, but there’re not data about Typhoon.”

The practical truth is, at M 2.0 every aircraft can reach 9Gs including Mirage F1 if necessary, F-104-G practical G limit in GAF service was 7.5 isn’t it?.

The lower the speed, the more difficult it is to pull as high an amount of Gs than at higher speed, same goes with higher altitude; what you want in air combat is the capabiltiy to turn tight without loosing too much energy.

This is why energy sustainability is much more important that the turning point, and bleeding eneregy a rather negative point even for the more powerful aircraft.

Example:

Agressors F-5s are notorious for beating F-15Cs on a drag race, you still wouldn’t like to compare their respective TWR.

The close coupled canard/LEX/variable wing camber combination is the one which allows for the highest level of control of the lift/drag ratio throughout the entire flight envelope of a delta wing.

The Rafale M cata/trap-sequencies are the best example:

1)–leading edge flap are down;==lift

—-Trailing edge surfaces up;===pitch up

—-canards are neutral==========drag

Launch >>> acceleration toward the edge of the deck.

As soon as this point is reached, the front landing gear strut decompresses and pushes the nose up:

2)–leading edge flap are down;==lift

—-Trailing edge surfaces down;=lift

—-canards are slight negative;=attitude (pitch)

The speed at this point is <> 140/150 kt there is then a higher amount of lift from the variable camber wing and the canard swaps role with the trailing edge surfaces in pitch control.

This helps reducing drag and allow for a higer acceleration rate from lower speed.

During all this time the LEX perform their role as lift enhancing device and as the speed increases and the AoA decreases, their drag ratio get better too.

Now, compare this to Rafale landing sequency you will notice that the canards are not acting the same way nor does the trailing edge surfaces.

They are not requiered to give a constant 16* AoA during launch and the canards are not automatically pitched up at 30* as for landing configuration.

To do so the entire configuration is different and the ailerons/flaps are acting wing variable camber devices providing with a negative pitch moment so as to counter the canards pitch-up while they provide the wing with additional/energiseed airflow.

During a trap/ landing, (see the bring back pic with 3 X 1,250 l and 6X 340 kkg AASMs), the canard surfaces also allow for a noticeable reduction of AoA, therefore, minimising the drag created by the wing charcterisitics at hiher AoA.

With steeper wing sweep angle, the necessary AoA would be higher for the same amount of lift, the resulting drag would be higher lift available lower, sink rate higher.

There is a table for this and i can obviously pass some time to figure it out but not yet, im’ revising my physics first to go even further than that.

The long monent harm canard does not provide with extra lift, they can only act as pitch control surfaces, the strakes are acounting for reasonable margin of extra lift but aren’t controlable and have a lower lift/drag ratio than the LEX.

More to the point; because of their location, they are more suited to increase the airflow energy close to the wing root, this helps more the yaw control than lift unlike the much wider LEX would.

This is why the arrangement of Rafale is of a more modern design and in fact have come a full generation ahead by design evolution.

All in all in a turning fight, Typhoon would bleed more energy, need more fuel/thrust to sustain the same turning rate than Rafale but might be able to accelerate slighly faster at lower speed but only to compendsate for higher energy losses.

This althought the drag during the whole transition from high AoA to 0 AoA would still be a limiting factor, note that i assume Typhoon acceleration being better at all.

During an interview, Eric Gerard, the Rafale B display pilot was stating that Rafale always look much smoother than Mirage 2000 which is reputable for being snappy in pitc.

This doesn’t look asspectacular to the public at airshow, but he stated that in fact, Rafale would always turnchange direction faster and turn tighter than the Mirage.

This characteristic did force him to fly the aircraftr more agressively at time and just goes to show that some guys reporting the “more spectacular” display of Typhoon are more apreciatice tourists than specialists.

If Typhoon have a significant advantage in wing load and TWR (still to be established) it will be using it to compensate for its lower level of energy sustainability.

In the same configuration, low initial weight, the difference wouldn’t be too noticeable before transonic regime is reached, and at the higher speed corner, close to Max.

But 90% of all engagements take place below M 0.90, this is where the difference would be made by Rafale providing they are in the same (relative) configuration of internal fuel/weapon load.

In a BVW scenario, both can engage their targets at high speed and pull 9 G to stay out of their opponents weapon ranges.

Don’t forget that Typhoon was designed for higher level of manoeuvrability at M 2.0 and not for transonic/lower speed where its aerodynamics are (relative) not as effiscicent.

“However I read an interview with an italian test pilot who said “No other aircraft can match the turning performance of Typhoon at 670 kph (360 kts).”

“Rebourg said that with a clean Rafale, using afterburner, you can enter a turn at 500 kt. and 10,000 ft., pull the maximum 9g and still accelerate. Cornering speed for the Rafale is 360 kt., he said.”

Don’t forget that i can be either structural or aerodynamic limits, it would be interesting to know the dynamic stall speed of both aswell astheir structural limits.

But aerodynamics would give Rafale an advantage as for G-load, if one believe the warload limits imposed to their respective structural strenght, i believe there isn’t much need for explaination either….

Also, I wonder what kind of pilot would give the Typhoon speed in km/h instead of kts, maybe the Russians would as this is what they use instead of nautical miles…

More to the point: The altitude at which the aircraft can do this is at least as important if not more.

A pilot would generally make it a relevant point as altitude increases, the air density lesser and the turning perfs are also more difficult to replicate than at sea level.

This also play to the delta aircraft with the less acute wing sweep angle but is also true for non-deltas.

Due to the lower air density, the AoA needed to carry any kind of manoeuvre is higher, so is drag, knowing this, Dassault designers had to come with the best solution available to them and it’s their areodynamic arrangement.

This is thrue as well for climb attitude, heavy configuration and low speed control.

The delta wing doesn’t allow for much drag control without close coupled canard and its lift/drag ratio is considrerably higher than most other wing types.

In a non-canard configuration it also tend to sink considerable more and this in one limit imposed to Typhoon but its CFS, according tio some display pilot.

Typhoon Alpha limiter will prevent the pilot to pull the nose up depending on the speed at lower AoA than Rafale which will still be able to use its “lift boost” configuration.

Their respective operational Min speed limitation is not trepresentative ofthe fact, Dassault have the habbit to limit their aircrafts in a way thich allow for the average pilot to squeeze the ekke out of them in all conditions/configfuration and still have more on tap.

I’m surprised you didn’t notice the drawbacks of the delta after the conflict between the Israeli Air Force and the Arab Nations using Mig 21.

Mirages weren’t more manoeuvrable, they were bleeding much more speed than the Migs, and only better control surfraces, less G/stick force and much better pilots did make the difference.

The only exeption were the Nesher and Kfirs which were giving the same advantages to the deltas without the possibility to control the lift/drag ration as their strakes/canards are fixed surfaces.

These solutions were of course developed simultaneously in France after the exploration of the long moment harm solution.

I believe Dassault also beneficiated from the Israelis experience with their aircrafts, note that they ended-up developing the same configuration with the LAVI.

“So a 25°/sec figure for Typhoon is not unrealistic”

I consider this figure as being a little low i would admit to at least 28/30*/sec easly on its aerodynamics, wing load and TWR, the difference with Rafale isn’t that great.

“You say Rafales wing sweep angle is 48°. I had read it is only 42°.”

My quote always was <> i don’t have any precise figure for the Rafale sweep angle and had to compute this in sofware. So i might have got it wrong by a margin of up to 3*.

In the case of Rafale, in view of the important role played by its LEX, it doesn’t make too much difference exept in subsonic acceleration, and not by too much a margin.

This is why i believe that Typhoon might have an initial advantage in subsonic acceleration (0* AoA) and due to its less developed aerodynamic, have also a lower level of transcient performances at transonic regime.

“But what about range with internal fuel only?”

Funny you still cannot see the importance of fuel fraction:

Typhoon with 11,150 kg >> 0.427.

Rafale C <> 9,300 kg >> 0.505.

Rafale M <> 9.800 kg >> 0.479.

EJ-200 and M88-2 are two different classs of engines, people keep comparing them wrongly but the EJ-200 is larger, have a higher diameter and is also heavier the the SNECMA engine, itwouldn’t fit in Rafale engine bay.

More to the point:

You give figure that you don’t understand, the specific fuel comsumption for both engines means that for the same distance, EJ-200 will need a higher amount of fuel by (X) the amount of thrust (in Kg) than M-88 per miles.

Since the aircrafts have closely matched performances it is not so difficult to see that Rafale have a much higher advantage in available fuel per kg/thrust and therefore more fuel to use per miles.

As M 88-2 specific fuel comsumption is lower than that of EJ-200, it is logical to conclude for Typhoon to have a lower range.

This is what fuel fraction means in the case of both aircrafts. Furthermore, the mission profile is of a primary importance, if Rafale achives this in low-low-low and Typhoon low-high-low (or the opposite) then the comparison is not possible.

Combat air patrol endurance:

Tactical radius of action: up to 1600 km

1 hr 20 min. without external tanks
> 3 hr with external tanks.

As you can see in these figures provided by ixarm, the 1,600 km for the Rafale are given as tactical, which is a low-low-low combat mission profile for a typical strike mission probabily ascheiveable with 6 X AASMs and 4 X MICAs.

Range would increase with altitude and the second figure for 1 hr 20 min without external tanks is evidence of that.

There is no advantage in giving figures for optimum configurations and they generally mean little if the aircraft cannot carry a useful load.

In a future scenario for interception from runway with full internal fuel and 2 X IR AAMs and 4 Meteors, Typhoon TWR will always be higher as its fuel fraction will be lower.

So it initally will have this advantage over Rafale as well as a lower wing loading.

However, climb rate involves a fair amount of AoA increasing with altitude, this is particularly sensitive on delta wings and Typhoon will as stated earlier need more fuel to compensate for a steeper wing sweep angle.

This is obviously proportional and variates with fuel comsumption too, the amount of fuel burnt will affect the “curve” of the lift/drag/altitude ratio.

But all in all you still have to do with the same aerodynamic equations due to drag/thrust and the characteristics of the deltas.

As i said, performances are depending a lot more on aerodynamics than anything else, to me, aircrafts are flying beings and the first law they have to obbey to are these of the air element.

No way around this fact and the best design always wins the day in real life.

My assumption that; in this sort of configuration Typhoon should accelerate slightly faster once reached 0 AoA but bleed more speed and use more fuel at any AoA is based on all these parameters.

About the guy who says he flew Typhoon in display, ppprune forum…

>>>

“I have no intention of commenting on what may have led up to the subject incident, I will give you some facts about Typhoon flight controls and flight characteristics as there has been some speculation and questions raised in these regards.

Typhoon has Carefree Handling (CFH), which means that the pilot need not worry about exceeding any structural or aerodynamic limit no matter what he does with the controls (stick, throttles or rudder), no matter what the prevailing flight conditions are or what fuel state or weapons load the aircraft has. However, it does not mean that the pilot can ignore the basic laws of physics and aerodynamics.

The basic airframe configuration is also aerodynamically unstable in pitch, which helps to explain BOAC’s observation that there was “not much alpha on the foreplane”. The control surfaces move to artificially stabilize the aircraft. In a stable aircraft the control surfaces deflect to make the aircraft pitch. In an unstable aircraft the control surfaces are ‘stopping’ the aircraft from pitching. If you look at pictures of the jet in a hard turn, the foreplane is actually leading edge down (ie going against the turn). The flight controls are constantly on the move to keep the apple cart balanced.

The stick does feature an override or detent, but this only produces an effect when the aircraft is in a g-limiting condition (higher speeds) where a percentage of extra g is then allowed. This was the subject of a lot of discussion and heart ache throughout the design life. Some folk insisted on it being there (despite the high fatigue penalty of its inadvertent use) to cater for the high speed dive into the ground (or mid-air collision avoidance) where 9g wasn’t going to hack it, the extra % might just make all the difference. However, this was in the days before GPWS was part of the baseline design. In actual fact the window where 9g would kill you and 9+x%g would save you is very small indeed, but that’s irrelevant to this story because it is highly likely that the aircraft was a speeds where it would be alpha limited not g limited.

The biggest factor that nobody has picked up on is the ability of the aircraft to increase its energy state in a heartbeat. Unload for 3 secs and you add 100kts or so, the faster you are the faster you get faster, with the burners in at low level you can find yourself accelerating despite being at 9g. Not something the current fast jet force are used to!”

Tarnished

—–

As you as you can see, the speed limits the Aplha and it is necessary to unload to accelerate, if you go over Debourg writing on the 10,000 fts/9 gs and still accelerate thing, you can see where the difference is.

At high speed and high Gs it is possible for both aircrafts to compensate for drag, not at lower speeds or higher altitudes where Rafale have a clear edge.

Apparently Typhoon is not so at ease at lower speeds as i anticipated, having noticed the low leading edge alpha of the canard on the picture he is mentioning.

Being 35% instable doesn’t change a thing for Typhoon, the limitation is still on the design and its drag/lift ratio, not on the %age of instability.

Dassault had a hugely instable aircraft with the Mirage 2000 for ages, it is reputably the best turning machine in service previous to Rafale/Typhoon thanks to a very snapy pitch caontrol and a wery low wing load.

In a similar event, Rafale would pull slighly less aplha than Typhoon untill the pilot calls for more by puling on the stick harder.

The difference is, Rafale will be in the same drag reducing configuration previous to that and then have its “lift boost” configuration on tap, negating the need for the “unload” manoeuvre which doesn’t alway work as any Air cadets would know.

The difference between raw performances and actual useable operational ones are strikning.

In real life, the airshow stunts doesn’t make any sense, even if Rafale could add the cobra maneouvre without TVC to its list.

This saved the life of the Rafale M pilot, if it had been a Typhoon, he would have made a wet mess of it, as no matter how hard he would have pulled on the stick, there was nothing left there to be given by the aerodynamics of the aircraft.

If Typhoon CFS wasn’t limited the way it is, the pilots would face an increased risk on dynamic stall.

Dassault test pilots never managed to put Rafale into a stall despite flying it passed 100* AoA and 40 kt negative speed. Enough said.

Just between us; i have been writing all of this without opening my books.

About the pic: Bring back show Rafale carrier qualification at 16* alhps, loaded with 6 X 340 kg AASMs and 3X 1,250 l tanks.

Airflow generation is straight from one of SAAB satellites sites, it’s part of an article on the benefits of llift enhencing devices, in this case, close coupled canard and LEX. Rafale possess both, Typhoon only the older design strakes as used on the Mirage 2000.

rhino11typhoonbhfairford was posted by someone in the WAAF forum, ands shows typhoon actuallynear its max Alpha at the given speed according to the one who said he flew it in display.

raflow027dn posted by Kovy in the sameforum, i actually done the AoA correewction as he was only looking for the ground clearence.

Compare the two and i’m sure there are some who will claim no difference there…

Looks like Jack “fan club” is pulling punches on his writing.

Good for you my friend. How about the ethics of journalism now that you can see you are writing for an educated public too?

PSD our rude, arrogant trolls are well educated too…LOL.

2Scorpion82

First your weight datas are wrong, second:

“Ok some people would say Rafale must be better due to it’s aerodynamics, however they have no valid data whether for Rafale nor for Typhoon to verify that.”

This is aslo wrong, none of your assumptions takes aerodynamics and other operational factors into account. There is a lot of work to be done here…

Another example, if Typhoon air intake was a three-shock it would be flying 0.5 Mach faster with the same warload of 2x IR AAMs and 4 X EM AAMs.

So the speed thing is more than subjective as there no such design limitation for Rafale, it all depends on the %age of expansion they got from the nose/intake combination design. Can you actually compute this?

I can’t.

Etc; i don’t want to be getting into this as these are not based on realistic figures/conditions and doesn’t come anywehre close to be useful for a really scientific comparison… Start with Typhoon aerodynamics and its own limitations….

This sort of thing i have been atempting there/four years ago but to get anything remotly right as it takes a lot more than what you got…

Another example, what is the difference between the engine static and actual real thrust? Is it the same for the both of them? etc.

So, sorry i’m not interested to elaborate this way.

2Scorpion82

“That caused many delayes in the Eurofighter program.”

Did it take them 18 month to figure what? According to Jane’s it was more than worries they had. but who can tell the truth?

“About the energy level, I can’t judge which of the two bleeds more energy, but I know Typhoon bleeds relativ little compared to most other aircraft”

As a thumb rule, the steeper the sweep angle the more AoA you need on a delta for the same level of lift, and the Typhoon canard does not provide lift at all; conclude by yourself.

“He spoke to a test pilot if I remember right.”

I still don’t believe it is right and he may as well have missunderstood the all thing.

“Do you know if all components has reached the targeted weight?”

What i know is that if they don’t they aren’t accepted as simple as that. Requierements are to be met or the whole ting is getting messy, and it would not acount for 750 kg difference anyway..

“Yes that’s a similar way as it is handeled with PIRATE for Eurofighter. It’s a kind of plug and play module you can easily install or uninstall if required. But I have no idea if it is ballasted or not if not installed.”

It might well be although it is visibly smaler and lighter than OSF.

“I read about that. According to my information the SPECTRA has performed very well against different threats.”

They still are working on it to allow for the new threat to be met (LPI AESAs radars).

“Rafale D01/02? I expect you mean Rafale B301/302? The “D” was not more than a simple designation used in the late 80’s. The D stands for “Discrete” and it was used to underline the stealthy design of Rafale.”

Yeah typo it’s one of my favourites, i obviousdly know the diference ,Rafale C-01 is the only one at standard D.

That could be with the Rafales being heavier than normal series aircraft. As mentioned in a post above with the 16,4 t takeoff weight given substracting the fuel/stores load you come to >10 t for the Rafale B302. But that isn’t necessarily representiv for operational Rafales and it’s only a rough calculation, which depends on whether the 16,4 TOW was correct or not, but I see no reason why it shouldn’t be correct.

“About the thing with strengthed gear for Rafale production aircraft I mentioned. That was something I read not long ago, but I don’t no where. Maybe it’s wrong I don’t know, it’s only something I read. It was simply said the Rafale prototypes where limited (not restricted) to 21,7 t and to increase the MTOW the gear was strengthed. That has at least not much to do with the vertical speed allowed (-3 m/sec for B/C and -6,5 m/sec for M). But as I said I only read it and posted it. But I don’t want to allege it’s a fact as I simply don’t know more about that.”

So i would be interesting to see wha tthey are going to do when they will clear them for 27,000 kg don’t you trhink?

The sink rate thing was to give you an idea of the margin they had and in any case they wpoul;d have had to partially redesign the aircraft to get the weight increase, i know how they’ve done i and it’s clearence, not anything of the sort…

“Some things about Typhoon weight. 9,75 t was the original goal however weight has increased, but not due to changed requirements. Eurofighter will use the same systems as originally intended. And software adds no weight to an aircraft. However the internal structure has changed to allow a higher amount of fuel and for production aircraft also wings were strengthed.”

I repeat: During the first Farnborough air show atemden by Typhoon a BAe Boffin was stating that lopw level/high speed wasn’t going to be one of Typhoon missions, as it was priminarly desiogned as an air sup[eriority fighter with limited A2G capabilities, if they don’t know themself what theyare talknig about it’s not too good.

I have seen the interview myself and can remember it well, so i also know that there have been some typhoon built without the extra weight at least in Britain.

The structural strenghtening is designed for the purpose of allowing repeated use of the strike capabilities at low level and high speed without an eccessive ariframe fatigue. Same a for Rafale, appart for the fact that the target goal for it wasn’t dimed as realistic from the bigining.. Something else, the RAF chiefs also insiisted to have all RAF Typhoon put to the same standards, i’ll dig that one for you, iy should be easy as i think it was a Jane’s e-mail.

It seems to me that you have differente infos in Germany than we can have here, in the UK they are often not telling the all thing as it is, only for the press to figure it out later on…

See you and keep the good work on!

2Scorpion82

“Ok it was the wrong word I used, I wanted to say it’s more convenient to discuss that way. My fault.”

Not too bad, it’s just that i am very defensive as i have been flamed to death by some other guys in other forums, obviously they didn’t chose not the right guy to mess with, hence my reputation of a bad boy…

“I also try to figure out what is true and what not. But it’s still be impossible to be sure that all we have researched is definitely right.”

So do i but there are constants and basics that cannot be ignored there and history is part of it. This is what i figured when i started looking at both aircrafts in details.

” FCS and engines are important as well. But as you said without a good base in terms of aerodynamics the best FCS and engines are useless as well.”

Rafale never needed any adjustement and history have proven Dassault superior level of expertise, Eurofighter was grounded for nearly two years with problems with the FCS, it is still a problem as it doesn’t allow the aircraft to break through its “soft” limitations the way Rafale does depending so much less on its level of energy than Typhoon.

There is a clear explaination on the subject by a guy saying he have been flying a Typhoon in display on the ppprune forum and as a matter fo fact by observation only i figured tha tone out myself.

Understand me well here, im’ certainly not saying it’s a bad aircraft, but the myth that it is better than Rafale or more advanced in terms of developement is not sticking at all.

“I think it is feasible if you do not couple the canards together and control them indepently from each other. But at the moment I’m not sure about the problems of tortional stifness problems you meant.”

Not my theoryg here, this was part of my teaching as a trainee and later as more advanced courses. Moment harm works in the roll axis only with conventional surfaces, this is one of the limitations of the canard formula.

There is nothing here that i invents, it’s my courses and more with the years of reading and learning most of it without opening a book now, although i cxan get i wrong from time to time.

I have been back to my old physics books and advanced aerodynamics in english to be able to elaboreate, not so easy…

” A similar problem with tortional stifness was encountered with negative sweept wings, but it could be solved by the use of advanced composites by laying the fibre in a way that it resist the high tortional forces.”

I’m talking about the forward fuselage, not the canard themslef which are designed to take the load anyway.

If you designed the front fuselage with as much tortional stifness for the roll axis than for pitch you’ll end up with an inaxeptable weight penalty.

Furthermore as i was saying, the more forward they are, the more their effect is to be felt by the rest of the airframe, at high AoA, the adverse moment would not only give a roll movement but also but yaw as well meaning you’d have to compensate with the other control surfaces and create unnecessary drag when you need to reduce it…

“It’s right that you find a lot of untrue things in the web. However the pilot statement is not from an interview I read in a magazine or the web, it was told me by another technican of my FBW, who has visited Manching (EADS facility here in Germany).”

Ask him where he got this info from. This was stated in eurofighter.com and later erased as it doesn’t make sense at all for all the resons i quoted.

“There’re no other “newer” data about empty weight of Rafale. Finally Dassault gives the weight with 10 t class, not very precisous and at least no one of us know the complete truth about that.”

Class means only this; a class of aircraft, not the weight.

As for the reality of Rafale empty weight, it’s still not clear to me how it would take on somuch weight as some would have us believe.

For one thing, they did compute the weight with the avionics onboard as opposed to all what some are saying, and the maximum target weight for these was already known.

The best clue is this Jane’s report on the history of the aircraft, Dassaut was part of the making of SPECTRA all inclusive, and the fact that i couldn’t figure the OSF problem for years prevented me to make any assumptions before i tumbled on this LPM (Loi de Programation Militaire).

The French Senat, if not always technicaly accurate provides with some very useful informations:

OSF was designed as a “for need only” device depending on the mission, now it will have a predominantly A2A use, it had to be fitted and removed easly, then the aircraft not fited with it had to be ballasted as they stated quoting the carrier qualification trials of M-01 and M-02.

SPECTRA was fited to M-02 later and tested during MACE-X…

But the main thing is, despite being modular, the main and heaviest devices are the black boxes situated behind the bathtube, the rest have to be rather light to fit parts like the fin top etc. The larger part of SPECTRA 251 kg are inside the avionic bay and the cockpit.

“I understand your point of view/logic about the CG matter.
But isn’t it possible to remain CG while increasing weight by distributing the additional weight over the airframe?”

It’s nowhere near as simple as that: These Dassault aircraft are traditionaly designed for the highest level of performance possibly obtainable with lower thrust engines, M 88-2 being the first of a newer/better generation.

So fitting RBE2 and OSF to a Mirage 2000 B nercessitated 400 kg of ballast and prevents it touse full internal fuel too. This obviously reduces its flight envelope and perfs drastically.

CGs are so critical, that the designers of Rafale tried to regroup most of the heavy externals close to it in line.

Anyone pretending that one can do with software twicknig is just ignoring the most important aspect opf these aircrats: They need a constant control of their CG to retain their level of manoeuvrability. Both are instable, altogought Typhoon %age is a little higher with 35%, still one cannot change CGs without affecting the manoeuvrability and twicking CFSs is not the solution. More to the point, you’re talknig about opening the flight envelope and also quaklifying the aircraft for the most demanding task ever, landing on a carrier the size of Fosh and now R91-CDG.

A F-18 pilot did it and said it wa like trying to pick up a popsytal stamp with his tong… So imagine hav8ing to gather the datas one day, then haviong to recompute them trhe day after to get the aircraft to fly the same way (Which it wouldn’t do anyway) with some different avionic load.

This is already difficult with internal fuel and external laods, if you have to do it several time over for qualifying the M as well as opening ther flight envelope, the risks for error are increasing by a fair margin.

This is why i didn’t thrust ot too much that the empty weight wasn’t representative of the fully equiped Rafale but what you are saying basically is about the addition of new sofware to an airframe, this is well possible but the fact remains that these were part of the system at the begining of the programme and are not part of a patchnig up solution.

This sort of way to design aircrats is not very useful if tyou need the highest possible perf from it, better carefully design the systems too as they did, that’s why Dassautl is always involved in the systems including RBE2, the exeption must have been OSF but i’m not sure they weren’t on it too.

Something else. we all agreed that developement Typhoon were heawier. Why should this not apply to Rafale? Note that i suspect that it was D 01/02 which were deployed to S’pore and they are developement aircraft, as i haven’t been investigating this, i won’t do any further comments…

“You may be right on Rafales weight and I will NOT deny it, however it remains an open question for me as long as Dassault or a customer does not confirm a definite number for the 3 variants.”

Agreed but i can’t believe a weight increase of 750 kg with avionics only, as the all aircraft was designed as a system from day one and i noticed that my own contact at Dassault changed attitude the day GIE was created…

Their policies are now to disclose as little as possible and let everyone guess making it near impossible to gather precise datas including perfs….

Salut!!!

2Jackonicko

Why were the Typhoon dispatched to S’pore a ton lighter than the “in service” aircrafts?

“They weren’t. This is a fairy story.”

AFM Sept 2004 Quote:

“”The answer was that these RAF jets weren’t weighted down by a tonne of flight test instrumantation, so theycould do it where the Developement aircraft were probabily alittle slower!””

Who is specialised in telling readers fairy story???

You or the guy who wrote this?

Or as i suspect you and him as you seems to be the one writer with the middle name Pinochio writen on his buziness card…

“They aren’t, because there is already sufficient area to allow enough mass flow for the kind of upgrade envisaged.”

If thias was true, the aircraft wouldn’t be limited to M 2.0 by design. It is.

As for the rest any air cadet would alugh reading it.

I’d have thought that ‘Mr aerodynamics’ would realise that the gun is a VERY heavy piece of kit,”

So SPECTRA and OSF aren’t actually heavier than a gun?

“If Rafale requires no ballast to make up for the removal of particular equipment it’s because:”

Laughing mate, the French assemblee Nationale says differently, not only you’re a total ignorant, but also a bad journo.

“There’s a software load that compensates for any C of G changes.”

That’s true since concord for internal fuel and some external loads (see your post below)…for the rest all you’re trying to do is to keep this mythology of yours alive. Failed, as usual.

“The existing software load compensates better for any C of G changes.

“The equipment is more evenly distributed around the C of G, so that the C of G implications are less.”

The avionic bay is situated behind the bathtube. You still keep writing whatever here wonder where you had you flying lessons? At the local roundabout on the flying soccer?

“The equipment is lighter, so that the C of G implications are less.
or the aircraft has greater stability (or less instability) in pitch.”

Yeah sure the Typhoon gon weights on at 250 kg +, as for Rafale %age of instability you sure know it when everyone else can only guess. Wither sooner in the topic you thought hard as steal it was not an instable aircraft. You can harly stop shooting yourself repeatedly on both feets.

“The “Requiered specs for Typhoon” have not changed in the way that you infer (go back and look at AST403 and AST409) and that the aircraft has always been required to be a deployable, swing-role fighter.”

With limited A2G capabilities i.e. BAe representative, you also keep inventing and rewriting history here mister, you have managed to damage your already low level reputation to new low levels…

“Therefore there have been no major changes to the required empty weight for those “very obvious reasons.”

Jack how do you call a guy telling stories again and again and again?

Typhoon weight increased from 9,900 kg to 11,000kg.

“You might also have a more realistic appreciation of the limitations of your knowledge. Back in the late 1980s, a number of professional aerodynamacists patiently explained to me the superiority of the F-16’s aerodynamic configuration and flight controls compared to the MiG-29. “

Well apparently you didn’t get it onboard, Rafale is NOT a Mig 29…

“Since you bang on and on about your flying experience I’d have thought that you’d have a bit more understanding as to the importance of cockpit workload, MMIs and displays and display modings, stick forces and control harmonisation, and all of the other things that go together to give a pilot the handling qualities (together with performance, of course) required to win.”

The same story again, don’t you, stop trying to make any sort of impression on me, you failed to impress the Koreans, the Dutch, and Singapore Mindef.

More of the same… A paternasing tone and little substance…

“Pendant que vous pouvez poster dans l’anglais d’habitude compréhensible raisonnable, vous ne devez pas supposer que je ne comprenne pas quand vous écrivez:”

je m’en contrefous comme de l’an 40 mno ami. j;ai assez d’emvergure pour te prendre latete en trois langues…

“On the subject of Jacko do you believe that he knows what he is talking about? The only thing that he can do is always negative.” whether you post it in English or in French.”

Prefers dutgh Yogi?

“1) Une disgrâce aux gens français, parce que vous êtes impoli et arrogant, et bien que vous vous pensez astucieux et intelligent sont en fait ignorant et très stupide. “

Je vous retourne le compliment, avec toute le qualitees que vous demontrez venant d’un Britanique. La malhonetete intellecutelle de premiere classe etant la plus apparante. Et Je crois que les francais qui lisent ca me considerent plus que vous mon cher Jack…

“2) Une perte de tout le monde chronomètre, avec rien ne contribuer au delà du préjugé fatigué, et la capacité aux détails de perroquet, bien que c’est clair vous n’a pas la compréhension du sujet sous la discussion.”

Comparez la votre a la miene. Politique style numro 10 Downing St, pas plus haut que ca, avec un example comme votre premier Mionistre, pas d’etonnement….

“3) Un tres grand, tres stupide, broleur. Une plaisanterie complète à n’importe qui qui comprend le sujet, un idiot et un clown, être eu pitié d’au lieu de détesté.”

Au moins, moi je sais ecrire branleur en trois langue sans faire fe dfautes, ne comparez pas votre mediocre education a la mieene s;’il vous plait.

Finalement: *

“Bien, j’ai essayé de descendre votre niveler d’abus infantile. Peut-être nous pouvons prévoir maintenant que vous ayez obéi aux règles de conseil et suit les règles simples de convenances*? “

les abus, a commencer par continuellement insulter l’inteeligence des autres, c’est le mieux que vous puissiez faire.

Poster dans le langauge de conseil (l’Anglais – le langue d’aviation internationale!).

Arrêter utilisant les insultes stupides, enfantines et rustres.

“Si ne vous avez rien productif s’intéressant maintenant pour dire, alors fermer en haut*! “

Tu sais Jack? Tu me rappelle un arrogant petit “cabot” a qyui je devais botter l’arrier train pour sauter du Broussard sur l’Aerodrome dela base…

“Faire de la lecture pour que vous comprenez que nous parlons de, et pour que vous pouvez soutenir la Rafale avec l’argument décent, au lieu de la bêtise bête, fatiguée, ennuyeuse et nationaliste.”

Au sujet de la decence je crois que totu lemonde a pu se rendre compte de la difference entre vous et moi.

“*OK, I’ve tried to come down to your level of infantile abuse. Perhaps we can now expect you to obey board rules and follow the simple rules of etiquette?”

About you srart with the journalistic one for a change?

Post in the board langauge (English).

Stop using stupid, childish, boorish insults.

If you have nothing productive or interesting to say, then shut up!

“rather than silly, tired, boring and nationalistic nonsense.”

That’s your bunch description expecially about an aircraft which preliminary design is German’s MBB. You get yourself noticed for the worst reason again.

You’re dismissed.

—> TOTALLY USELESS AND MALICIOUS.

Malicious NO, useless yes i recon, rude as i said…

“-> THIS was the proof that Scorpion was trying to assimilate what you’re bringing to the debate. Good point for him, and for you, though the result wasn’t as complete as you expected.”

I don’t expexct anything. Pepole have shown too little envy for the truth and for improvements everywhere i wrote. Can’t help human nature…

“You’ve asked Scorpion to watch at Eurofighter website :”

“Quote:
Pitch control is provided by symmetric operation of foreplanes and wing flaperons, while roll control is primarily achieved through differential operation of wing flaperons.

Nothing tells us that foreplanes aren’t used. Scorpion should give its source.”

This is where he got the infos in the first palce… you wouldn’t believe that it was actually writen in this site before being erased. So much for the guy who are writing these for the Eurofighter consortium… As a matter of fact i noticed wrote this in another forum and figure it was gone a couple of weeks later. What do i know?

Au sujet de Jacko tu crois qu’il sait de quoi il parle? La seule chose qu’il peut faire c’est etre negatif….

2Jack

“Arguing with Fonk is like wrestling with a pig. You’ll never change his mind. You’ll get dirty. You’ll both end up looking stupid, but he’ll enjoy it.”

That’s what i call technicality.

The very best of jack on line, exept forone thing, you don’t haver what it take toargue technically, fake….