Are you really requesting a source for Claim No: 1? Everyone knows this, it’s been widely reported since January ’12. Very easy to find via a Google search.

You’ve started something now, Hopsalot. A certain Troll Princess will be fuming to have been banned right now.

:dev2:

Bah, started something maybe but I am about done with it.

Of all of the fan clubs on the internet the Rafale’s supporters are the least reasonable. You don’t see the Eurofighter supporters claiming that it is the best at everything under all circumstances and that it won every technical evaluation it has ever entered… you don’t see the F-15E supporters insisting that it is the best dog fighter ever, etc.

Somehow with the Rafale reality doesn’t apply.

A guy claims, inaccurately, that an aircraft doesn’t have an IRST, you supply them with a source stating it does… and they ignore it. They claim the Rafale never competed in the UAE, you provide them a source… and then they just insist the competition doesn’t count. You provide a source directly from a Rafale pilot… and they complain that his name wasn’t provided. (yet they will of course believe internet rumors about exercise results or the supposed victory of the Rafale in technical evaluations in competitions it lost…)

You state a common knowledge fact about the Indian competition… suddenly it is “sources please.”

Whether the “debate” continued a day or a year nothing would change.

1. The first part of MMRCA was technical evaluation – each contenders did a real a-a, a-g missions, there was radar and weapon system test ( MiG-35 for examle fire real R-77 with AESA radar support).
The tests was conducted by IAF in the similar way as Swiss technicall evaluation, and only Rafale and Eurofighter pass the tests.

No, only the Eurofighter and Rafale were assessed as meeting the Indian requirements, and the Rafale was selected as the cheaper aircraft of the two.

3. F-15/16 didn’t beat Rafale in any technical evaluation.

UAE- there wasn’t any technical evaluation at that time.
Morroco- there wasn’t any technical evaluation at all.
Korea- Rafale win tech. eval. according some sources.
Singapore- Rafale win tech. eval. according some sources.
Quatar- some sources says Rafale was better then SH and F-15 during tech. eval.

Absolutely untrue. In all of these cases there were technical evaluations. Not all evaluations require a fly off. Most competitions do a detailed analysis of the specs and clarify grey areas through rounds of follow up questions. This is particularly true in cases like the UAE deal where the competitors weren’t available for a fly off because they were either unfinished (Rafale) or were a new variant that had not yet been flown. (F-16 block 60) That does not mean there was no technical evaluation. (In the most recent Korean competition the Koreans flew the F-15 and Eurofighter, but were unable to fly the F-35 and instead accepted a flight in a chase aircraft. Nonetheless the F-35 won the technical evaluation with the F-15 finishing in second.)

Additionally, there are frequently rumors of one losing aircraft or another having “won” the technical evaluation. It is all too easy to “leak” this sort of information to a gullible defense reporter or blogger giving a manufacturer some cover after the fact. Unless substantiated as in the case of the Swiss competition these rumors are just that, rumors. (there are of course rumors that the Typhoon “won” the Indian technical eval before losing due to its higher costs…. “Many rumours circulated at the time and the word on the street was that the Eurofighter Typhoon had won the technical evaluation.” http://ktwop.wordpress.com/2011/01/04/no-surprise-secret-technical-evaluation-in-indian-mmrca-deal-found-on-the-street/

4.F-16E/F is nowhere near the Rafale …
-has only FLIR, no IRST fucction

“The Block 60 F-16, also known as the Desert Falcon, was developed specifically for the UAE, which received 80 of the jets between 2005 and 2010. It features more powerful GE F110 engines, a Northrop Grumman APG-80 AESA radar, conformal fuel tanks, integrated infrared search and track (IRST) system and advanced electronic warfare system.”

http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/ain-defense-perspective/2013-04-26/uae-orders-more-f-16e/f-fighters

You are welcome.

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/flight-test-lockheed-martin-f-16ef-block-60-bridging-the-gap-174510/
-no sensor data fusion up to now

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/flight-test-lockheed-martin-f-16ef-block-60-bridging-the-gap-174510/
-bigger RCS and IR signature
-worse performance (no supercruise)

… and yet the UAE preferred them to the Rafale. 😎

Part of the reason is that the UAE considers the Rafale too sluggish when compared to their F-16 Block 60s:

French air force pilots interviewed at Solenzara say that the current engine power allows them to fly all of their missions without limitations, and that on a seven-hour mission to Libya they can cruise at Mach 0.9 on a 50% power setting with a full ordnance load. They also say that operations in the United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan or other high-temperature areas have not shown a real need for more power, although they all agree that it would be nice to have.

One Rafale pilot at Solenzara who has flown in the UAE remarked that one reason they want a more powerful engine is that its pilots are now used to the latest F-16 Block 60, which is essentially a small airframe built around a very big engine, and so find the Rafale underpowered by comparison.

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/article-view/feature/126031/**france-readies-rafale-upgrade-for-2012.html

F-35 is not shaped the way it is to be less draggy, nor are CFT considered for that purpose. Stealth is the main reason . Unless revolutionary aerodynamic properties have been discovered while stealth shaping , it does not make things magically less draggy. F-35 is likely to experience similar drag, if not more, than a loaded 4th generation . Granted loads’ induced drag and their interferences are significantly less than ideal to deal with compared to those of a single body , but then on the other hand, their cross sections combined to tat of the naked jet is less than such body permit.

Yes, the F-35 has a large internal volume primarily for stealth related reasons, but there are still substantial aerodynamic advantages to such an approach, at least when comparing loaded aircraft. The F-35 most certainly has lower drag when compared against a 4th generation aircraft carrying a similar load to what the F-35 can carry internally.

Well certainly the CFTs on the Typhoon are there to enable effective Stormshadow carriage for example.

Not sure that the French seem that bothered about CFTs on their Rafales so this is an export friendly idea isn’t it?

It all depends on the user’s needs. There are CFTs for F-16s available for instance but most users don’t use them. (including the USAF)

Weapons pods will of course compromise the aircraft’s performance but I’m sure they will argue that their Rafale is still more spritely and packs a bigger punch than an all internal F35B for example.

It all depends on the load out. An aircraft with a large internal fuel load and internal bays pays a penalty when compared to a clean or very lightly loaded 4th generation jet, but if you compare a Rafale with tanks, bombs, and pods carried externally to an F-35 with an internal load then the F-35 will win easily. Obviously during the course of a mission a 4th generation jet can expect to drop some of it external ordnance/fuel but can be expected to retain things like targeting pods, pylons, CFTs, and at least some missiles.

I suspect that if the Rafale receives weapons pods they will be retained except in emergency situations, if they are jettisonable at all. This means that the Rafale would be trading aerodynamic performance for stealth, which may make good sense, but the penalty a Rafale (or Super Hornet) would pay to carry a stealthy pod is greater than that of the F-35, which was designed to carry loads internally from the start.

as of today, they already give a pretty good performance… add 20% thrust (already possible with the 9t engines in the works, if you can manage to bring more air to them – which is why new intakes are being talked about)… as the C version weighs somewhere around 9tons (slightly more), that would mean a T/W ratio of almost 2 for the empty aircraft, and above 1 even when fully loaded for A2A today, no other aircraft can show such numbers

I was referring to the concept art of the Rafale with the conformal fuel tanks and multiple weapons pods. That is going to add a significant amount of weight, and drag, particularly at transonic and supersonic speeds.

It may still make sense of course, but I suspect that the Rafale pictured, even with uprated engines, would be less than awe inspiring from a speed and acceleration standpoint.

We are talking about the basic F-22A in its present form, though. Now imagine the design would be evolved into strike-optimized F-22B (for one tenth of the development cost of the F-35) – what exactly the F-22B could not do compared to what the F-35A will be able to in 2020 and beyond?

There were extensive studies done on a possible FB-22 that would have included larger bays and much more fuel. It would have traded maneuverability for payload and range. (while retaining speed)

http://www.fas.org/man/crs/RS21848.pdf

Such an aircraft would have been pretty awesome, but it would not have been cheap. The F-35A is already cheaper than the F-22 on a unit cost basis and will be far cheaper from an operating cost standpoint.

Fredaykin & FBW. I dont think anyone is saying stealth is completely useless. But going by historical data we find that stealth alone offers very little advantage when it comes to survivability. Nobody is disputing the fact that a lower RCS object can get closer to a target undetected, or that it can be useful.

There is no such “historical” data… in fact the reverse is true. Again, scroll up to look at the UCAVs if you aren’t sure how the professional world views the value of “stealth alone.”

The only issue is that some individuals over estimate the usefulness of stealth to an almost perverse level. The F35 is very well designed for it’s specific purpose, being part of a US strike package and work as a missile hauler for A2A. Ie it is an offensive system, primarily designed for strike missions. For the AA fighting in contested air space they have the F22.

This is not true. The F-35 is a strike fighter, but it is designed to be a multi-role platform capable of undertaking the full range of missions assigned to current 4th generation fighters.

The reason the F35 is debated at all is because most airforces are expected to work in a defensive environment where the enemy is likely to have superiority in numbers (ie a red invasion from the east). To counter this one needs extra everything, stealth is just one attribute out of many. Kinematics, maintainability and useful payload are all just as important and the key is balance rather than over optimising a single attribute.

NATO has a vast advantage both quantitatively and qualitatively over any “red” invasion from the east. Stealth -is- just one attribute of many, which is why the F-35 is also a 9G capable airframe with an amazing suite of avionics and that will receive the best weapons available in the West.

One has to remember that in Europe, the Germans could easily have gone the stealth fighter way back in the early 80s… but they chose a highly agile path in the Eurofighter instead.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]223180[/ATTACH]
Above is the MBB Lampyridae, the option to go for the BVR superiority machine was on the table but rejected in favor of a balanced approach. Going the extra mile for improved stealth has always been on the table but it has until now been rejected. The compromises havent been worth it.

The F-35 is a balanced approach… it is just representative of where the balance existed a generation later than when the Eurofighter was designed. The Eurofighter, Rafale, and Super Hornet all received some RCS reduction but not nearly to the extent of that in 5th generation aircraft.

EDIT: And thats where the actual debate is. One side questions if the compromises are worth it, while the others either treat stealth as a revolution or ignores the penalties it has on other parameters. IMHO the F22 is the only fighter with no compromises, but that was so expensive that the US only can afford some 185 of them. And that is what happens when compromises arent accepted.

There aren’t really two “sides” except on message boards.

In the professional world forces buying or developing new fighters are almost without exception placing a great emphasis on stealth. Already the F-35 has won both of its head to head competitions with the Eurofighter (Japan and Korea) and has been selected by numerous others who could certainly have procured the Eurofighter if they had wanted it.

When a first-rate technological power launches development of a new fighter and announces that stealth isn’t important to them… and proceeds to advance this non-stealthy design to an operational status, then we can talk about there being two “sides.”

Right now the only sides are older aircraft and newer aircraft. The newer ones are 5th generation fighters built with a major emphasis on stealth.

South Korea to obtain 40 F-35As

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/south-korea-to-obtain-40-f-35as-393402/

Looks like more or less a sure thing at this point. This is another big win for the F-35. So much for the death spiral…