Agree on stealth. Sensors? Not so sure (RBE2 AESA more recent than APG e.g.) besides The “see through” with 6 cameras. (def better than 2).Upgrade costs cheaper, definitely! operations cost (cfph, logistics etc.) i’d give Rafale a hint. logistic footprint or deployment? etc.
NAto compatibility wise, adv F-35. training facilities and independance (e.g. middiondata generation) adv Rafale.

TRUMP card may be important also. Credibility of US within is falling apart into pieces in Europe atm. A german law maker even asked for a european nuke umbrella based of FR nukes…

RBE2-AA is just an AESA antenna bolted on to the same old RBE2 radar on the Rafale. (1990s tech)

In fact, an AESA flew on Rafale in May 2003. According to Ramstein, a migration to AESA has been considered from the early days of the programme, and the RBE2 is designed so that an AESA front end can replace the current passive antenna and TWT. Power and cooling are adequate for the job. A programme called Demonstrateur de Radar a l’Antenne Active (DRAA) started in 2000, and the radar flew on a Falcon in late 2002 before flying in Rafale B301. “It was a difficult integration, taking two or three days,” jokes Ramstein. The problem, however, is that DRAA relied on US-sourced high-power processing chips – which, after Korea and the Iraq war, no longer seemed like a good idea. A new AESA version of the RBE2, DRAAMA (DRAA modes avancées), using all-European technology, was launched in July 2004 and will be ready in 2007-08. “We have a firm commitment to AESA, which allows us to propose it for export,” Ramstein says.
However, Dassault and Thales are not proposing to make the AESA the all-encompassing RF Cuisinart that Boeing (for example) envisages for the Super Hornet, with features such as passive detection, multi-beam operation and jamming. Nor does the team intend to exploit the AESA’s wide bandwidth, which would mean a new radome. (This suggests that the current radome is a bandpass design, transparent at the RBE2 frequency but stealthily reflective at any other.) Rather, the approach is to minimise cost and risk by keeping the same modes as the RBE2, while harvesting what are seen as the most valuable advantages of the AESA. These include a 50 per cent-plus increase in detection range – a better match for Meteor – much better performance at the edges of the elevation and bearing envelope, better reliability through the elimination of single-point failures and lower through-life costs. With only 120 aircraft planned by 2012, the pace of the Rafale programme has been influenced more by budget considerations than by technology.

From a Jane’s article, link now dead…

Basically the RBE2 is a nice upgrade for the Rafale, but it doesn’t come close to what the APG-81 offers.

I don’t know where you got your data on upgrade costs, operations cost, deployment footprint etc. I am aware of no data supporting the Rafale having an advantage in any of the above.

Training facilities adv Rafale? What on earth are you referring to, certainly nothing like this…

Developed during the computer networking revolution of the 2000s, everything from the way the aircraft is maintained to the way it fights is deeply interconnected, as are its “full-mission” simulators.

When a squad of F-35s fly into combat for the first time, the pilots will have already performed that exact mission against those target objectives dozens, if not hundreds, of times in simulators, replicating everything from electronic jamming to weapon effects on surface-to-air missile sites.

Not only does the F-35’s full-mission simulator provide greater fidelity than previous generations of fighter trainers, it also compensates for the fact it is too expensive to equip every test and training range with the full complement of threats it would be likely to go up against. The only places an F-35 can truly wreak havoc with every kinetic and non-kinetic tool in its beyond-visual-range arsenal, will be in the virtual simulator or in combat.

It’s not just belt-tightening that has Lightning II pilots completing 45% to 55% of their initial qualification flights in the simulator – it’s the next-generation fidelity and risk-free exposure to the full range of things that can go wrong or harm you, particularly on the electromagnetic spectrum.

Each simulator carries the most recent software load, or operational flight programme (OFP), so it can most accurately replicate the capabilities and handling qualities of the aircraft as it is concurrently developed, tested and fielded through various block upgrades.

The simulators arrive in groups of two or four, and will all eventually be plugged into the vast network of American and allied training simulators at air bases and training centres around the world, bringing F-35s into the same virtual environment as F-16s, F-15s, Boeing C-17s and others.

According to one air force official, the “Holy Grail” of simulator training will come with the introduction of live, virtual and constructive (LVC) networking between training devices and aircraft, with blue forces going against aggressors at every level for full-spectrum combat training.

…

“There is more training being done in the simulators than any other legacy aircraft,” says Luntz. “More than 50% of the initial qualification flights actually take place in the simulator.”

Former F-16 pilot and commander of the 56th Fighter Wing at Luke AFB, Brig Gen Scott Pleus, says there’s “nothing lost” by shifting from legacy “full-motion” simulators to the new “full-mission” simulator, except the jacks and hydraulic actuators. It allows for improved 360° visual displays that incorporate the helmet-mounted display and cueing system and distributed aperture cameras that give the F-35 unparalleled spherical situational awareness.

“It’s by far the most accurate fighter simulator I’ve seen in my career,” says Pleus. “We will rely even more heavily on simulator usage on F-35 because of the level of classification the simulators can give. We won’t have a lot of capability to do that in live-fly training.

“The sims can do almost everything we can do in the air, except feel the movement of the actual aircraft,” adds Lt Col George Watkins, commander of the 34th Fighter Squadron – the air force’s first combat-coded F-35 unit. “From what you see to what buttons you push; you can do everything you do in the air in the simulator. You can actually do more things in the simulator, because we can give ourselves more adversaries, we can give ourselves more threats on the ground to simulate potential adversary countries, and what kinds of things they can shoot at us – as well as tanking, night flying and flying in a larger force package.”

Once fully developed, the aircraft will become a frontline hunter, designed to destroy complex, overlapping surface-to-air missile systems, while also guarding against interceptors.

Much more at the link:

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/analysis-next-gen-simulation-preps-f-35-units-for-b-421462/

The Rafale is a pretty plane and I understand why the French are proud of it, but trying to compete head to head with an aircraft that is both twenty years newer and has the benefit of vastly greater resources just isn’t going to end well for the Rafale.

Netherlands Air Force Exercise

[ATTACH=CONFIG]252061[/ATTACH]

Spotters welcome!

When did the EU get E-3s?

A book written by a Norwegian author (on the F-35) claims that max AOA for Gripen is 50; also an F-16 pilot has said he as been told Gripen can go up to 50. However you are right that official sources do state max AOA is 26 degrees, so probably nothing happens if the pilot moves the stick from softstop to hardstop below corner speed?

Going out of control in combat is very bad… there are reasons why a pilot might want to risk going over 9Gs briefly in a lightly loaded aircraft. Exceeding the aircraft max safe AoA is not going to be something that is advisable.

It is possible that there is some case (speed/altitude/load and/or a specific way of getting the aircraft there)where a Gripen could operate at 50 AoA while under control, but clearly it is a pretty rare case otherwise the FCS wouldn’t limit it to 26.

The Gripen’s AoA limit, as per multiple authentic sources (FG for instance) is 26 deg. In the Region II of the FCS (past 26 deg AoA), the Gripen’s FCS would basically auto-recover the airplane to prevent further departure from controlled flight.

So it’s clear that in normal controlled flight, the Gripen cannot exceed 26 deg AoA. That is part of the care-free handling of the Gripen and all other FBW controlled airplanes.

Indeed, we can go ahead and close out the Gripen AoA discussion.

70% or 90%, the outcome is the same.. if the vote was rigged, it was completely superfluous, it would have ended with the same result, anyway..

Who is “we”?

So basically the referendum was BS, but hey, who cares so long as it reaches the outcome you think it should.

It is that standard “elections as a rubber stamp for what has already decided” business.

No USSR had a definite plan to take over Finland in 1939. There was only one problem…we shoot back.

I was poking fun at our local RT watchers.

There are people here who can’t seem to wrap their heads around the idea that invading a neighbor and then throwing together a hastily organized sham referendum where only one side is allowed to campaign in order to annex its territory is not exactly a best practice for maintaining good relations with neighbors…

Are you seriously asking this ? USSR attacked Finland three times between 1917- 1941. Guess how many Soviets died ?

Don’t you mean: “Finland forced the USSR to take preemptive defensive measures on Finnish soil three times between 1917 – 1941?”

Yes, but I imagine all of those 4 points would already be on the table. I think it will take more.

If that is what it would take then there is no point in even trying.

The UAE is paying $1.27 billion for two Globaleye aircraft. 4-5 would be the minimum necessary to maintain 24×7 coverage for any reasonable length of time. These aircraft would also require crews, maintenance, training… and of course functional airfields to operate from. (no road strips with these…) It also wouldn’t be much fun trying to operate one of these within the range of Russian SAMs…which they would be the moment they rose above the horizon.

No “Growler” variant of the Gripen exists. Developing an all-new bespoke EW version of the Gripen wouldn’t be cheap… and that assumes the Gripen has the payload capacity in the first place. (Take a look at how heavily loaded Growlers are…) Of course the problem with the Russian SAMs would also exist.

The alternate airbases part would be handy, but that assumes you are willing to bet your everything on the Swedes not getting cold feet in the midst of a crisis. (and even with Sweden that wouldn’t provide that much additional depth)

An all new stealth UCAV… $ billions.