Pity the french, if it drags any more, say two years, LM will step in to offer 5th gen for the same price.

2 years ? Cross your fingers. :dev2:

But honestly, the UAE asked for an über-Rafale, the price should reflect that, just like the block 60 is way more expensive than the block 52.

Official unit price for Rafale C (development costs not included) isn’t €64 million, $89,4 million, Nicolas10 ?

Fly away price: €52,7 millions
http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/12/budget/plf2006/a2572-08.asp
En 2004, le montant de la commande de 59 Rafales F3 s’élève à 3,114 millions d’euros.

Wonder if the MTOW would allow it…
Nic

Wow, I wonder if aerodynamic won’t be a real problem with that configuration :diablo:

No not propeller problems – propulsion problems. Something to do with the connectors between the steam turbines & gearboxes – there are 4 connectors, 2 per shaft, and the vibrations are affecting one connector on each shaft, meaning that she still has 50% power on each shaft.

http://secretdefense.blogs.liberation.fr/defense/2009/03/charle-de-gaull.html

Do you know of any test pilots publicly reporting that the aircraft produced by their mother country they are tasked to test fly is not very good/disappointing/lousy?

Call me naive, but yes.

Who would pay for the integration ???. India after shelling so much out for the planes. You can forget us paying for the MICA integration.

For a 10 billions$ deal, we can easily assume that the easy integration of the MICA (between 30 et 60 millions$) won’t be a problem.

Whatever advantage the Rafale offers against the F 16 blk 50+ is not that huge and may be countered by better pilot training etc. All in all it do not justify its price compared to the F 16.

Just keep something in mind, the best french dogfighter use mirage 2000-5, not Rafale.

All on paper Nicolas all on paper. It has failed to impress in all competitons it has been in and lost every one of em.

It reach the final in everyone of the open competition and won the technical evaluation in Korea.

(in spite their bias and bad fairth :D)

Bias = mauvaise foi 🙂

In fact, and as I have repeatedly posted the rafale, lost “face” (and the game) during the 3 encounters with the HAF. I had the chance to speak to some pilots and more or less that is the case.

What was the main problem with the Rafale ?

I will start to think that the initial meeting during the early days of the F1 was a mistake.

The Rafale on the other hand is not as mature and is expensive………..:(

Sorry, but most of benefit of the F-16 line disappeared with the block 60
-> Very few have been build
-> Very expensive (VERY close to the Rafale price)

the RDY-3 improves upon the RDY-2

Sorry, it’s an under-grade RDY, the former RD-400.

if Dassault ever really wanted, they could come up with a heavily modernised Mirage-2000 as well..the AESA RBE-2 is already flying on a Mirage-2000 test bed

As I said, no problem with that, except that the cost would make that pointless.

and its Mirage-2000-9 variant did have some Rafale avionics on board, so its possible, but it would compete with the Rafale, and possibly hamper its sales, so it won’t happen.

In fact, it seems that the ECM of the 2000-9 has some functions that SPECTRA lack, but it’s another topic 😮

I always hoped that Dassault would’ve built a Super-Mirage-2000 that would be updated with new structural composites, AESA and an updated M-53 Snecma engine with added thrust to compete with the latest block F-16s..that would be one sweet bird !! :diablo:

But without a strong support from customers, how Dassault could size the industrial equipment to build it etc etc.
Sorry, but with the Gripen on that market, I can’t see why because it’s written Dassault on it the sales would be better.
The only market would be even lower than the 40 millions $ per plane limit but how is it possible ? Sure, in cooperation with a country with lower cost such like Brazil or India but but but, so much risk here while Dassault is still in a real struggle for budget to upgrade the Rafale.