glitterPerhaps Dassault might speed up development as we move closer to the fielding of the F-35, but where will the cash come from?
To be honest, I think that Dassault is waiting for a pure state-fund initiative while, thanks to the success of the Falcon line, their is private fund for it.
The Mirage family sold well during the Cold War (and after), can Rafale fill its shoes?
LEt’s say that most mirage III, 5 or F1 can’t fill the shoes of the Rafale.
Look at the name of mirage III customers, do you think they could afford it ?
glitterTo get back on topic: I think the only reasonable F4 would be a common standard (avionics, sensors, weapons, &c) with a Tranche 3 EF2000.
It’s my opinion for years, but I thought that writing such things would attract too much attention and criticism over my shameful over-nationalistic pro-Rafale attitude :p
glitterDoes anyone know anything about the Rafale F4? I think Dassault mentioned something a while ago that this would be an ultra-advanced version of the gallic fighter that would be available in the future. However, this proposed version seems to have sunk without trace. Does anyone out there know what happened to it, and if its still on the cards?
OF course it’s still the next step.
But until now, what we can expect with it is “only” AESA and Meteor.
No M88-3 is nearly sure.
Perhaps some good news about major evolution of OSF, but I’m a bit lost with the Sagem-Thales mess.
glitterAccording to a report on CNBC this morning, Lybia will be buying 13 to 18 Rafale (Or Rafaele, according to the newscast 😀 ) from Dassault Aviation for 3.2 billion dollars. Does anyone have any information which might correlate this story?
The Lybian leader should arrived next week in France.
From an interview with his son
http://fr.news.yahoo.com/ap/20071207/twl-france-libye-kadhafi-contrats-attent-1be00ca_1.html
“Nous allons acheter pour plus de 3 milliards d’euros d’Airbus, un réacteur nucléaire, et nous voulons aussi acheter de nombreux équipements militaires. Nous négocions sur les (avions) Rafale”, précise le fils du leader libyen le plus impliqué en politique, possible successeur de son père.
Well, to be honest, he speaks even more than a bunch of 50yo lonely housewifes so ..
glitterYou were not trying to ‘help’ anybody.
Really ?
My honesty ask me to help those who believe the fantasies like “Thanks to the greater numbers of Typhoon built, everything will be cheaper than the Rafale” while reality proves the opposite.
Bargain?
If France had participated in Eurofighter development, its share of development would have been much less than the cost of developing Rafale alone. Based on current planned numbers, France would have paid 32% of development costs. Even though Rafale development has been much cheaper than Eurofighter, it’s still a lot more than that.
Yes, the R&D cost would have been lesser for the Rafale (to be honest, nothing is sure about that, I can’t imagine the mess with a 5 nation Typhoon program) BUT:
– the SNECMA would be out of the military business
– Dassault would have “lost” some knowledge
– The MN would have to buy F-18
That’s way I spoke of a bargain.
Divide the difference in development cost by the planned number of Rafales & you get at least as much as the production cost difference between Rafale & Typhoon.
I suppose your hypothetis is that a “5 nation” Typhoon devellopment wouldn’t have been more difficult than what we ahve seen ?
Of course, if France had taken part, Eurofighter would have been slightly different, and would have met French needs.
Carrier, nuclear missions ? How can you be sure ?
glitterPerhaps you are trying to circumvent the point of this thread by that the Typhoon has been ordered by 6 countries and the Rafale by only 1, by trying to turn it into a Rafale versus Typhoon flame fest?:rolleyes:
I tried to help to point the fact that the Rafale is a “bargain” for France since a more expensive Eurofighter wouldn’t have able to fulfil all the request of the French AF.
glitterAlso quite weird that you attack the UK for Europe not having a true European fighter, considering it is 5:1 in European participation between Eurofighter and Rafale.
Perhaps he wanted to point the fact that several European AF with much less differents missions than the FAF/MN will need two planes and one of them is american ?
glitterMy turn 😀
Leclerc: as it has been said, it wasn’t the good time to put it on the export market.
More to that, I can point the fact that the army and politics talked of a “grand” deal with GIAT for 1400 units while a high officer told me that from the start, it was known that there couldn’t be so much tank, so a real hindrance for that tank since the direct translation was a very high price.
And of course, I could speak of the pathetic stories who surrounded GIAT for the last decades. One of the most obvious was the inadequate industrial organisation.
Rafale: It’s quite fun to read that among some very good arguments, it seems that some Typhoon fans are trying to put a better light on their side.
True, from the older mirage, the Rafale is a step higher with all strings attached, something that Dassault seems to have underestimated.
True, a french Rafale has less political weight than the european Eurofighter, but it turned out to be more a smile from Fate than something done on purpose. But it’s still quite fun to see that it’s often THE main argument in favor of that bird :p
But, as it has been shown in Marrocco, even the probleme of political weight put aside (I won’t add anything about the american position on that even if some are still denying the evidence) is that in France, our system is oldfashioned, not flexible enough and that our politics haven’t really realized the importance of their presence but the new way of doing deals too. That story in Saudi Arabia is, unfortuntely for us, really funny.
Of course, one main problem if the Rafale is the slow speed of the program, often due to a political decision of last minute to “save” some money but put at risk much more than they might think.
Navals: I’m not a specialist at all but it seems our products are “Ã la mode”.
Just a slight reproach about the BPC, even with the MN as customers, I would think amazing that the engineers haven’t in mind the possibility to accomodate the F-35.
glitterYou are currently demonstrating yourself to be a far more unpleasant individual than I am as is once again shown by your last post which true to form was insulting and aggressive.
Personnal opinion
Musashi still have to learn his lessons to reach such levels 😀
glitterWhat??
Dassault refused the deal of Rafale to Japan?
That’s a non-sense…
Very hard to trust… :confused:Do you have a source please (in french too)???
Google: Dassault Japon
First link
http://www.boursier.com/vals/FR/dassault-aviation-l-etude-du-remplacement-des-f4-japonais-n-en-est-qu-a-un-stade-exploratoire-news-189774.htm
Dassautl Aviation a précisé que cela ne préjugeait en rien de la volonté de la société de présenter ou non le Rafale à un éventuel appel d’offres futur.
SinceKorea, Dasasult said that they would refuse any non-opened competition.
glitterTranslation
From the article, the main point is the pressure from Japan to buy the F-22.
“Le Rafale français est difficile à utiliser. Nous ne choisirions certainement pas un avion de combat russe. Aussi, je pense que ce devrait être le Typhoon d’Eurofighter.”
The Rafale is hard to use ?
Since Dassault has refused the deal, it’s obvious 😀
glitterBlock 60
Can you provide figures to back it up? I dont care what you stated, you are not the one making the deal.
You don’t care of industrial reality and LOGIC ?
The low price of the F-16 comes with high series. Of course, as soon as you’ve got a short one (block 60), look at the result.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0ICK/is_3_14/ai_68507685
http://www.f-16.net/f-16_users_article22.html
8 billions for 80 planes, without weapons.
glitterDo you have figures? Becouse my suspicion is that if you took a second hand C/ D and put RANGR and the Sufa avionics package in it it would come out allot cheaper than the Rafale, and tech wise would be on the same level (with the exception of the airframe) if not ahead in some areas.
A tailored F-16 with such technologies wouldn’t be “a lot cheaper” than a Rafale I fear.
About these “some areas”, could you named few of them ?
As stated in this thread time and time again (you should have seen it by now) we have no idea what F-16 is being offered, so to call it ‘state of the 90s’ without such details is stupid.
I stated block 52
For the price, I can’t think of block 60 or an equivalent, unless a huge discount from the US administration.
glitter-aDa: The Rafale is heavier than a pure land-based version would have been due to the extra strengthening of the airframe for the rigors of carrier ops. Cut that requirement and you could shave some weight and gain some speed, range, and payload from the same airplane.
Sorry, but from a structural point of view, I’m not sure there is a penalty for the AdA version, since the empty weight is way higher with a Rafale M.
glitterSure the Rafale will always have a lower RCS and better range, but an AESA equipped Viper with AMRAAM and 9X and a decent elctronic warfare suite would certainly give the Rafale a run for its money in the air to air arena.
YEs, but for a price pretty close to the Rafale just like the Block 60.
In MArocco, the main point of the F-16 offer is the price.
No, that´s not the question, the question is what dou you prefer against more than one hundred Migs and Sukhois, 18 Rafales or 36 F-16´s?
About the actual deal, it’s more 24 Rafale with state of the art technology vs 36 F-16 block 52, state of the art of the 90’s.
I prefer the first offer.
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