Also, whats the point in having a French radar if all the bloody weapons are going to be Israeli? Furthermore, EL 2032 would have commonality with initial batch of LCA and IN upgraded Shars.

It seems that the MLIzation of the mirage has made one casualty, Thales.

No MICA although Derby is very similar in range though does not have an IR version.

Range: around 40 km vs 80Km, and no datalink, the MICA is still one step ahead.

French BPC and compatibility with some american heavy gear

http://www.defense.gouv.fr/marine/base/breves/16_05_07_bpc_hydroglisseurs_et_helicopteres_lourds_americains_compatibilite_certifiee

From the 7th of May to 12, near Norfolk, the french BPC Tonnerre and some element of the second fleet of the US Navy has manage to conclude to the interoprability of
LCAC and MH-53 E Super Stallion (wonderful paint by the way).

Article not available in english yet.

They had multiple crews spend a whole night preparing the runway. The 2 ton a piece concrete centre dividers had to be removed and debre cleaned up.

In case of “hot war” with china, no doubt that this can be done very quickly

Its ineffetive because removing the deviders beforehand would be as good as putting up a big neon sign telling everyone which stretches of highway can be used/are being used in this manner, if the PLA doesn’t now already. And they would be taken out along with the runways.

good point but perhaps already thought of before and Taiwan would remove as much deviders as they can just to blur that problem, I doubt that China will be able to destroy every taiwanese straight highways.

Its ineffective because Taiwan’s road system was never designed with this in mind

Can you post us a link about that ?

and there are only a small number of stretches of road that are long enough, straight enough and strong enough to try this on.

Few is better than none.

Hum hum hum

Air chief Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy was impressed with the Rafale F2 performance and the intuitive cockpit layout

Jacko ? Any comments ?

I remember somebody claiming the M88 family to be wildly superior in terms of consumption, but as it pans out they are very much on eye level.

Try it with the max dry or full AB thurs on both engines, that’s why.

Going slower does not sound like that challenging a task. That must be one of the weirdest arguments to put a positive spin on a less powerful engine at about equal SFC.

Who spoke of a “lower speed” ?
Both RAfale and Ef2000 can supercruise, and both of them has a max speed close to Mach 2.

Source: Thales; issued April 23, 2007)

NEUILLY-SUR-SEINE, France — Thales, European leader in electronic combat systems, is pursuing the final phase of development and production engineering for the active phased-array radar for combat aircraft.

The announcement follows the successful completion of a series of flight tests on the Mirage 2000 test-bed aircraft conducted in the first quarter of 2007 at the Cazaux test centre in Southwest France. The tests produced extremely positive results with the active phased-array radar installed on an actual aircraft, and represent a key milestone in the process of qualifying the new sensor’s performance in an operational configuration.

In October 2006, the French defence procurement agency (DGA) and the industry team behind the Rafale programme agreed to a roadmap that will deliver Rafale fighters equipped with a new generation of sensors, including the Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) RBE2 radar, to the French Air Force and Navy by 2012.

Thales’ AESA RBE2 technology will offer new high performance radar capabilities providing a high quality combat system designed for integration into the missions systems of combat aircraft. With its expertise in this technology, Thales has been working on and perfecting this technology over a number of years. Within its dedicated research and technology centre in France, optimised gallium arsenide T/R modules, to form the radar’s antenna, have been developed in cooperation with UMS. (UMS, United Monolithic Semiconductors (UMS), is a Franco-German EADS/Thales-owned company.)

Furthermore, the AESA RBE2 gives a strong operational performance, including improved detection of small targets at long range and high-quality Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imaging.

Tactical situations become easier to analyse with the AESA RBE2 radar – its electronic phased array gives the pilot instantaneous detection and pursuit capabilities within the front sector. The AESA RBE 2 provides the full range of radar functions required for any combat aircraft in the 21st century.

Thales expects to move into integration testing on board the Rafale in the second quarter of 2007. Series production start-up is scheduled for late 2010.

Thales is a leading international electronics and systems group serving defence, aerospace and security markets worldwide, supported by a comprehensive services offering. The company’s civil and military businesses develop in parallel to serve a single objective: the security of people, property and nations. Leveraging a global network of more than 20,000 high-level researchers, Thales offers a capability unmatched in Europe to develop and deploy mission critical information systems. Thales employs 70,000 people in 50 countries and generated revenues of EUR 10.3 billion in 2006.

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/cgi-bin/client/modele.pl?session=dae.25661321.1177421784.3z67gX8AAAEAABAQP9sAAAAF&modele=jdc_34

Only concern I had was of the range which is 50km max from high alt.Can it take out a long range radar-SAM complex say the S-300 or any other long ranged SAM?

Well, we’ve got the problem that the vector of the AASM must be clearly in the range of the S-300 missiles, but on the other hand, destroying an AASM with a S-300 is clearly an overkill.

highly unlikely since the euros, esp. France is most reluctant to bring about crazy multivendor modifications to their a/c

On the mirage III, 5, 2000 and F-1, Dassault was able to make a taylored versions for many customers, so that’s not the problem.
The issue on RAfale and modern plane is that a single change can imply much more modifications and test than before.
If India want 126 RAfale with a non-french radar, they only have to ask .. and pay a huge bill.