# M88-3: is planned for the Mk.2 version of the Rafale in 2007/08, but that depends on the money France or any other customer is willing to spend (costs about €700Mio).

The mk2 has been killed when the rafale lost the Korean competition.
For now, the french navy or AF don’t have any budget to buy it.

SNECMA was supposed to have finished to built the first M88-3 at the end of 2003 but I’m yet to have rad any information about it since that date.

Anyway, the -3 has two flavors:
– Same thrust than the M88-2 but better reliability (lower consumption ?)
– More thrust, same reliability, a bit more expensive to buy IIRC.
and the French AF only show some interest on the first one.

As far as I know the Eurofighter has a better FLIR/IRST system with the Pirate (range is said to be 140 km) against the OSF with a range of 80km.:)

140 km ? Never heard about such a breaktrought.
What’s so different than the OSF ?

Also I wouldn’t say SPECTRA is way better than DASS, how do you want to know ?

Perhaps because Thales has been better at that game until now 🙂

If you look at exports, well the eurofighter is in the lead there with 18 compared to nil for the Rafale. So we’ll see what will happen in Singapore. 🙂

In Austria, the opponent was the mirage 2000.
Look waht happened in Korea 😉

Compared to the Rafale and Gripen it is slightly more expensive but has better radar, engines, payload and wider variety of weapons carried.

Radar: already answered by Kovy

Payload : the EF2000 is clearly behind the rafale.

Engine: even if SNECMA engines have always been considered as “under powered”, in the case of the M-88 vs EJ-200, keep in mind that the rafale was a multirole from the start, so was supposed to fly at lower altitude and for longer mission. So, to say that the EJ-200 is better because it has more thrust isn’t correct.
but it’s true that RR is supposed to be the best in Europe about military engines.

About weapons, that’s really one of the main point of the eurofighter over the rafale, knowing that unless you buy american munitions, it won’t be cheap at all.

The notion that fuel will run out anytime soon is nothing but propaganda from environmentalist extremist whackos. At the current rate of fuel consumption, there is enough fuel to last at least another thousand years. Even if the world’s consumption increases greatly (ie all of China, India, Africa being using as much fuel as the US) there is still enough to last for hundreds of years.

Thousand years ? 😀

If you can use up ALL oil to the last gallon on earth, perhaps, unfortunately, reality is different.

They are still debating the second carrier

The french gov said that they want a second carrier.
IIRC, it has been partially fund.

From what I read, if they decide to build the second, it will almost certainly be conventional not nuclear.

YEs, the second carrier will use conventionnal propulsion.

That in turn leads us to the possibility of a French order of the new British large carrier class.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if the French do go the British CVF route.

Both France and UK would be glad if an agreement could be reach about that.
The expensive CdG is (among other reasons) because of a signle production.

with the CVF, the series could reach 3 carriers.

I believe the French will be looking at a “collaboration” while Britain will try to make it a straight sale of third ship of the class.

Doubtful I would say.
I think that Thales could get the Thales UK design quit easily.

Oh wait, they’re only opposed to it when it threatens their oil contracts and weapons deals with major Third World crackpots…. :confused:

I fear you’re a bit late on that

Attack Helicopters such as the Apache are designed to operate in extreme environments, they are pretty robust aircraft.

Yes and no, You wouldn’t make your helicopter heavier and more expensive for to able to sustain all situation when you could adapt it according to the situation.

I heard about the british apache who couldn’t fold the rotor when the wind was higher than 30 km/h

But there is nothing wrong with a standard apache operating of a carrier/assault ship…….why would you need to change it?

Corrosion, the effect of a permanent wind ……