It still isn’t done for sure however, no offical announcements from all involved…

Wait and see !

EDIT : erased because it wasn’t bringing anything to the discussion.

I remember this french forum http://www.checksix-forums.com/showthread.php?p=659451#post659451 where apparently really competent posters said, in substance, that the Rafale had a fair chance to be less agile and speedy than the Eurofighter in exchange for a heavier payload and an ability to do “ground following” easier (where, apparently, high instability isn’t great).

So at the end of the day the differences between these 2 fighters seemed to be matter of choices, one being design as a good superiority fighter and the other one as a good “omnirole” plane.

BTW, I guess we’ll all agree that agility or speed aren’t the most important features of a modern air combat.

On french forums some people said that the “ARM like” missiles had proven themselves really uneffective in Bosnia and following events there.

It was said to be the reason why the MARTEL (and following) program was stopped, and weapons like AASM considerated for this kind of job.

What do you say of that ?

Thanks 🙂

About the T/R modules:
To my understanding europe intends to use common modules as this reduces costs. CAESAR and the RBE2A since DRAAMA are both using GaAs. GaNs are studied or developed at all, but they were still not used and we have to wait if they will be available in the time when both Captor and RBE2 receive AESA for operational purposes. I think both radars will use the same GaAs in the sense of a common european module and it would be wise to do so on cost grounds.

I’m not sure whether France would agree to share the production of its modules. Do you have any clue on it ?

However, I agree that at least sharing research cost is a good thing.

The Captor demonstrated tracking of multiple targets at more than 160 km! One test pilot says its range is well beyond the official figures and requirements, but exact data are of course classified.

Just a question : some posters (mainly french I acknowledge easily 😉 lol) say that range of detection/tracking is not all, because one needs as well to avoid being detected. In the case of the Captor, due to its non ESA mode, they kind of say “this is not a LPI radar, so everyone around will know for sure where the EF is because of its radar emissions”. What do you say of it ?

Thanks in advance

Hindsight’s a wonderful thing, and I still admire the bold and visionary French decision to go for a PESA array. It deserved to succeed. It so happens that with the benefit of hindsight we can see that it was the wrong decision, and that the caution expressed above resulted in a better in-service radar in 2007.

You’re really good at making conclusions without taking the context in consideration.

Indeed, I remember that the French went for the PESA because they were in need of some of the functionnalities only an electronical array gives, like ground following for example. Some of these functionnalities are required for the A-G and some may even be needed for the M version.

Even without that, your conclusion is a bit fast I think. Indeed, considering the raw capacities of both radars, how can you judge that the advantage of “long distance of detection” of the Captor outperforms the LPI advantage of the Rafale’s radar ? Where is the advantages of the Captor if everyone arround knows the Captor is present and scanning ?