I think we have the AdlA side from Colonel Grandclaudon already, don’t you? 😉 Though I do have a request in with EC 1/7 – no answer yet, I wonder if I used the right contact e-mail …….?

Tried that out on this link?
http://www.ec17provence.org/contact.htm

For the time being, it is rather Bae and its JOUST pudding who are an object of public mockery :p

Do you guys ever learn it? I suppose not, otherwise would would stop bringing up that nonsense. The JOUST studies were conducted by DERA which makes no money with selling Typhoons, but makes money with studies, research and assessments. DERA was paid to do so by the UK MoD, not by BAe. The purpose was to relief a picture of future aircombat, required capabilities and tactics and to assess the performance of the RAF’s future premier fighter and other contemporary designs against an expected threat. The results were used to develope tactics and identify needs/requirements to optimise the process early on. The only thing Eurofighter/BAe did was to supply data/information for the Typhoon and they use the results for marketing purposes. While JOUST is certainly dated and to a certain extend inaccurate and therefore not representive should be out of question. That doesn’t change the fact that these studies weren’t conducted by BAe for marketing purposes to sell the Typhoon.

A small detail you forgot Cola is that some UAE pilots were onboard the rafale, so what would be the point to distort the truth ?

And you know for sure that those UAE pilots were onboard during these very encounters?
If it is true that this DACT was outside of the core ATLC exercise, then I have my doubts and if they were within those exercises it would be almost factual that one side was fighting for red with all its restrictions and the other for blue. This could well be true for any kind of training outside of the exercise as well.

@Kovy

Furthermore, I would rather have an insight from the RAF (which was there) than from the com service of the eurofighter Gmbh (which was not there

With the Dubai airshow ongoing near by I wouldn’t be to sure wether representives from the industry weren’t there.

:confused:

Can you give me a single example of a fighter jet deployment to a war zone which was not motivated by politics ?!

As for the marketing point, it is a colatteral bonus. but I don’t see it as the primary goal of the deployements.

IMHO, it would be silly to spend billions in new fighters just to keep them at home.

Well with politically motivated it is meant that the aircraft weren’t really needed or fully ready, but they were deployed to receive the label “combat proven”.

you are correct scorpion82, I meant time sensitive for a GPS cooridinate strike in a CAS scenario.

We should not forget that laser guided rockets are in the pipe (they where displayed at the last paris airshow and showcased by the AdA) as well as a laser guided variant of the AASM.

SAGEM also study the possibility of a datalink with the AASM to engage moving target as reported in an issue of A&C (weekly.

remember that Moussez talked about a mix config of 3 AASM, 3LGB, 1*1000KG LGB, 2 Laser rocket pods, two 2000L drop tanks, 1*damocles and 4 micas if needed plus the 30min canon.

Indeed, but is there a timeline available for the 68 mm laser rocket pods? Are they already developed at all? Laser guided rockets as such are a good thing to have for CAS, fast precious and beam riding with the subsequent ability to update the targets position. They are going to finally make use of the outer wing pylons don’t they?

@Nicolas,
what I meant is that a targeting pod is not of much use for an AASM, that’s why I asked wether the Rafales use a mixed load of AASMs for “fixed” target positions and GBU-12 against moving targets to be designated by the M2K-Ds.

A specific asset of the AASM for CAS as described by rafale pilots is to engage time sensitive targets in any weather conditions. It’s booster and its important control surfaces allows to shoot the AASM over the shoulder with exotic trajectories for a bomb diminishing the reaction time before shooting.

The question is wether the AASM can attack moving targets or not and particularley armed insurgents. With a targeting pod you could manually slew the sensor and guide an LGB if the need arises. With an AASM you can’t do that, it might be able to acquire a vehicle with its IIR seeker, but can it actually target humans? And how does the AASM seeker distinguishes between different targets when they move and the missile relies on autonomous terminal target acquisition.

it doesn’t say how many times the Rafale locked onto the F-22..there was some Aussie exchange pilot who while flying against the F-22 claimed that while he could see it, the aircraft’s systems couldn’t lock on to the F-22..:D I suppose that was the result of jamming and not shock and awe !:D

That aussie exchange pilot said he “couldn’t put his weapons on it” that doesn’t mean he couldn’t get a lock. This could be interpreted in two ways, either his aircraft was just not agile enough to point its nose on the F-22 to aim with the gun or lock on with an AIM-9M or that he couldn’t acquire it with the radar or missile. I personally tend to believe its the former one, because I can’t imaging that the F-22 is so stealthy that it can’t be locked on by a halfway modern radar or missile it such short distances. BTW the F-22 lacks any means of ECM and will just receive an electronic attack capability through its radar.

Do the French have better systems to lock onto the F-22 (passive sensors like the IR/TV camera) to overcome jamming of the radar’s close combat modes ? The answer is that they do-the Rafale’s passive sensors may not have been spoofed, which might explain it.

Regarding the encounters during the ATLC it was said that the Rafale went in the cross hairs of the F-22 just once. In other words a 1:0 for the F-22 out of 6 encounters. For the rest both aircraft appear to have run circles around each other before the fight was called of and ended up as a draw.

Yemen has 12 MiG-29SMT if I recall correctly, those were upgraded from used Fulcrum As.

Algeria ordered 34 aircraft, which were built from previously new built airframes which were never sold and put to storage. Russia intends to put 26 of them into service.

There is just one MiG-29OVT which is a demonstrator rather than a prototype, coverted from the sixth MiG-29M prototype (board number 156).