I have some infos from air fan so the AdA has today 42 rafales including 35 twin seaters.

There is already today more F3 than F2 and the upgrade will be over in february 2010.

the EC1/91 was recreated the 31 march 2009 it will be fully operational during the summer 2010 although it can already perform other non nuclear missions since most of the personnel comes from the provence squadron.

The provence squadron is now mostly composed of single seater for operational tasks.

The first new build rafale F3 was delivered in september 2009.

Thanks for the reply. ALbeit I thought the first example was delivered in august 2008 to the MN. September was the first delivery to the AdA?

Several years ago when the F-22 first flew a display at Oshkosh one of the F-22 pilots interviewed said, in effect, that they could have supercruised from Langley to Oshkosh if they’d wanted to. That’s about 800 miles. (Actually what he said was that they could have made the trip in 30 minutes but that sent the F-22-haters into convulsions the last time I mentioned it so I toned it down. :diablo: )

One way ferry without combat etc. is something different and as the range on internal fuel figures are about twice the 800 miles figure, that might be reasonable.

Its funny how to see that on the same subject some pilots will be very shy and then you talk to another guy like from the DGA and you get much more precise infos…So there is a part of luck in this

Thanks for the info albeit nothing really new here. For the case you didn’t know you can select targets on the HLD by touch.
The reaction is typical, military personal is often more restricted or at least more careful due restrictions.

2.8 bln $ for just 12 planes? That’s an average 233 mln $ per aircraft.

72 additional Typhoon’s for the RSAF?

According to the following source Saudi-Arabia seems to be interested in procuring another 72 Typhoons, if the current order goes well.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1193766/BAE-line-new-Saudi-fighter-deal.html

Saudi Arabia is considering placing a blockbuster order for a further 72 Typhoon fighter jets, worth about £5billion, which could provide a huge boost to defence giant BAE Systems.

The oil-rich kingdom signed an original deal for 72 of the jets in 2006. These are in the process of being handed over to Saudi, with the first two Eurofighter Typhoons delivered just last week.

An industry source said: ‘The Saudis are interested in taking more Typhoons, probably about the same amount again, as long as this (current order) all goes well.’

Sounds interesting, though this might take some time and as usual everything might be subject to change.

UK and French did, but the Germans, Spanish, Italians, didn’t and the Swedes use American engines even today. I was talking about post WW2 era.

Might have to do with the fact that those other countries were mainly operating foreign types, spare Sweden.;)