First Operational Evaluation Firing of ASMPA Missile

The French air force has carried out the first operational evaluation of its new ASMPA supersonic nuclear stand-off missile seen here on the centreline pylon of a Rafale fighter. (French AF photo)
On Tuesday, June 19, 2012, France’s strategic air force command successfully carried out the first operational evaluation launch of the integrated weapon system comprising a C135 tanker, a Rafale strike aircraft, and the ASMPA nuclear stand-off missile according to a scenario representative of a real mission.

The crew of the fighter, belonging to the 1/91 “Gascogne” squadron, took off from Saint-Dizier air base. During five hours, the mission brought together all the important phases of flight: high altitude cruise, low altitude penetration, terrain following, in-flight refueling from tanker aircraft … The C135 tanker, belonging to the 2/91 “Bretagne” in-flight refueling squadron, provided the range extension needed for a strategic mission. After five hours of flight, the crew launched the ASMPA, which was not fitted with a nuclear warhead.

Civil and military authorities tracked the missile’s trajectory and mission profile, which complied in every respect to the expected flight profile from the missile test center of the Directorate General of Armaments (DGA) located at Biscarrosse, in south-western France.

This complex operation that brings together staff and resources of the Air Force, the DGA, industrial MBDA, the Atomic Energy Commission and Alternative Energies and the Navy (for the surveillance of the neighboring area, including the sea) is a success that validates the performance of this weapon system.

By guaranteeing the technical and operational credibility of the airborne deterrent, the EFT test demonstrates the ability of this strategic resource to carry on with the nuclear deterrent mission which has been continuously provided, for nearly fifty years, by France’s strategic air forces.

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/article-view/release/136192/rafale-fires-asmpa-nuclear-missile-in-first-operational-test.html

12F :

I know and if I use the 200km “range” for Spectra , it is because the interferrometry (geolocation and ranging) used by the system doesn ‘t work well beyond 200km (dixit Dassault/Thalès) .
A powerful ground radar can “wake up” SPECTRA well over 200km , of course .

It’s hard to believe that the geo-location will work that well at such (200 km) distances. The angle inaccuracy causes an ever growing range error the longer the distance. Thus far I have seen a Rafale pilot claiming that SPECTRA can detect emitters up to around 200 km, not that it is geo-locating them with any higher level of precision at that range.

So Saab had no clue what they were doing and proposed a variant they haven’t thought about? Maybe you read the leaked excerpts from the evaluation report before you shout nonsense!:rolleyes:

@TMor
That’s a rather stupid explanation. Do you seriously believe that the UAE AF is basing it’s requirements and concerns on base of internet rumours and news paper articles?

I somewhat tend to disagree. Multirole insists the ability to perform multiple missions that’s correct. Swing role means you are able to swing roles in flight seemlessly. Omnirole is merely am extension by cocering “all” roles. A sei grole capable aircraft might not be able to cover all roles, but different roles. Different variants of a single aircraft type don’t count as multirole per se. Multirole already implies that one aircraft type is performing different missions. Typically multirole and swingrole are more or less tied to each other these days. All mOdern combat aircraft can be employed in different roles and can swings those in flight. You can’t hope to perform all of them within a single flight and that’s first and foremost owed to payload constraints.

There isn’t too much known (to me) about the Rafale D pursued by the AdA in the late 1980s other than its signature requirements being more stringent. The Rafale C01 prototype featured the intakes of the proposed stealthier variant, which were abandoned for subsequent aircraft, including production models. The more relaxed signature requirements emerged after the end of the Cold War in attempt to lower costs. But I’m not aware off other features which were cancelled for that reason and I subsequently don’t know how much more stealthy the original design would have been in comparison to the eventual design. Other than that it doesn’t look like the French made many compromises following the end of the Cold War. The numbers were slashed over the years from the original 336 aircraft requirement (225 single seats and 25 twin seats for the AdA and 86 single seats for the MN) to 320 ac (139 B/95C and 86 M) in 1991, 294 ac (reduction to 60 M) to the current 286 (228 B/C possibly with an unknow split and 58 M). Temporary plans to procure between 35-40 Rafale N at the expense of an equivalent number of Ms were abandoned as was the development of a dedicated export variant dubbed Rafale MKII (AESA radar, M88-3 engines, 3000 l centre line tank and CFTs).

Some known changes for the “definitive” F3 variant included the cancellation of DVI and HMD (Gerfaut being selected over the TopSight-E) due to cost considerations and changing priorities (funding of the RBE2AA AESA, DDM-NG, OSF-IT) and the cancellation of some weapons (AS.30L in particular), ANF (proposed but ultimately cancelled successor of the AM39 Exocet) and the Apache has not be integrated on the Rafale yet (it might be once the M2k-D is withdrawn from service). Other new weapons were developed and integrated however, the AASM in particular.