Unusual incident involving a Rafale today:

Civilian passenger gets unexpectedly ejected from Rafale B jet

The identity of the civilian passenger (who “does not belong to the [French] Ministry of Armed Forces”) was not publicly disclosed. Journalists or elected officials are often invited to take part in “observation” flights approved by the Minister, for information and communication purposes.

Source:
AeroTime.com

Overall, the Fr fighter aircraft reached 44% availability in 2018. The Rafale having a slightly lower rate than the M2K. This was discussed already in the Rafale Thread where should lies a bunch or related documents.

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To the above values; one should add the low availability of essential items like targeting pods that are also quite depressing (the document linked below mentions the 50% readiness rate for the Thalios pod from Thales).

For those that don’t know their probability laws the Math say that the combined 50% availability of two systems would lead to something available 1/4th of the time. Yes, you understand right: for a single laser strike mission of 2 aircraft required to hit simultaneously two different targets (how original is this?!), you’ll have to ready 8 aircraft fitted with their pods…

Source:
French parliament

Beyond “death by PowerPoint”: US, India collaborating on air-launched drone

program contains “potential” for Indian industry to take part in co-development of the system, which would have three targeted uses: humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, “cross-border operations,” and cave and tunnel inspection, Lord said. She added that the program could be “an efficient, cost-effective way to provide additional capability to the war fighter.”

Another DTTI program under development is a lightweight small arms technology project, which could reduce combined weapons and ammunition weight by about 40 percent. (That project involves U.S. industrial firm Textron Systems, which Lord led before joining the Pentagon; she clarified she does not take part in any specific discussions about that project aside from its broad involvement as part of the DTTI portfolio.)

This is an area where there is co-development, as well as co-production opportunity, and that’s really what we’re interested in — technologies where the U.S. has brought them to a certain level and there’s an appetite for more investment, and for whatever reason we’re not able to get at that [in] the U.S. right now,” Lord said about that project.

Source:
DefenseNews.com

Stealth On Steroids: Meet Israel’s F-35I Adir.

Informed ppl say Stealthroids*

😉

*“come and get some!” does he say.

Lockheed Martin named Bridget Lauderdale as incoming vice-president and general manager for its integrated fighter group

Lauderdale most recently served as vice-president for Lockheed Martin’s F-35 global sustainment team. She has also held roles as senior vice-president of corporate strategy and business development, vice-president for aeronautics operations, vice-president and general manager of F-16 and F-2 fighters, and vice-president for F-22 product development, says Lockheed Martin.

“Bridget’s extensive experiences in the fighter market, her strong relationships with internal teams and customers, and her thoughtful, strategic approach will enable us to continue generating opportunities for the F-16 and F-22 well into the future,” says Michele Evans, executive vice-president of aeronautics.

Source:
FlightGlobal.com

It’s a Photoshop.

Yes, I do agree with that. Thank you.

this thing doesn’t have a landing gear so it could have a much larger bay than a similarly sized vehicle with a landing gear.

Good point! Also the inherent simplification in systems design would obviously help keeping the cost down.

Regarding the Neuron, I did wrote years ago that this mad push for a full blown UCAV airframe as an attritable could only have been born in the mind of the greediest industry leader. It seems today madness is contagious.

*pronounce “MadnessEU” à la French.