And Eagle1 was replying to mmalaya regarding the typhoon’s

However, we shouldn’t blame MrMalaya for that. It wasn’t a mistake. He’s a nice member.

Hopefully, some good news will come soon. We never have enough…

I can’t remember… Why are we talking about Typhoon again in this Rafale thread ? It made someone come again to try to spoil it all…

even deals where they were the only bid.

Are you talking about Morocco ? This is only one deal.

Where did Dassault/France mess up ?
-Korea ? No ;
-Singapore ? No, or not as much as Eurofighter : Mr Lake is the first to claim that BAe made a “shambolic performance” there and were punished by Singapore for this by an early eviction ;
-Morocco : yes, complete Franco-French disaster ;
-Switzerland ? With Rafale ending first of the technical evaluation and gouvt finally choosing the cheapest option ?

Of course, DA still have to learn some lessons, and I’m sure they do. But at least, our aircraft is competitive (note that I’m not claiming superiority, I just mean that up to now, technically, it’s “enough”, and with global offers apparently better than Eurofighter’s).

On the other hand, even worst pro-Eurofighter fanboys claim that BAe totally messed up in Singapore, and that EADS totally messed up in India…

I would like to bring here a little insight from people who actually have contacts at Dassault’s or in the Armée de l’Air, contrary to some so-called journalists here whose indisputable knowledge of absolute Truth and whose will to show us the right path through the evil French PR’s departements’ fog make them inapte to write anything interesting on this thread.

That’s about the UAE deal.

There is something which is sure here (in France), for several reasons : UAE want Rafale, nothing else.

They want it, because they love the Mirage 2000, especially the M2000-9 for all the panel of missions they can accomplish thanks to it. UAE have worked with Dassault for 30 years (starting with the Mirage 5). For the Rafale, UAE want an improvement of the capabilities over the -9. And the technical and financial discussions between UAE and France are not to be mistaken with last minute talks like it’s the case for “competitors”. In spite of the Prince Zayed outrage in November, their negotiators have come back to France in 2012 to go on, and this is an evidence that they want the Rafale.

However, these negotiators are highly skilled and vindictive, they behave as those who have the money with a seller who’s giving them all the attention.
And French sale peoples had to deal with this stance : “all or nothing”. At any moment, they were threatened to loose it all, for even the less significant disagreement which would have deserved further discussions. Instead, UAE negotiators asked for the superiors each time. This is how it worked from the very begining, always under threat, and this has been very nervously tiring for many French marketing persons who came back to France.

The Cheik’s stance in November was, manifestly, an brilliant illustration of what I wrote above. Charles Edelstenne (Dassault CEO) had to move there personnaly, and UAE military personnels came back to Saint Cloud (a Dassault site in France).

The contract now should be signed during this Spring, we don’t know when yet, Emirates have demonstrated how much they could put pressure, but care about not humiliating an historic partner.

The whole point is that while Rafale fans have claimed for a decade that Rafale is significantly, dramatically cheaper than Typhoon, it isn’t. The difference is small.

Yes…

And in fact Rafale seems to be marginally more expensive than Typhoon (10% on a unit programme basis, rather more on a unit production basis).

No.

Figures are difficult to compare, because the two nations assess and analyse costs differently (the UK is a relatively new convert to Resource Account Budgeting) and include different costs in what purport to be the same sort of price baseline.

True.

What we need is the production contract value for a batch of Rafales at around the same time as Tranche 2, but I suspect that such a figure does not exist, as the French roll in more than mere production into their contracts.

True.
But the 59 contract was signed in 2004, like the Tranche 2 for the Eurofighter.
€3.1Bn (with VAT) for 59 Rafale, and I once found an hint that Thales was also paid for future (postF3) developments in this contract.
VAT included, this means less than €53m each.
(This is very close to the 1999 figure, where 48 Rafale F2 were ordered at €54M each)

http://www.eurofighter.com/eurofighter-typhoon/programme/history.html
€13Bn for 236 Typhoon. Which VAT ? For all 4 partners ?
€55M each.
This is why I wrote “no”, a bit earlier.

The problem is that there is no direct comparison to the EF €55 m figure, which happens to be a very good and reliable unit production cost, actually paid.

…

What comes closest for Rafale, I guess, would be an average figure based on the figures from 2007.

Why 2007 when you have the numbers for 2004 ?:confused:

In addition… You know that the whole production for 294 Rafale was to cost €20.8Bn in 2004 estimates. This is €5Bn more than what F3 costed at the same time, but the “quote production” (still don’t know is the translation is OK) does include many other things (simulators, spares, maintenance means etc).
2004 :
contract UC : about 53M per Rafale
UPC : €70.7M per Rafale

When we are given a 101M UPC, in 2010, this is the quote production (forecast) divided by 286, and it has nothing to do with formerly quoted UPC. If the same amount of money is for simulators, spares etc, that’s to say nearly 25%, then the comparable figure would be something like €75M (in 2010).

Look at 1999 figures in my website :
In 1999, the quote production included :

At the time, the production of the Rafale alone was 74% of the “quote production” (I mean the Rafale B C M + industrialization)

In 2004, the contract value (53M per Rafale) for 294 would have been €15,5Bn, that’s 75% of the total €20.8Bn (quote production again, check).

In 2010, we are give the 101M for each Rafale. That the quote production divided by 286. If the Rafale alone are still 75% of the total, this makes a cost for each Rafale of €76M (with VAT).

€52.8 Millions Euros for a Rafale C (44.1 without VAT)
€56.6M for a Rafale B (47.3 without VAT)
€60.8 M for the M (50.8 without VAT)

Such an average would still be imperfect and unreliable, and a slight under-estimate.

Why “underestimate” ? These are old figures to compare to old Eurofighter figures too.

The problem with those figures is that they had increased by €10-12 m (depending on variant) just one year later, while the contract cost paid for Tranche 2 was fixed, and therefore did not and could not increase.

Except that past the F3 contract signed in 2004, France entered the next phase for the Rafale (post F3, with AESA etc). Why comparing a 2008 price for Rafale to a 2004 price for Typhoon ?

Why not comparing to the Tranche 3 contract ?

€9Bn for 112 is 80M each.
http://www.eurofighter.com/eurofighter-typhoon/programme/history.html

What is ORA?

QRA : Quick Reaction Alert.

Need a bit more detail than that to make any real conclusions.

Some people have drawn conclusions with much less than this. For the first time, a report (by the hand of neutral observers) is published comparing real effectiveness of all those systems.

Or maybe it’s a fake, but it’s also consistent with every previous “rumours”.

Is there a similar report for the Rafale particularly the no. of missions flown and weapons releases?

http://rafalenews.blogspot.com/2011/09/libya-rafale-stats.html
Without details, Rafale B/C flew 4000 hours in 900 sorties. M flew 2000 hours in 1000 sorties.
225 AASM were fired (only by Rafale).
+ undetermined amount of GBU-12 (Mirage SEM and Rafale used 950 of them).

PS : I forgot, General Palomeros said recently that Rafale B/C during Harmattan achieved an availability of 95 percent. Last figure I found for the M is 85.