Thank you.

Capitaine Romain (Rafale pilot) gives his point of view about the events against the F-22 :

According to him, because BVR doesn’t rely on pure airframe performance, US pilots refused the BVR engagements and prefered the dogfights (it seems to confirm that the US pilots were unwilling to show their radar).

At this game, the heavy F-22 demonstrated superb capabilities, but at the cost of a high fuel consumption due to low speeds.

None of the two aircraft demonstrated a superiority over the other. No details were given because pilots know that dogfights depends on a lot of factors.

So, the Grandclaudon’s story about dogfight isn’t really challenged. The only remaining problem is about the BVR part.
France denied it happened.
I thought USA too.
A&C say it happened.

When our MoD had to sign the order in 2004, the flyaway price was around €45 M.
It hadn’t changed in 2007.
http://rafale.freeforums.org/a-topic-about-programme-costs-t7.html

I’m not sure we can conclude about what it is NOW. 😎 The only thing i’m sure about is that the quote production has increased by 3 to 4Bn for a lower number of aircraft… !
Thus, yes, the flyaway price should have increased too. But i’m not sure we’re far from the €55M price.

A question though. Isn’t VAT paid by foreign customers too? (i ‘ve no idea).

No.

Wait, i check…

Good question. It seems that countries members of the European Union are not exonerated ! 🙁
http://www.douane.gouv.fr/page.asp?id=349

So, basically, the current cost of each Rafale with support and including VAT, should be 142 M, while the fly away isn’t disclosed. Correct? Which is what a customer should expect to pay too, i suppose.

Thank you.

142 is what France pays (the whole France, including industrial part, no only tax payers) WITH VAT.

Tax payers pay €112M per aircraft (without VAT which is paid and recovered as soon by the State).

This include a R&D that a foreign customer shouldn’t pay for.

I think that depending on the package, €84M (101 without VAT) is the minimum foreign customer should be asked for…

But our industrial want a margin, and to recover their R&D share ! (€2Bn)

So… IF the foreign customer wants the same packages than France (simulators, spares etc), it should pay :

€84M per aircraft + a part of the €2Bn R&D industrial share + weapons + commercial margin + everything i forget.

The problem is that i really doubt that a foreign customer will want exactly the same package….

So THE reasons for selecting the Rafale have nothing to do with the merits of the plane itself…

He wrote “is not only about”. Not “is about everything but”.

However, i’m honoured to see that each time, Rafale become the target of just nearly everybody.

Eurofighter, Gripen, Super Hornet, F-15K/S… They all have a big problem with our aircraft merits… If we just had to read and hear, then, except in France, Rafale would be a not so good but very expensive aircraft. Fact is that it gives hard time to its competitors each time. I really wonder why.

Who’s next ?

Oh ! Evil Rafale didn’t score a single point ?
Sorry…

(this demotivator is not dedicated to forumers here)

“Counter intuitive…”:D