I haven’t read the article, but is this a concept or the result of ongoing work to meet a French requirement?

No.
France isn’t even interested in CFTs. The article by A&C and the pictures associated are funny, that’s all.

Is it designed to offer a stealthy option to the French armed forces over the coming decades (similar to that offered to F35 operators in theory, or is it an export driven concept?

While some improvements are planned, do not expect anything too ambitious AND visible. Best informed members of air-defense.net call for calm. 😀

but can you see why people question the RCS claims of the Rafale – external fuel probe and vertical control surfaces which feature no-where else in any proposed or actual LO design.

Yes ! Because they look like obvious arguments.

I understand your idea. But what are the questioned RCS claims ?

We’ve been discussing the matter for years now.
Rafale is the first aircraft programme in France with actual RCS and IR sig figures quoted in the specifications. Those specs appeared after the Rafale A, and produced different Rafale D just after the disclosure of F-117. Rafale C01 was the result of the best compromise between stealth, performance and cost (I bolded and underlined because I don’t know the balance and I’d rather be cautious).
It was not intended to be as stealthy as a VLO, but enough to ease the work of its electronic suite, with all the ambition required by a nuclear strike requirement for instance.
In all publications I have collected since early 1990’s, it is repeated over and over that all efforts were made to reduce RCS. Curvy external shapes, structure, RAM on critical points, curves, air intake design, gold in the canopy, no right angle, double-S shaped air ducts, refined air intakes, sawtooth on all moving parts, fixed array for the radar, and an engine with reduced RCS too. That’s already a lot of efforts.
And I don’t really know why, people don’t care of all those details. I’ve read discussions where people even thought that sawtooth were for aesthetic, and laughed at the idea that the purpose could have been stealth, though there are many of them on the F-117, while this is the shape of B-2’s trailing edge, F-135 nozzles, or moving part on the F-22 and F-35.

I don’t know why, people focus on the refuelling probe, and on the vertical stabilizer. If not, they will track anything looking like a problem in a manner they would not have for other types.

But hey ! While no one deny that the refuel probe may have a negative impact, who can tell us that it totally annihilates all the efforts ?
First, Rafale is not a VLO (I know you didn’t claim this). It’s supposed to be, merely, a new gen fighter, “à la” Eurofighter, or Gripen, or Su-35 or F/A-18 E.

None of them are VLO, and 3 of them have vertical stabilizer. So, the only “problem” (in comparison) of Rafale is the R-probe.

But don’t you think it’s dubious to question the r-probe when we don’t know how effective are all the other measures ?

How well do those measures work ?
Dassault has used different comparisons to tell us how low the Rafale’s RCS was. In 1997, they claimed Rafale had a RCS 20 times lower that the F-15’s. Laughable by today standards.
Later, I don’t know when, they said 1/10th to 1/20th of a Mirage 2000’s. This is much more than the previous comparison, I think.
Of course, those may be stupid outdated commercial claims. But today, in 2012, AdA pilots give their opinion too.
And according to them, Rafale RCS is low enough to compensate superior radar ranges of SHornet or Typhoon, and help them infiltrate various airspaces with the help of Spectra and various tactics.

I understand and accept any scepticism, but I try to help you understand why we don’t pay too much attention to the R-probe problem.

For the anecdote, Dassault would have preferred a retractable one, but AdA already has too much sad experiences with broken probes ending in various Atar or M53s.
AdA required a fixed hence stronger probe, because, yes, fixed probes are stronger and also deliver a very fast flow. Tankers know the difference, and may even love it.

I’m really, genuinely not knocking Rafale

I know 😉

Don’t really get the point in all of that and still keep the fuel probe external..?

Maybe the French are desperately trying to compensate for such a radar-reflector (the probe) ?

…but I am not going to start memorizing every sequence of upper and lowercase letters that someone dreams up and attaches to a product, especially when they break other rules in the language.

🙂

nEUROn is how it is written, to underline the fact that it’s a EUROpean project. This is what makes it so easy to remember. It may look unimportant, but some people care about it at Dassault’s. If it’s too hard to remember, we should notice that only the first and last letters are lower case (that’s unusual). Or only the “n”s.

My initial intention was only to help those who tried to spell it correctly (“nEuron” is in the tittle of the thread for example). That’s all.

In addition, in the text, A&C reports that Dassault has a twin fins Rafale concept for lower SER.

Combat Aircraft (not french AFAIK) goes even further, saying that Typhoon won’t be evaluated. Rafale would only face the F-16.

Two sources. So much for the “typical French press”.

I second the Glitter’s message.

Ok, then, read this.
http://gauche.blog.lemonde.fr/2012/01/23/ladmiration-de-melenchon-pour-dassault-ce-grand-industriel/

There is a lot of confusion in non-left people in France, who believe that leftists are against Dassault.
In fact, again, while Serge Dassault isn’t as charismatic as his father, the company (and the products) has a solid reputation. History tells the rest.

You want weird communication ?
http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/awx_11_16_2011_p0-395135.xml

The translation of that paragraph is that the previous governement was too much focus on the Rafale, and that nothing was wrong with Dassault.

“Nothing” may be exaggerated, but clearly, Sarkozy have been working 5 years on this deal, and failed. Meanwhile, the Dassault’s offer was “ready” (approved) well before the elections. UAE chose to wait.

The “unworkable offer” expression has been extremely successful, for several reasons I guess : it fits the “ill fated Rafale” chronicles, it came timely to please USA and Eurofighter, but actually, it was not the real problem.

Because Saudi Arabia was interested (hence the sand camo too).

I can’t remember, sorry. AFAIR, it was reported by Germain Chambost in “Pilotes d’essais, le goût du risque calculé”, a book I borrowed to my uncle in 2006…