It’s not exactely new, but it had to appear here :
http://www.cerclefinance.com/default.asp?pub=alaune&art=178397

The first IIR AASM shooting (from a Mirage 2000N) was a success, and happened on the 12th June 2007.
The IIR AASM is just like the other (INS+GPS and range extension kit) but in addtition, it uses an infrared imagery system to identify its target so as to get a metric accuracy.

And, what about the topic ? :rolleyes: 😀

Thank you for this detailed answer. 😉

What’s the small outgrowth above the parachute door :confused:

Does someone know about the EJ200 MTBO ?

Yes, it was just a painting, aimed at fooling other manufacturers.

My understanding is that with an aerodynamically unstable configuration it isn’t able at all to employ an analogue system as a back up.

Your sentence isn’t correct : the M2000 works with an analogue FCS system, and it is already aerodynamically instable. And it has nothing to do with mecanical system, though the first prototype had one (but dropped).

Let’s look back to the quote :

“It was also decided that the FBW Jaguar digital FCS would have no backup flight control system of any kind from the outset of the program. The reason for this was twofold. Firstly, a mechanical system could not control an unstable configuration.

Analogue fly-by-wire FCS isn’t a machanical system. M2000 flies with analogue FBW FCS.

Secondly, an independent electrical backup, whether analogue or digital, would introduce so much additional complexity, both in the design of the system (hardware and software) and in the flight clearance processes, that it would be counter productive.

About the M4000 :

“…commandes électrique analogique, avec 4 chaines indépendantes possédant leur propre génération électrique, une cinquième chaine servant en ultime recours.”

Magazine “Fana de l’Aviation” 417 page 70.
Translation : “the Mirage 4000 used analogue FBW, with 4 independant channel, each having their own electrical back-up, plus a fifth channel for ultimate help.”

I think that’s clearly enough to demonstrate my point. Rafale uses 3 digital channels, plus one analogue. This means nothing about the instability, since in the FG article, you can clearly notice how degraded the controls are when flying with the analogue system.
Dassault could very well put an additional independant analogue system, because it’s made to resist to damage. It’s a war plane, after all.

It did not support your contention of “Widely varying CofG positions” except with external stores – which you blokes were heralding as being something unique to Rafale a page ago.

No, YOU decided to believe that we said it was something unique to Rafale. Funny to see that you suffers the worst symptoms than the worse talented Rafale supporters exposed to blokes like you.

It did not support your contention of a “nightmare to fix the FCS”.

EAP -Encore Au Parking-
Hangar Queen, etc.
They have had troubles in developping FCS. It wasn’t easy at all, while Dassault had not such troubles. See the C01 video if you don’t remember.

Do you think that (even with their less ambitious targets on instability) Dassault’s FCS people didn’t find that:

“A lot of aerodynamic studies and windtunnel testing were required to understand the complex flow mechanism and to maximise the benefits while keeping detrimental effects as low as possible”

Opit never suggested the contrary.

and that they didn’t have to

overcome “very significant challenges”?

The same. But it’s funny : you’re the one who saies that Typhoon instability is much more difficult to cope with, and then, you want us to tell you that Dassault had a similar hard time to set their FCS ok with the less risky Rafale.
You’re not informing, just trying to defend your side at all cost. You never have enough to tell us how much Typhoon outperforms Rafale, now, you want to go farther.:rolleyes:

You clearly don’t really understand what you read.

You don’t understand what you’re told, nor what you read, according to what you thought about the Fred George article. Remember I compared YOUR reaction to mine when i red for my first time a Jon Lake’s article about Typhoon. At this time, i was really young. 15 years old.

I hope that you did understand this extract from your linked Flight piece. (You may recall how many French posters have disputed the correlation between instability and agility).

We opposed your simplistic and restraintless instability theories to developped (and sometimes wrong or unbanlanced) aerodynamic analysis.

In a longitudinally stable configuration, the centre of pressure is behind the centre of gravity (cg). As the aircraft pitches up, lift increases and acts to push the nose back down. In manoeuvres, the trailing-edge control surfaces must be deflected upward, reducing lift, to trim the aircraft.

In an unstable configuration, lift acts forward of the cg and therefore amplifies any pitch excursions – intentional or unintentional.

And when we give you close-coupled analysis, you discard it on the ground of excessive simplicity.

(This gives a hint as to why pitch up needs to be mitigated)

Not for the transonic speeds.

Instability reduces the trim drag of a delta because, in manoeuvres, the trailing-edge surfaces are deflected downward, towards the optimum wing camber. Leading-edge devices, when deflected downward, further optimise camber and allow the delta wing to generate high lift with less drag.

An unstable aircraft is also more responsive in pitch, increasing its agility. Although the Euro-fighter becomes stable supersonically, when the centre of pressure moves aft, it is still less stable than a conventional configuration and therefore retains the advantages of reduced trim drag and better turn performance.

Nothing ignored by Dassault. I could answer you “do you think Dassault didn’t take all of this into consideration ? lol
What do you make of high pitch rate ? High G-onset ? A value software limited in Rafale so as to protect the pilot against G-Lock ? (because F-16 was already good enough with this)
At lower speeds, Rafale’s pitch rate is already high enough (100°, -40kts, interest of cobra denyed… ?)

Eurofighter designers wanted as much instability as possible, for minimum drag and maximum agility. “We aimed for 15% early on, but settled for 8%,” says Friemer.

But this is interesting. Why only 8% ?

I’m really bored to see this guy throwing such stuffs every time in the bad place…