Anything called a Dossier de Presse is not what I’d describe as “you can’t get more accurate.”

It’s the most accurate we have. Wether you like it or not. And it’s the heaviest figure we have in France. It comes from the MoD.

But of course Jack, every French source (except yours) are suspicious.

And when Dassault themselves now give the C weight as “about ten tonnes” and when other good sources give 10,300 kg as the empty weight, 9,850 kg (the old Jane’s figure) is plainly out-of-date and wrong, and 9,500 kg is even more so.

Bullsh@t.

“About ten tons” : it’s the best way to talk about all the three variants (C,B,M). But only the M is heavier than 10 tons.
Look at any MoD or Dassault source talking specificaly about the C. Dassault do not give the C weight as 10 tons… Or show me where !

Bear in mind that since M.Fonk was giving the weights as:

Rafale C = 9,090 Kg
Rafale B = 9,540 Kg
Rafale M = 9,650 Kg

Old figures.
Rafale C01 has long been weighted at 9,060kg. It’s over. This figure isn’t clear even now, for several reasons :
1) The absolutely empty weight is actually below 9 tons (8.5tons)
2) The C01 weighted 10 tons, because of instrumentations (for example : 100kg per engine).
3) We have absolutely no information about was makes the aircraft weight 9,060kg.
4) Rafale A weights 9.5tons, ONE ton more than series aircraft.
Then, the story of the

back in 2005, several countries have been briefed in detail on the aircraft, and while Rafale’s weight is not given in detail to the press and public, they would have been accurately briefed, and I suspect that these countries are behind some of the 10,300 kg reports, while AdlA sources have also given empty weights in line with the 10,300 kg figure for Rafale C (10,650 for the B, for example).

Of course. Yeah. The problem is : never French were told that the production Rafale C weights 10,300kg. Funny. Ridiculous.
9,500kg.

“There was a nice report from a french journalist flying in the backseat of Rafale B302. He claimed the takeoffweight was 16,4t with a 1250 l tank and 4 MICAs.
So let’s subtract 16,4 t minus 1,4 t (should be the weight of tank and for MICAs). So you have 15 t.
Oh it’s becoming interesting let’s subtract 4,3 t of internal fuel and we have at least 10,5 t empty weight for a Rafale B.”

Now that’s for B302, a test aircraft with test instrumentation, but also then without OSF and Spectra, and without the beefed up production landing gear, and limited to a 21 tonne MTOW.

Rafale B could already fly with a MTOW of 23,400kg. You’re just writting what you want here. I don’t have time to investigate on that.
Interesting to see that you rely on forum analysis.

Moreover, I suspect that Fonk’s figures date back from before the production RBE2 installation, before Spectra, and before the landing gear was beefed up to allow the 24.5 tonne MTOW.

Damn it !
It really seems that Fonck gives you a terrible complex ! ! ! 😮

On weight, it should be pointed out that Typhoon was never 9,750 kg – that was only ever a target weight at the time of the Turin agreement, and that requirement changes meant that by the time metal was cut, even the TARGET weight was higher. This disparity is, however, what lies behind the claims of a 1.1 tonne weight increase in Typhoon.

Typhoon weights 11,600kg. Surely not less. However, I accept this ridiculous TWR and WL figures with 11,000kg.

Specific excess power is one of the keys, but of course, it will be classified for at least 30 years.

Why not opening a thread about BVR tactics instead of posting here about Flankers and MiGs !
It’s a Rafale thread, please !

It is the “Télémir” antenna : only used on the M, as it allows the aircraft system to align on the carrier (CdG).

On this pic, just above the Scalp (or maybe it’s an Apache), on the leading edge, you can see a red light. On the other wing, it’s green.

Green light

Could it be that there’re only 3 (wing roots and spine)?

At least 2 other : at the junction of the leading edge with the fuselage, behind the Lerx.

Every press etc. has its favors. Quoting articles to as evidence is not very useful when the claims aren’t back uped.

I agree with you, but in this case, all what was said was :

Since 2001, the 10 Rafale F1 delivered to the 12F, based at LAndivisiau, have been opposed to numerous aircraft : “we’ve had a confrontation with lots of air-defense fighters, such as the F-14, the F-15, the F-18, the Gripen, the M2000 and, this month, the Eurofighter. We see that we do not have many things to envy to the others. The Rafale is comparable to the F-18, and it arouse a lot of curiosity.”

To me, it just means that the Rafale F1 hasn’t suffered an humiliation against the EF.
It’s only Rafale pilots’ opinion, it isn’t backed up, and Italian pilots’ opinion would be interesting, so as to compare.

Were it not the case, why would they be going to quite the amount of trouble on DRAAMA?

PESA on Rafale has always been only an interim solution. DRAAMA development is normal.
Nonetheless, its qualities are almost the same as those of the RDY, if not clearly exceeding it on some aspects (agility, number of tracks, even in range, with the F2).
I’d really love to know how well the Mirage 2000-5 (RDY) stand against the indian Su-30MK (Garuda III etc), but i’m not sure it is ridiculous.