When you sum it:

– Dassault make fly FBW instable delta planes since 1978 (Mirage 2000) and FBW instable delta-canard planes since 1979 (M4000).

– first FBW instable plane ever: a NASA prototype in 1977

– the M4000 flown up to 1987, they could test everything they needed, every configuration.

– M2000: the first plane ever to be CAD-CAM modeled. They had the numerical model. Dassault System became later the undisputed world leader of Cad-Cam for aviation with CATIA

– to pretend that the Tornado team could come back from nowhere and beat Dassault at making a FBW instable delta-canard plane is like pretending that TOYOTA will come in Formula 1 and beat Ferrari as well as Mac Laren the first year.

It makes it on the paper but not in the real ingeneering world in a highly evolutionary and competitive business where you gain one second per turn years after years.

Exactly the same thing here.

It could have happened. The doubt was possible. But the more operational data are coming out, the more there is less doubt 😉 …

The DGA conducted a test campaign that finished the 11th of June at the Biscarosse test center with fire of Mica’s on targets attacking from behind.
The target were designated by L16 link.
A dozen Mica were fired during this test campaign.

http://www.armees.com/Tir-MICA-depuis-un-Rafale-F2-quand-le-chasseur-devient-la-cible,22155.html

They describe it like a “technical first” but they probably mean “european first”

Because it’s not a target from your own sensors, RoE will probably require that you confirm it with your wingman.

You are much more likely to make a friendly fire if you squeeze trigger on a quick HMS sight than on a track on the tactical display where tracks are sorted between friends or foes thanks to automatic IFF (specially if it’s a Turk F16 vs a Greek one 😀 )

Put a HMS on a F16 MLU and it would bring a lot. But not on a very modern last gen’ plane with very sophisticated data fusion and advanced tactical display (except some very specific cases that doesn’t worth the spending).

About WWR / BVR, normally it doesn’t make such a difference with the Mica since this one has both optimisation (vectoring thrust / 50G / light weight for close combat and LAM / mid-course update / medium-long range for BVR)

All this just for the self defense of course since the omnirole Rafale is more optimized for A to G role 😀

BTW we know for certain that the OSF is fused with the rest but I wonder if it gives automatically the range as well when the OSF data of at least 2 planes are fused (triangulation). Normaly yes.

What is really pathetic is that kind of argument:

And how long does it take for Rafale 1 to designate the target, for the pilot of Rafale 2 to then accept that target, and then commit, and then fire? He almost certainly has to look at the target anyway to confirm that he isn’t engaging a friendly.

And what if there isn’t a handy wingman in just the right position to designate the target?

Either way it total ignorance which is worrying – and pathetic – from someone who is a journalist, or it’s total bad fairth which is about as pathetic.

So here is the story:
Pilot1 send a requiest for targeting to pilot2: “hey mate, I got a ennemy in my 6, could you please send me the coordinate of this ba$tard, please, if you aren’t too busy right now, please”
Pilot2: “Hold on …. yeah, got it… are you ready for reception? ready? go”
Pilot1: “All right, I got it now, thanks, I ow you a bear when back. All right I shoot a Mica, I’ll tell you”
Pilot2: “You’re wellcome, don’t hesitate to ask if you have someone in your 6”
….

No, you need a update man.

The data coming from other vectors (other planes, AWACS, etc…) and from other sensors (radar, IRST, Spectra,…) are fused and presented the same way as the data coming from you own plane.

And then you can track, select and shoot any of them whatever they come from your own radar or any other’s. You can selec them manually or let the system select automatically the most dangerous ones.
Again, the fact that the track comes from your plane or any other doesn’t matter.
It gives to each planes, actually, a situational awarness much larger than the radar’s cones of each.

That’s why the L16 and the data fusion makes the HMS much less necessary (see the F22 again)
And it makes the need to move the noze of a plane to shoot a missile much less compulsory useless to say.

The M2Ks may have done a good job in Afghanistan, but they’d have done it better with an HMSS. They’d have been able to get eyes on to a target quicker, cycle a formation through a target quicker.

And you give the HMS to the pilot or to the navigator? Or both? :p

It’s UTTER nonsense.

When the F22 was presented officially, on front of all the officials of LM and the US MoD and politicians, we heard sudenly a loud:
“HOOOOO SH!T!!!!: WE’VE FORGOT THE HMS!!!”

That is UTTER nonsense now.

Even a simple HMS is better than not having one, as the RAF’s Jag force found out.

That’s the point. Put a HMS on a Jag’ and you change a (light) truck to a dangerous opponent, for self defense at least.

Put it on a last gen’ plane which already has the cue of all the environment through the fusion of all the sensors around (other planes, AWACS, SPECTRA, IRST, etc…) and you don’t bring much.

Anyway, though the Topsight is available, it’s not this one which was choosen for the upgrade of the M2000-D fleet lately. It’s the L16 and the sofwares coming with it. They found the budget for that -plus a non-planed one- but not for the Topsight-E on the Raf’ it seems.

And the 2000D have carried and dropped enough iron under the wings since 1999 and the Kosovo and since 2001 in Afghanistan to make us guess that they do know what they’re talking about.

The F35 is another story since the HMS replace the HUD there.

Well … some people say that the HMS are not that usefull in the very latest planes with a good “god eyes” 360° situation awarness.
I-e: when you can shoot behind the shoulder on a target given by any vector’s data (another plane of the patrol, AWACS, ground radar …)

Remember that the F22 doesn’t have a HMS either.

But maybe people who say that just try to hide their disapointment :p

SAGEM is clearly in the line of fire of the DGA lately. The 2 years delays of the AASM, the problems of the 3-5 µ IR way of the OSF, the Gerfaut….

Good joke.
Could you remind me the range of the MICA used in that simulation ?
JOUST: 40km
TAiwanese AF: drone shoot at 73km
French AF: more than 80km

😀

JOUST: Mica = 25 km!

And if it was only this…

It’s not marketing, it’s manipulation to make the deputies to vote the bill without being lynched by the population.

real world operation (Operation Heracles – pretty pompous name for that!) for just one month and then having to go into deep maintainance for 18 month

Yep. For each month of operation the CdG needs 18 month of maintenance :p

AFAIK operation heracles the french name for enduring freedom not a specific operation related to the CdGs deployment.

Indeed.

Rafale C : 331 kg/m2 (TWR 1,01/0,67)
Typhoon F2 : 331 kg/m2 (TWR 1,11/0,74)

Sorry to be rude but with such a close call concerning TWR we are far from the over-powered rocket one hand,
…and the under-powered truck the other hand,
like the usual p… ‘comunication’ try to make us swallow.

And what when both planes are filled for the same range?

Because it’s nice to compute it with 25% 50%, etc, fuel but in every cases the Rafale will have a longer patrol range.
Fill both plane for the same range and we’ll see where is the 0.10 or so thrust difference…

Another point: the Rafale was put in service very early (the F1 of the MN) That was a first version of the M88, a first version of the RBE2, like the rest.
But lastly we hear a lot of interesting comments about how the Rafale F2 ‘push’.
It’s like some people are surprised to discover the contradiction between the reputation more or less ‘built’ and the reality.

(like MNI, manoeuvrability, etc…)

What remain for the EF? Maybe supersonic manoeuvrability.
But out of question to swallow it that easy now… remain to be proven.