Actually I thought the EJ200 had a better sfc. I’ll look it up and post it here.

EDIT: I was right, according to my information [“Flugzeugtriebwerke” by Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Bräunling) the EJ200 has a sfc of 79.2 kg/hkN and M88-2 has 80 kg/hkN.

Let’s check the official sites.

SNECMA M88

Quote:
Consommation spécifique avec PC 1,7 kg/daN.h
Consommation spécifique sans PC 0,8 kg/daN.h

Eurojet EJ200

At its maximum dry thrust of 60kN (or 13,500lbf) the EJ200’s SFC is in the order of 23g/kN.s. With reheat the engine delivers around 90-100kN (or 20,250-22,500lbf) of thrust with an SFC of some 49g/kN.s.

If you translate 23g/kN.s that make 0.83 kg/daN.h
and 49g/kN.s make 1.76 kg/daN.h

Both engines are as efficient (and the M88 a little bit more).

I was right 🙂

The CV90 is a swedish tank. So no offset there.

But owned by BAE. That still income for BAE. Like the F136 is built in the USA but make income for RR.

I don’t agree.

The M2000 are not older design than F16,s, F15’s or SU27’s and it’s a very successfull drawing.
Improvment are now mainly in the weapon system area.
Add M53XP3 + AESA radar + last generation Data link + Meteor and add some carbon here and there and you have a deadly fighter for the next 20 years.

TWR of the 2000 is about the same as Gripen’s. The plane is a bit heavier which is not a bad thing, and it’s still one of the best instantaneous turn rate and has a small RCS from the beginning.

The M2000 assembly line in France will be closed and will not be reopen to produce fighters neither to Brazil nor to India.

I meant sell the production line to India or Brazil, not to reopen it.

Since India is gona spend 5 more years (at least) to make her mind, i thought that maybe Brazil could be interrested by the production line and the tools.
Just speculation of course but i’d find interresting the idea of a M2000 built in Brazil. Sold cheap to compete the Gripen, F16 and other single engine on the world market.
It wouln’t compete the Rafale since it’s the other end of the market range (small affordable single engine), and Dassault and Embraer would be partners.
Had it be India, fine for me too but since they don’t know what they want…

That’s why in spite of the article posted first, i think that’s it’s more the M2000 than the Rafale.
The M2000 production line is available and in this case it’d be more a industrial building deal with Embraer that a raw purchase. It’s possibly the reason why Dassault lold India that the M2000 production line is no more available for them.

Just speculations.

Then we have the GR9 replacement issue. Would you use Typhoon for cab-rank CAS?. Would we trust a UCAV to do CAS in close contact with friendlies.

We can sell Tiger helicopteres too 😀

Brits lost seeker technology?. We had active seeker tech for Sea Wolf, Sea Dart and Skyflash all figured out. The radar seeker on Sea Eagle was so far in advance of the unit on GWS50/MM38 its unreal!.

Yeah, you’re right. I did not meant that BAe did not have the capabilities, sorry.

Nationalism is a poor reason to reinvent the wheel so we haven’t. Dont confuse that by thinking BAe dont have the capability!.

That’s what i meant. The Brits accepted to drop the radar seeker tech’ when they went for AMRAAM but in another hand, the US were supposed to buy ASRAAM. They never did.
That was a strong motivation for you guys to go for Meteor, and actually, Meteor’s seeker is French based tech’ given when Matra merged with BAe system.

Here is a good source for Meteor genesis and all the industrial/political background. Very interresting according to the current issue, same kind of strenth relashionship over the Atlantic which finished with a move toward Europe.
(In French unfortunately but it’ll be ok for Rob 😉 )

here

So what about the UK’s Vixen 500E AESA [fighters], what about Seaspray 7000E and Searchwater AESAs [Helicopters], what about the new ARTS AESA for the Tornado. And what about the new Anglo-Italian AESA now in development by Selex? Also actually an AESA was built in Germany sometime ago and shipped for testing to Edinburgh. Do they all use US-made T/R modules?

I know more about French tech’ than other’s but if i’m not mistaken, all those projects rely on US MMIC components, like our AESA which fly since 2002, on a Mystere20 first then a Rafale.

The DRAAMA project goes further and directly to GaN technology and skip GaAs one.
There’s a breakthrough on the way here and it’s not late at all compared with latest American tech’.

“For Thales, the next stage of the ongoing development process for the Rafale fighter is the DRAAMA (Démonstrateur Radar à Antenne Active Modes Avancés, or Advanced Modes Active Array Radar Demonstrator) programme which was officially launched by the DGA in July 2004.
Optimised to prepare full-scale production, the DRAAMA array will be entirely new and will benefit from the latest developments in radar/solid-state technology. It is worth noting that all components of the DRAAMA antenna will be built in Europe, a key factor for total autonomy and independence.
By the end of 2007/early 2008, DRAAMA development and test flying programme will have been completed, and qualification should have been granted by the DGA. The advent of the DRAA and DRAAMA programmes will allow engineers to shortly equip production Rafales with cutting edge radar technology.
Developed in a record time, the DRAA radar already proved that Thales is fully capable of meeting stringent requirements with state-of-the-art solutions. With the AESA, the Rafale Omnirole fighter will undoubtedly become more lethal, more survivable, more reliable and more affordable, key advantages for operators in search of the ultimate fighter.”.

(Rafale Fox3 n°7)

It’s pretty close to be launched.
source

Note: “Nationalism is a poor reason to reinvent the wheel so we haven’t.”

We have a different behavior both side of the chanel on this issue. We tend to ‘reinvent’ the wheel, for ‘independance reasons’.
Many time, experience showed in the past that in many areas home made tech’ was as good or better than the american’s and i don’t see why i’ll go differently today.

Huh? And I was under the impression that EJ200 had 20% more thrust in Normal and in after burner mode.

Yeah but the EF weight 20% more 😀
The SFC is about the same (a little bit better for the M88) so both engine are about as efficient. TDidier is right, it’d just lower the range… now i admit that it’d make a real rocket… 😉

Sounds about right. No point in buying Rafales for what Typhoons can do. Just the carrier force. Minimal modifications so they take UK spec Storm Shadow instead of Scalp, Asraam instead of IR Mica, other UK weapons integrated.Meteor should be available by then, so no need to integrate AIM-120. So no special “Rafale-only” weapons. That should be enough.

Concur. It’s much better to make minimal modification and to buy 100% of our carrier to the UK, and/or buy helicopteres or whatever as offset than make awful technlical modifications on the Raf’ for polical reasons.

Little note: the Mica is same class as AMRRAM for range and BVR

(well … better 😉 )

it’s a shame that we don’t co-operate more at the start of a program

Yep.

while I think the news is actually positive.

No. It’s not a positive news. It’s a excellent news.
Specially with all the news which are going out currently here about the AESA radar (GaN technology breakthrough, etc…)