c-sevenIs this what you are refering to ?
It seems like a long term idea along with conform antennas.
Pierre-Yves Chaltiel also spoke about this capability at defensenews, it seems more mature than in the aforementioned article :
Not necessarily.
Spectra doesn’t work as a emiting radar but it already work as a receiving one (to sniff all the ‘tron’ as they say at Red Flag :D)
Here we’re not talking about GaN or conformal antenas but about a Spectra doing what it already does.
The long term prospect may be just to push further the concept and fuse radar and Spectra as emiting/receiving conformal radar on 360°.
Btw the indians have better to do to work with us on such concept than fund AtoG capabilities on the EF as well as AESA antena that are already available on the Rafale.
c-sevenSo are you saying that it’s better to have a small radar (Rafale) than to have a much bigger radar (EF)? Or, let me rephrase that: Is Rafale better off with a small radar rather than a big one?
How “big” are you claiming for receiving? AFAIK there are two small AESA antennas at the canards roots as you say, and probably one in the rear. But those aren’t very big, how many modules? 20 or so each? Or more? Or are there more of these antennas, and in that case where?
That’s it more or less.
I don’t know more than you about Spectra (and those who know don’t talk because they don’t want to have the men in black to visit them tomorow (early) morning to handcuff them to a radiator :D)
IIRC there are 8 AESA antenas in Spectra.
The Canard roots seems quite prominent (see Bluewing picture) and the antena there is not small IMO
Also I don’t see why Spectra would be able to analyse foe RF and won’t be able to help for its own radar return. But again I’m not specialist, just a guess (about the same vein as those who guess that the bigger a nose is, the better it is)
They haven’t made the radar dome as big as they could have in the Rafale (unlike the M2000)
Again, they could have put the OSF elswhere (in a wart somewhere) if they wanted more space. There is a reason for that, and this reason is that the radar antena is of an “appropriate” size for what they want to do. It’s a fighter, not an AWACS.
c-sevenAny re-design of Rafale should start with a larger nose,
anything else is waste
That’s amazing this nose size story. I has it’s own life now :rolleyes:
It’s like the Dassault designers suddenly realized that the nose was too small once the plane was finished and they screemed: “holy sh!t, we’ve forgot the radar! Oh my god, and now it’s too late, what have we done my god, oh noooooooo”.
That’s ridiculous.
No, the noze is of an appropriate size, they could even have made it bigger by shifting the OSF elsewhere (like the Pirate) and pull the radar further rear.
The size of the radome is appropriate for emiting the right amount of waves without being detected 500km away.
And for receiving: the Rafale has the radar and several other AESA antennas in Spectra.
In very short that’s like a small radar for emiting and a BIG ONE for receiving.
Some Spectra AESA antenas are each side of the plane, near the canards juction. Some Rafale experts here would confirm this point.
Edit: thanks Tay, that’s exactly that.
c-sevenOne of the main raison I read about the rafale having the intake on the sides is in order to have better crash resistent aircraft (underbelly intake been quite fragile), less structural stress from heavy load…
The air intake as well as the wing attachement and the cockpit form one single very strong box.
The air vein participate at the structural strenth of the plane.
you can see it here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=douzAeXkjo4
That’s one of the reason actually why it can carry so much relativally to it’s hempty weight (a kind of reccord which usually show good design).
However the front end of the air intake arte not a part of this “box” and are removable.
For a future change in the frame design, i can’t help to imagine to shift each engines a bit right and left, and put a bay in the between.
When we see the Rafale from the bottom, it look like it’s “just do it” so much it looks obvious (probably not :rolleyes:)
it seems ok too with the landing gear.
Buitreaux: if you still have you Cad model available and the “shift” function available in it… 😉
c-sevenIt’s not Bagdad Bob: it’s Washington Joe.
To be put in the same bag as Tripoli Billy and Pyongyang Kim.
c-sevenI think the procurement and operating cost are best covered by the Dutch competition where the Rafale apparently was put ahead of the typhoon, the RFI stated that their evaluation was as follows
In Millions of Euro’s
For 120 aircraft
………………………Rafale……………..Eurofighter
Unit Price…………..59.4…………………51.64
Investment………..10.733………………8.82
Operating costs……8.783……………….7.82
Lifetime……………19.516……………..16.62Cheers
I fear that the Dutch eval’ was before the EF’s 75% overcost explosion…
c-sevenHow many times does this have to be written? Typhoon is not an EADS product! It is built by a consortium including the German and Spanish parts of EADS. They combined make up a 46% of the consortium that trades under the name Eurofighter GmbH. Airbus funding is not being plowed into making the Typhoon cheaper! The wouldn’t be allowed to! Cancelling A400M shafts french industry and is tantamount to throwing their toys out of the pram!
Again stop grasping at straws!
Better paranoïd than naïve.
Make this deal a unfair way (for the L1) would be a very strong tactical success for Eurofighter but it will be a HUGE strategical disaster for Europe!
France alone has mobilized too many efforts and resources for decades to get at this point. And the Indian deal is strategical for Indian independence, yes, but it is also for France’s independance.
Fair = ok. Not fair = a disasted. Not less. That’s my opinion.
c-sevenI think that our MoD got to meet Louis Gallois of EADS and make him understand well that if EADS dump the price of the EF to get the L1, then we’ll cancel the A400M!
Defense department is already the money loosing side of EADS and it will be totally unacceptable that the profit of Airbus are used to fund further loses with a two low price for the EF.
In a fair game there are absolutly no doubts that the Rafale is less expansive (program cost and fly away cost)
Every audit from GAO, the Court des Comptes, debats on the assemblies on budget, etc, have proven so more than once.
What I fear here is:
– acountability creativity from EADS to put on the back of Airbus loses that profit to everybody but the French,
– the Germans! 😉 They are in charge of India and as we all know: they are very good businessmen. And their strong point is: they hunt in pack (while the French tend to shoot at each others feets). They can oraganize themselve to dump the EF deal if they see that it can profit to all the German industry; and put the cost on Airbus saying “sorry, our defense department has been very disapointing and we must pass the huge losses of Indian deal in EADS account… but fortunately, Airbus has been very successful and the global account is balanced, thank god…”
We must be extreemely careful. And not naive at all on anything! If the franco-german friendness argument is raised any day, we must immediatly rush to look for where we’re scr..ed 😀
c-sevenConsidering how much the deal is worth to the Eurofighter consortium and the partner countries they are hardly going to hold back funding are they!
And considering how much it worth for Dassault and partners,
and considered how long it takes – and how much it costs – to develop existing capacities for the EF… in the mean time the Indians can get with the Rafale special GaN devices which will detect the spermatozoon of foe pilots from anywhere in the solar system and fry them! :diablo:
Edit:
those Rafale exclusion rumours were just that-rumours.
No. The Rafale has actually been excluded by the Indian MoD with a actual official statment published (probably that a Dassault man who said a bureaucrat to f** off with his papers… that was actually a paper problem to fill for the RFP)
Dassault has been saved by the IAF. And probably by the French Ambassy who asked the Indians to be kind enough to excuse the Dassault man who was nervous… after 10 years of waiting and a M2000 deal almost closed 10 years ago…. he’s a normal man, not the Dalaï Lama… one could uforgive that…)
c-sevenRafale fanboys tend to hate it when the ZERO sales or underpowered engine things come up in respect of Rafale (P.S. I don’t think its underpowered but its amazing how something can get blown out of all proportion if its repeated enough). Whilst Typhoon fanboys get irritated at reports like this or the idea it has never a legitimate sale or BAE bribes blah blah blah!
I don’t think I can take the next few months of this honestly! Can we just have reporting of developments with this contest rather then raking up mud!
I can understand you and thank for your understanding :p
On another hand you forgot something concerning our poor Rafale fanfoy’s fate: we also endured the JOUST simulation for years which established once for all in 1994 that the EF is obviously superior in AA, just a bit behind the F22, and everybody else behind.
So we can’t blame Grangclaudron to have made public the results of the UAE even thouth it’s not very ‘elegant’ toward the partners and allies, that is true.
I also notice that the EF goes very rarely on exercice against the Rafale, UAE and Solensara were the exception, and it seems that it’s against the AdA wishes. In other words: it looks like they avoid the Rafale.
(Now after Grandclaudron, they’ll avoid it even more :p)
My opinion is that the Rafale is better in dogfight, it seems about clear.
In BVR it depends. The French had good tactics which surprised the RAF (silent shooter and shooting coordinate transfered by the wingman away from missile reach)
People often forget the the French have two top standard simulators which costed the throne jewels; and it’s an asset to not underestimate.
(If some have info about a Eurofighter equivalent, I’ll be curious)
I guess that there are other scenario where the EF can take the edge, possibly high speed, high altitude engagements.
On another hand, in the real world, it’ll also depend on the RCS, EW, secret tactics,… and many other parametters we don’t know.
If the EF is in the final, it means that it has arguments to show I recon.
And technical evaluation is over now anyway it seems.
c-sevenWell… a bit complicate all that.
If the industrial fund the R&D they’ll need to get their money back one way or another. which means that India will have to pay indirectly if not directly.
If it’s the other parteners to pay: i cant’s see how they don’t have the money to pay for the R&D but can find the same amount of money through the extra-cost of a batch (the fact the industrials fund it doesn’t make it any cheaper, probably the contrary in fact)
Also you don’t make a program like that with each partners keeping its own cell in its side.
That smells like a stand-by the keep the Indian option open.
but one should not forget that in that case India has full partner status, so it also gains full technology transfer.
Full technology transfert of the AESA? There are none. For the rest the full technology transfert is already a requierment.
From an Indian point of view it seems wiser to ask for TOT for existing capabilities including AESA, stand-off weapon, AtoG, and make a parnership for future cutting edge technologies – better that fund tech’ that are available elsewhere but not implemented on one of the contender.
Also; Eurogfighter is already a mess with 4 partners, adding the Indians will not make it simplier nor more efficient to manage :rolleyes:
No offense to the indians of course but that’s the problem of too many people with an agenda fo each and no leadership…
c-sevenThere was actually an article not that long ago stating that the IN has issued a request for information to a number of western aerospace company including LM for the F-35B & C.
http://www.8ak.in/8ak_india_defence_news/2010/07/indian-navy-issues-rfi-for-new-aircrafts.html
c-seven,
integration of additional AG weapons including stand-off missiles is a requirement for the RAF and Luftwaffe and possibly EdA as well. I’m certain they will pay for their integration, the question here is when. The AESA remains yet to be seen, to date industry is funding the AESA radar, though the UK MoD has awarded Selex with a separate contract to design a Captor AESA demonstrator which is scheduled to fly in 2013. The two separate programs might be merged to some extend. The Bundeswehr had in fact allocated money for an AESA radar for the Eurofighter as early as 2009 and the BWB has previously sponsored the CAESAR trials campaign on DA5. Right now FSD of the quadri-national Captor-E is industry funded and the funded has been extended to the 2nd phase. A naval variant would have to be funded by the Indians in the first place, but MMRCA is not about a navalized aircraft anyway.
Scorpion,
When we talk about money the question is always “how much”. Because otherwise that doesn’t mean much.
You can have a development cell or something such as “The Bundeswehr allocated money for an AESA radar” and say relevantly that a AESA program is funded. In brochures it will be turned as “… which show the strong comitment of the company to this project, on so on…”
In the RBE2 AESA it’s clear: 8 Rafale has been removed from the current batch and 400 million € mobilized in the F3+ roadmap.
We saw it comming, it started with a shedulle, we saw the different stage: demontrator (DRAA), advanced demonstrator (DRAAMA) the pre-production flying samples shown in Switzerland and elsewhere and finally the production starting in August 2010.
In the EF case, I’m sorry but it’s very smoggy (litterratures to drawn the fish as we say here :rolleyes:)
I don’t forget also that European programs funded R&Ds (KORRIGAN program). But I’m afraid that the funds spent by Germany on UMS will be useless to them if there are not further comitments on the AESA, I-e: if India doesn’t fund it because that’s what we’re talking about at the end, directly or indirectly.
In the mean time, the time India make her decision (which take quite some time usually…) well… the gap widen (GaN going forward seriously with now a roadmap and first sample going out of UMS factory at Orsay).
Concerning stand-off weapon we can still find on the web this 2003 picture of the Eurofighter loaded with two Taurus ready to take off…. well it is still on the runway…
They got a problem of credibility now and if the Indians stick with a 100% technical procurement as it seems to be the case, they’ll have to overcome this problem obviously.
Concerning AtoG, you can do all what you want but it remain – and will always remain – range OR load. Not both.
But nothing is done, the EF can actually sell to the Indian a solid roadmap and convince them.
Edit: Jō Asakura’s, thanks for the info
c-sevenI would not bet on the idea that the Navy and the Air Force want a common plane. And eve if they want, from an industrial point of view, developing the Naval Typhoon is probably more interesting for the Indian aerospace industry, than buying / producing Rafale as is.
For me it comes down to a fight between the plane that offers more instant capability and the plane which offers more possibilities for the Indian aerospace industry. And ot be honest the full partner status in the EF program must be tempting, when you think about future up-grades, as India gets a direct say in what is done and has a decent chance that costs are shared with other partners.
I wouln’t do that if I was Indian.
The partneship will be sold as ‘sharing profits’ of course but I fear it will be more like ‘sharing costs’ the other partner don’t want to pay for (AESA, AtoG, naval version, cruise missile integration… on so on)
None of them are funded in the T3 let’s not forget that, those are still in the brochures only for the Indians…
No other ‘member’ want to pay and some of them have already switched to alternative solution – namely the F35 – and have turned the page.
I’m even surprised to see the EF in the final since A to G and AESA was a strong requirment and it has none of the two.
However I still fear a dumping from the Eurofighter using the profit of Airbus (France created by half may I recall) to pay for the financial fiasco of the EADS defense department…
c-sevenwill that also feature a roadmap for other capabilities? e.g. OSF, spectra, +++…
My risky bet: high speed laser comunication even with geostationnary satellites
100% discret.
My area51 bet: BVR lock on satellite tracks 🙂
c-sevenIts going to be interesting for sure. I suspect that if Dassault ought to up their ante if they really want this deal. I’m not being anti-Dassault or anything but I really do believe that they can offer more than they have/are & I just don’t think they’re promoting their product as well as they should be doing. As I more or less said before, I’m getting the impression that they’re saying; ‘Heres our bid, take it or leave it.’ It seems like in this competition and like others in the past, its, we want more than just a deal in our favour. IMO I sense some amount of greed going on from the French side. I still didn’t or don’t understand why they haven’t offered some sort of partnership in the Rafale programme. Its obviously a big and attractive selling point & it seems to be working for EADS.
As for EADS’ Eurofighter, I still believe they’re offering the better deal going by what they’ve published. They just seem to be, if you like, that much more up for it, they’re enthusiastic, confident, excited, willing & supportive and as a seller, no matter if you’re selling a microwave oven or a multi-million dollar fighter, you need these things, it makes the buyer that whole lot more comfortable. And I must stress, I’m not getting the same exciting “buzz” from Dassault like I am from EADS. Put yourself in India’s shoes & have a little think about it, being biased put aside.
Also, its four countries against one and don’t be mistaken that those four aren’t that bothered or supportive. Be asured they are.
You got to understand few points:
– Dassault is actually a “small” company with a familly business mentality…. on another hand it IS a familly business!
– they are a pure ingeneer company and it’s true that they tend to considere that everything else than ingeneering is either bureaucratic stuff or un-productive boring tasks and waste of time.
– Dassault is a company with a very strong culture (a almost non existant turnover between its employees who enter the company and make their live there). So don’t expect it to be the clone of any global thing you know.
… but no doubt: they know how to design planes. And not only plane: their CAD-CAM software which was initially designed for their own needs, CATIA, is now the Microsoft of the Cad-Cam! Especially for aviation business.
There are pro and con for this way of being but it seems anyway that the Rafale has been downselected for the final in India if I understood well…
Advanced fighter and defense are serious matters and spins or other maketing skills have limits on front of pure demonstrated capabilities
By the way, my guess is that the Rafale will have GaN AESA and conformal antenas for 360 coverage before the EF will have it’s swachplate (or whatever) thing.
If its RBE2-AESA enters in industrial phase, Thales intends to maintain its lead in providing some technological bricks considered crucial to broaden the scope of active antennas. This new roadmap is built around two key technologies: gallium nitride (GaN), a broadband semiconductor called to prevail for future emission-reception modules of radars with active antenna, and silicon-germanium (SiGe), a low power semiconductor, whose use in the control floors of the beam of active antennas will significantly reduce their size.
Compared to the current gallium arsenide (GaAs), GaN offers much more power and works with very large bandwidth. This power, coupled with a sharp reduction in heat loss, lets consider very compact antennas since it will be possible to obtain the same power with smaller modules. The SiGe, itself, allows to regroup on a same low-power component several functions of phase control and amplitude control, reducing the overall size of the antenna.
Potential applications are diverse: In the medium term, it is expected that Rafale’s RBE2 and SPECTRA share the same antennas. In the longer term, one considers the application of conform antennas to the fuselage and their use as a single “entity” which would act as radar and electronic warfare, 360 degrees around the aircraft.
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