That was not the point I was making; I was making the point that the small radar of the Rafale is not a major problem; other factors are much more important than the Rafale radar size. I was also making the point that professionals tend to assess these things quite differently from fanboys on this forum. And this is demonstrated by the outcome of the evaluations they make, and the conclusions they draw which seem to be different from conclusions e.g. you would draw. You have already highlighted the much bigger radar of the Typhoon, and the higher A/C performance; the Swiss evaluators highlighted the Typhoons A/C performance but overall they ended with a very clear conclusion; Rafale was overall technically far above and beyond the Typhoon.

As for issues:

Lack of proper stealth for instance, is IMHO a much bigger problem for both the Rafale and the Typhoon.

Another big problem for Rafale is the high cost of the a/c, and the high cost of the weapons (compared to US weapons).

I would put the size of the radar much further down the list of issues for the Rafale. It seems the pros agree with me on that.

No they assess them the exactly the same as me but as you say, other factors have won things for the Rafale but that doesn’t make the small radar any less of a weakness. You can still win a decathlon with a sh!t performance in long jump, but that doesn’t make the long jump performance a non-factor, because next time the runner-up might have improved on their weaknesses. Why is this difficult so understand?

I never said the Typhoon should have won. JFC, have you even been following this thread. I admitted all the Typhoon weaknesses here. Hell, I wouldn’t have picked the Typhoon in present state but the 2021 Typhoon is another matter.

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?140099-If-you-had-to-choose-between-Rafale-or-F-35&p=2340136#post2340136

Of course stealth is but avoiding detection is simply the inverse of detecting, so why you would argue one is an issue and the other isn’t is beyond me.

Well yes, bulk manufacture reduces cost, agreed. Weapons cost I would put below radar performance and stealth, because you don’t use them all that regularly, except against ISIS and the Rafale is still compatible with the basic US Paveway series weapons which fill that role amply. If I knew my only military role would be bombing ISIS for the next 50 years, I would probably choose the Rafale but unfortunately you can’t militarily plan like that.

If you^^ really read Andraxx posts, you would learn something.
The data he use is from flight manual of Su-27S, not Su-35S.

So half your post does not make any sense in that regard.
The Flanker is a large heavy aircraft, with its role and mission right up in the same ball park as F-15C and EF.
Oh, btw, the Su-35S has even higher wingloading vs Vanila Su-27S. I’ve seen figure over 440kg/m2

And as Andraxx wrote, the wingloading is not an all in figure where you can cherry pick the performance.

And certainly not if you start compare jets like F-104..? They are so different in design, class and role as it is completly moot point.

What we all know is that Deltas has some ups and downs when it comes to Energy manuvereing. Deltas tend to bleed energy as a faster rate vs non delta wings, under high alpha turns.
The game between F-16 and Mirage 2000 is well known.

It sounds like you are suggesting having LERX on any jet is like cheating..? How rude of the Sukhoi putting LERX on their jet.. 🙂
LERX vs none LERX jets has absolutly no difference in Air arms. They are what they are, and they do what they do.

If you say Andraxx twist everything, then for crying out load, prove him wrong and show us all where he did wrong.
And stop doing these general claims. That Swiss chart does not tell us much.. in fact it tell us Zippo in the BFM game.

And if they were anywhere near close I would likely accept that other features might sway things, but they aren’t. There is a gigantic difference in wing loading, even at equal fuel fraction, even when the Su-35 is running with a lower fuel fraction. That’s the side affect of designing an aircraft to carry a shed-load of fuel internally – it gets big and weighs a lot.

I think the F-104 still emphasises the point that small wings don’t help turn performance, even relative to other aircraft of that era, e.g. F-4s and MiG-21s.

Haha…. You’ll the discrepancy between the Mirage 2000 and F-16 is more due to the Mirage 2000s sh!tty thrust-to-weight ratio (0.88), which is not an affliction the EF suffers from (it’s nearly that good on dry thrust alone). That said, the only combat engagement between a Mirage 2000 and an F-16 resulted in a dead Turkish F-16.

No, I pointed out that there are fundamental massive differences in technology between the F-16 and F-15 which make the comparison null. That said, the difference in wing loading is also is somewhat smaller and the F-16 also has the benefit of slightly better TWR and even then the differences in turn performance aren’t great. The difference in wing loading is twice as high for a fully fuelled Typhoon vs a 50% loaded Su-35 and even more with an equal fuel fraction.

Well he didn’t really say anything of fact that could be disproved. I picked him up on the STR point however. kCl^2 is the dominant term in high-g loads and that reduces for a larger wing area, meaning that you can generate the same lift with a lower AoA and hence generate less drag. Aside from that, canards are known to accelerate the flow over the top of the wing and so provide an addition to lift even for similar wing loadings. If you want a drag analysis refer to the supercruise performance (M1.5 for Typhoon) and the fact that Air International states that the Typhoon is the only aircraft besides the F-22 can can pull over 6g in a M1.6 turn at 36,000ft. So the Typhoon has pretty much every known advantage in the book going for it wrt energy manoeuvrability and that’s verified nicely by a maximum a/c performance score in the Swiss eval. Then you have the final insult, which is the HMD+LOAL+HOBS, which adds an element of unfair to natural advantage in this match. And aside from that his comment about a Typhoon entering a spin after pulling too hard on the stick is comical. Obviously he’s not heard of fly-by-wire.

It seems you misunderstood what I was trying to say; what I meant was that it did not have an impact on the outcome. So far nobody has dropped the Rafale because of the small radar. The Swiss even ranked it higher than the Typhoon (in spite of the small radar) India chose it over the Typhoon (in spite of the small radar) etc.

That hardly proves the assertion wrong. An overall result, doesn’t change the individual impact of a given area. The Typhoon radar, horribly outdated as it is, still beat the Rafale radar on engagement range.

Do you have any sources for the GaN AESA radar for Typhoon in 2021?

It’s the reason they’re waiting until 2021. Kuwait is getting the export variant in 2018 but the UK didn’t see the point in having AESA between 2018 and 2021 when they could wait and fit a better one in 2021. ‘Radar 2’ is the ultimate/final variant (known to be GaN) and will go on in 2021.

https://rusi.org/publication/rusi-journal/future-uk-air-power
http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/defense/2011-06-13/eurofighter-nations-inch-closer-new-radar-commitment

If it meets the requirements then it is big enough.

So far it has been deemed to meet the technical requirements in a large number of evals (although other factors has stopped several Rafale purhcases, but it has NOT been because of the “small” radar.)

So it seems that technical evaluators in a large number of countries disagrees with your emphasis on the Rafales radar size…

Well it depends on how far you lower the bar I guess. I mean we could say that the Rafale and Typhoon meet the requirements of stealth because they’re below 1m^2 but we both know it’s a lie.

Well it seems to me that evaluators, including the Swiss, have looked at detection, acquisition and engagement, all of which improve with a larger radar given the same technology.

Firstly, I didn’t make an assumption about anything. That sentence only meant a supermaneuverable aircraft like Su-35 will still need to outturn a non-supermaneuverable aircraft in energy maneuverability if its going to win a dogfight.

Secondly, it is YOU that is making assumptions about Typhoon, so let me trash them;

Wingloading: Wingloading is utterly useless without other aspects of aerodynamics. An F-15C has ~340 kg/m2 wing loading, and 1,2 Clmax. A Su-27S will have around 387 kg/m2 and it has 1,85 Clmax. Which one is better? From effective wing loading, you will see (340/1,2)/(387/1,85)= 1,354; Su-27 has 35,4% lower wing loading, and its equally better in instantenious turn rates. This is easily proven by picking a single point at same speeds from their ITR graph; at the point Su-27 achieves 9G @ 30,19 deg/s, F-15C achieves 22,1 deg/s; that is 36,6% difference; 1,2% error can explained by roundups, or me not reading the graph precisely enough.

Now, typhoon has 312 kg/m2, while it has unknown lift coefficent, Clmax has to be greater than 1,5 to match Su-27’s instantenious turn performance. You can bet your house and a million dollars no delta (with todays engine tech) can be made to even approach that number; for comparison similarly configured Mirage-2000’s Clmax value is ~0,9.

As for TWR; Yes, when both are @ 50% fuel + 2AAMs, Su-27’s T/W is inferior to Typhoon at by ~12%. But that is an unfair comparison, as Su-27 would reach nearly twice the range with that fuel. Su-27 @50% fuel has exact same T/W of Eurofigher @88% internal fuel, and probably will have similar range with that fuel as well. That being said, T/W alone is also irrelevant without L/D ratio. As a delta, again, you can bet a good money Typhoons maneuvering L/D at subsonic speeds will not even approach that of Su-27s; you are comparing a extremely thin airfoil on a delta with extremely thick airfoil on Su-27. You are comparing LERX and lifting body design with two puny vortex generators above main wings (we are talking about subsonic maneuverability, canards are too distant to come into play in Typhoon). There isn’t even a contest here.

As for Sustained turn performance its the most difficult aspect to guesstimate; Wing area linearly contributes to both lift and drag, Lift increases linearly with AOA, Drag increases exponentially. If all else is equal, at points where slightly increase in AOA would cause huge increases in lift, (like low altitude or high airspeed), small wing area and higher wing loading is actually desirable for better sustained turns. That is why huge wings on F-15 doesn’t really help much with its sustained turn rates at low altitude, and F-16 block 30, with higher wing loading and inferior T/W than all F-15, Su-27 and MiG-29, actually has highest sustained turn rates (@S/L) I’ve ever seen on a flight manual. Again L/D and dynamic T/W mentioned above will also come into play, I don’t think there is any quality that gives an edge to Typhoon in this area as well.

Typhoon’s delta, slightly better TWR and distantly positioned canard would come into play at supersonic, and would definately exceed Su-27 at between some supersonic speeds, but as Speed approaches M2,0 Su-27 will still gain an edge due to its variable inlets. This supersonic performance is highly irrelevant, as no one will dogfight at M1,5. This maneuverability will only help in BVR combat, missile evasion etc.

I don’t have a flight manual for Typhoon, I can only judge it from its airshows, and its public specifications by taking into consideration its still a canard-delta. I’ve proven in the past all its publicized “superb” climb and acceleration times are easily matched or exceeded by a Blk50 F-16; an aircraft which isn’t exactly renowned among 4th gen aircraft for its great climb or acceleration performances like F-15, MiG-29 or Su-27. So far everything about Typhoon is unimpressive enough for me to consider its not even on par with Su-27 in subsonic WVR combat, or with F-15 in high alttiude subsonic/supersonic or with F-16 in low altitude subsonic speeds.

Well let me reply to that with this assessment done by the Swiss. The Typhoon scored a maximum in A/C performance against a Rafale and a Gripen C which are very well known for their massive STR and ITR.

Well that’s just the point, even when you reduce fuel load to 50% (25% fuel fraction), the Su-35 is still 34% higher in wing loading than the Typhoon with full fuel (32% fuel fraction). The you have the TWR, where the Typhoon conservatively sits at 1.15 and I say conservatively because the engine rating is ‘>90kN’ and BAE rate the TWR at 1.2.

http://www.baesystems.com/en-uk/product/typhoon2

That’s again higher than the Su-35 on half fuel. So even at equal fuel fraction the Typhoon is still way ahead. I’m also pretty sure people haven’t moved to delta canards for a laugh. There are advantages there even if they’re not good for RCS reduction.

Cd = Cd0 + kCl^2

Now Cd0 dominates in cruise but at higher g loads the latter term dominates and Cl is inversely proportional to wing area for a given lift requirement.

Hell no, small wing area is not desirable for STR. See F-104 for details.

Apples to oranges. F-16 was designed with a CoP ahead of the CoG, F-15 was not. You’ve also got LERX vs non-LERX.

Aside from this, the Typhoon doesn’t have to out-manoeuvre an Su-35, the pilot just needs to look at it. This performance analysis is only even relevant in a fictitious training scenario.

Yeah, judging turn rates from air shows, extremely accurate.

Wow, love to see you prove an F-16 can out-climb a Typhoon, this will be funny. Flug-revue, 1999, Wolfgang Schirdewahn, the Germany test-pilot:”The climbing ability of EF-2000 with 4 BVRAAM and 2 WVRAAM is about 25% better than the F-16 with 2 WVRAAM.”

You’ve basically tried twist huge deficits in accepted performance determinants into positives. Result – fail. The Typhoon came after the Flanker and was purpose-built to beat it.

How many Rafale have been shot down so far? AFAIK the answer is zero. It performs quite well also in tests and trials. Used with the right tactics and doctrine it doing very well today, and I will continoue to do so for still many years to come.

Pffft….. How the hell were they going to get shot down? A guy standing on a camel hump with a well aimed RPG? No Typhoon or F-22 or F-35 has been shot down either. Hell, I don’t even think a GR4 has either… well not by enemy fire anyway.

If it can perform a given mission with a probability of success (PoS) of, say, 95%; how much can the F-35 improve on that, realistically?

Depends on the mission doesn’t it. I don’t think anyone is buying an F-35 for the sole purpose of bombing Islamists.

One of the countries in the world most serious about their defence, and investing heavily in defence (Singapore) decided recently they will NOT buy the F-35 right now… instead they will rely on their F-16 and F-15 only, for a few more years… And I don’t think it’s just because they wait for the bugs to be worked out, it takes best case 3-4 years from a decision is being made, and until the a/c start to arrive, so they are looking even further into the future.

And in other news, Ireland isn’t buying F-35s either. Exactly what do you expect people to infer from this?