Maybe they could, it depends what the French were intending to do. Syria might not be willing to commit it’s most valuable assets to attempt to stop quite minor action.

If said minor action means taking out high value targets in Syria with Scalps missiles, I’m pretty sure the Syrians won’t just sit there singing songs and joining hands. :diablo:
And I’m quite sure that such a raid could be pulled off.
Except it’s election year in France and we’re now into the official campaign, with Sarkozy having (at last) stated that yes, in fact he will try to be reelected. So, Assad can sleep on both ears.

Once again…And again, Typhoon was designed from the beginning to be multi/swing-role albeit weighted more towards A/A as most other multi/swing-role fighters are. Theres no reasons why Typhoon can’t perform deep strike sorties, many people claim it wasn’t designed to or can’t do such roles without backing their claims up. Of course, it might not carry the most fuel when compared to others but what it does, or be able to carry isn’t what one would call lacking neither. With two CFTs and a single centre drop tank onboard it adds up to 4,000 litres external/conformal plus 5t internal then you’ve got 12 stations for weapons, six A/A and six plus for A/G: i.e. for the latter; two Storm Shadows and up to eight SDBs that have a range of approx 50+ miles and a hell of a lot more for the former. Add to that it’s A/A capabilities, Captor-E, HEA, DASS and other systems etc. With those in place, it’s hardly lacking.

Honest question here since the quoted point brought the issue to my mind : what are Typhoon’s capabilities wrt low terrain flight ? Does it have automatic terrain following modes (theoretically, I don’t see why it couldn’t but maybe it wasn’t a priority) ?

And if they do announce a L1 in the contest soon enough, what will you do? I mean what have you got to lose if the bet doesn’t go your way? perhaps stop making posts that don’t have any substance but add noise to this thread?

Since we’re all awaiting the decision, there’s nothing else to do but idle speculation (unless someone has insider info and chooses to reveal everything here). Which includes such as “what if the Indians suddenly decided that the F-35 is awesome and they’d rather buy it”.
Besides, now that Duke Nukem Forever’s actually out, the internet can use a new running joke, even temporarily. At least it relieves that unbearable tension of waiting… and waiting… and waiting… and “have they decided yet ?”. Me, I’d rather the bloody thing was finished already. Whichever plane’s selected…

Dassult products are clearly overpriced. see 4 years negotiation with India for M2K upgrade. Failure to sell to Switzerland. (which is basically a neighbor and can share alot things).
Endless negotiation with UAE/Brazil. even very slow delivery to French state 8 to 10 aircraft per year. No engine/radar upgrade after entering 10 years in service.
without large sales and French government investment there is no chance new things developed from Dassult.
The economic crises are not current it just showed up now.

Yeah, I guess RBE-2 AA and M88-ECO are not upgrades. Do please learn to write and think, please.

These sightings only herald the imminent coming back of the Moon Nazis. 😀

Red star kill marks ? Is someone suffering from Cold War nostalgia ?

Next to the Eurofighter jets were MiG-29s, F-16s, Mirage 2000s, F-4s, Hawks, Alpha-Jets, various helicopter types, transport planes, special units as well as one frigate from the Spanish Navy participating.

Quoted from the linked press release by Eurofighter.com.
So it seems the Typhoon dominated… Mig 29s, F-16s, M2Ks, F-4s and Hawk/Alpha Jet trainers.
A tremendous achievement ! :diablo:

I’ll preemptively do the obvious trollish comment :
“The Typhoons took the opportunity to shine against older aircraft during an exercise while the Rafales were busy fighting a real war” :p

Rafale is a good enough performer, what UAE feels is it is a wee bit expensive for the capabilities it offers *digs a hole and buries his head in it*

You know we can still beat the rest of your body with sticks and stones, right ? :p
At least the price of the Rafale should be stable and certain… and its capabilities are proven, unlike certain other planes that promise the moon for a packet of peanuts and kick ass in powerpoint.