Nicolas101. Form a force with Rafales.
2. Give the Typhoons to the bad bad countries (syria, north korea and stuff)
3. Kick their asses :diablo:
Nicolas10I’m relatively, :o, knowledgeable about Rafale but I am uncertain to what stage it is at 🙁
I believe there are F2’s flying with the air force, and F3’s are not too distant. But what capability does it have now out of the total specification proposed initially?
cheers, from a typhoon supporter trying to learn about the wonderful plane, the rafale 🙂
I think you should check the fox3 magasines on Dassault’s webpage, here they mention all the milstones that the Rafale program has reached.
Nic
Nicolas10Well, saying the FOV was 60° surely isn’t the reason they asked that poster to be banned :rolleyes:
Nicolas10I don’t think Adrian44 is the Rafale fanboy. I’m the one Rafale fanboy here. Besides he’s not even french but american… so I think youse guys better let go.
Besides the original thread is a poor attempt at defending the Superhornet…
Nic
Nicolas10Ok,
If the koreans rate the crafts, they should rate the hole system?
or?
“The Boeing fighter received “excellent” in reliability and supportive combat capability, while Eurofighter, produced by a European consortium, won the top grades in the general function and reliability categories.” isnt ECM in my definition.
Strangely enough, you forgot that one sentence :
In the categories of weapons and electronic warfare capability, only Rafale earned the “excellent” grade, according to the officials.
Basically they detailed each performance area in order to get an accurate comparison. I am also wondering why I’m saying that to you, as it is obvious that you are not really intersted by a fair debate. Quoting things out of context, or comparing apples and oranges is pretty ridiculus and I’m leaving it at that.
You point out the advantages of the regular Gripen, then the advantages of the Gripen NG, but you fail to mention that those will come with disadvantages. Basically you are comparing a hybrid “best of both worlds” Gripen with a plain operational F3 Rafale as ordered by AdlA. You forget two very important things:
– Saab doesn’t know a magic trick to have it all on one single plane, and a design is always a matter of compromise. Adding fuel, IRST/TV, better ECM, etc etc will increase weight, and also wingloading. The structure will probably need to be beefed up too, which will lead to more weight increase. So while it may gain in some areas, it will lose in others, as others pointed out.
– For a foreign sale, you can’t take your vanilla F3 AdlA Rafale. You have to take into account the development available for the Rafale too. For instance the 20% thrust increase on offer should a customer require it that is already available (unlike the hypothetical thrust increase of the F414 mind you).
Again comparing a projected thrust rating of an engine still in development, to an operational version of an engine which is already available on the shelf with 20% more thrust is what I call biased! It’s just one example, but I haven’t read much integrity in the rest of your writings thus far.
Nic
Nicolas10I dont see Gripen in that competion due to the single engine..
Thou its nice to hear that Rafale beats the old F-15 frame, and also the SU 35?!
Nice one there Rafale! :diablo:
was it a F3 in the competion?
Do you have any more ratings in other categories against the SU 35?
Are you serious?
They were talking about the ECM, so the airframe of the SU35 or the F15 have nothing to do with it whatsoever in the ECM/electronic warfare grades.
Nic
Nicolas10I think you guys are forgetting that with all the new goodies, and increased weight, the Gripen NG will not be as cheap as the previous Gripen generation.
The Gripen used to be something like an F18 put in a more modern airframe, but it is not so with the NG. And all the extras are going to bring the cost much nearer to the cost of a Rafale, or an EF… besides the complexity of such system means that it probably won’t be as easy to maintain as the previous generation.
It is wrong to automatically assume that the Gripen NG will retain all the advantages of the previous Gripens while at the same time closing the bridge with its competitors. So far it is pretty much a paper plane, and the NG has a lot to prove before being able to be compared with a Rafale F3 that is already orderd, flying, and which is to enter service next year.
Nicolas10I think what would be pretty naughty would be to create an ARM that could just emit radar waves on the same frenquency as, say, a Harpoon, but would then home directly on the ship’s fire control radar once it’s turned on. Or it could even home on jamming.
But I think the best way would be to create a stealthy ARM that you could shoot very high up above the area where the enemy ships are in a ballistic form, then send a salvo of AShM, and while the ship would be busy defending against them, your stealthy ARM would dive on the ships from high up homing on their defensive radars.
Nic
Nicolas10I think what the F35 fanboys forget is that export F35s will be downgraded compared to the US F35, and this is especially sensitive when it comes to stealth.
Maybe the US F35 will be a “stealth” aircraft, but what about the export models? Will it still be stealthy enough in its export variants compared to your best 4,5 gen fighters? Maybe so, but what about when the PAK-FA comes online?
F22+F35 combo can probably keep the US safe against the PAK-FA, but F35 customers will probably need something better than the export downgraded F35 to face against the PAK-FA. Besides the PAK-FA can be equipped with 3rd party hardware à la Su30 MKI, or so it seems judging from the indian adventure. F35 customers will be dependant on US goodwill it seems.
Nic
Nicolas10With 4-6 AAM and 3 drop tanks time on station shouldn’t be any worse than that of a Rafale or a Typhoon. The Rafale or Typhoon offer better performance with 4-6 AAM I think, but I doubt supercruise is truly demanded by the FAB. If so they would be stupid to put the only aircraft truly capable of it from the list.
What makes you think the Gripen NG is as good as a Rafale? It hasn’t even flown, so I don’t see how you could be so sure of Saab’s figures. Besides, how do you know that the Gripen radar and ECM suites can match the RBE2 or SPECTRA? And does the Gripen NG have an IRST/TV sensor?
Even if it could really match the Rafale, you would still be subject to the good will of the US to operate, since many of the Gripen’s components come from the US.
Nic
Nicolas10Very interesting pictures thanks!
Nic
Nicolas10It would be nice to open a separate thread if you want to compare the EF and the Rafale’s prices…
This thread is about the news about the Rafale, some comparison with the EF can’t be avoided, but to discuss it to any length warrants a new thread.
BTW 2009 should see the delivery of 14 Rafales.
Nic
Nicolas10Yeah I don’t know how so many countries managed to swallow the JSF pill. Especially those which were on board for the Typhoon. Seriously.
Nic
Nicolas10Well PESA itself isn’t much newer than the planar MSA. It enjoys advantages as well as disadvantages. There were good reasons for both manufacturers to select the specific technologies. Eurofighter could have selected PESA as well, but for the pure AA role MSA offers some advantages. The french situation and role was a bit different than that of the Germans or Brits for example in a cold war scenrio. The Rafale was more meant to penetrate the enemy airspace and strike targets on the ground, with a AA role in mind. For the Typhoon it was more the other way round, more AA, secondary AG. The PESA technology is better suited for LPI and more importantly parallel operations in AA/AG modes. Details about the RBE2s LPI characteristics are unknown how ever, so many here claim it is way superior to Captor here, yet they can’t give any details except for rapid beam sweeping (natural to ESA) and that it is said that specific LPI modes are available. BTW a radar doesn’t soley consist of the antenna alone, something many people seem to forget about.
I never disputed the Captor has some advantages, apparently at least in detection range and gimbal. Most of the other details, LPI, locking range, ECCM capability are highly classified, so it is only logical assumption to think that at least in the LPI and ECCM arena, an ESA would be better. Those features, seem more important to me in a networked modern battlefield.
The argument is pretty moot though, if you consider both radars are to be eventually replaced by AESA types. It will be in the F3 rafale for the meteor arrival, and you said it will be for at least the german EFs.
Most of them directy praise the TV component. It’s just that I read that they are less confident about the IR component. Who knows…
I would also like to hear the details about that.
PIRATE can at least cinematically range targets, though there are no details available at what ranges and how accurate that is. The question concerning OSF would be at what range as well. Ranging capabilities are also provided by both EWS and offboard target data can be used as well. It seems like many people here believe that it is impossible to launch an ARH missile the very same way. The only difference is that the seeker goes active in the terminal phase of flight.
I was just talking about the possibility to lock a target with the IRST. Of course it could cue a Mica EM as well as a Mica IR, and of course an AMRAAM too. Someone quoted the 40km range in good weather condition, which seems pretty good to me.
Nic
Nicolas10Captor-E is not necessarily an antenna upgrade, details are still negotiated. CAESAR was based on the Captor-D, but this radar is only a demonstrator. Captor-E might well be a much newer design. And BTW RBE2 was designed at the same time as Captor. PESA doesn’t mean more advanced/newer or better.
Well ESA is more modern technology than a mechanical array, which in my opinion is a dead end. I know the captor has some LPI characteristics, as did the RDY2 of the Mirage 2000 dash 5 and 9, but it surely is much less discreet than a PESA and even less than an AESA. I think in this day and age, having a big powerful mechanical array is a bit like a guy walking in the dark with a fashlight…
145 km detection range was well reported by a couple of sources. French guys claim up to 130 km for the OSF IRST component. It is reported that the french forces are not that satisfied with the IR component of OSF, that’s the reason why no IRST/FLIR has been ordered for batch 3 aircraft, though it is easily possible to retrofit it from the current F2 aircraft.
Every pilot report concerning exercises praise the OSF. I think the main reason the OSF wasn’t ordered is the same as the HMD: budget constraints, knowing it could be added later if need be, especially when the technology will be cheaper. The OSF V2 adressed just that: keeping the OSF up to date with more modern components.
OSF is mainly a system comprising 3 components, while PIRATE is just a single component system. Prove the higher integration grate. How is it better integrated…?
Well for one thing being able to lock a missile thanks to the laser rangefinder. It’s less useful to detect a plane with PIRATE when you have to use the radar to get a lock and shoot your missile, than to detect, lock, and shoot your missile at your target without needing to turn your radar on at all.
Nic
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