tech transfer is always an issue as any export is subject to a congress veto if US policy requires it.

Hillary Clinton, even for only the F-18 talked about “appropriate ToT”, which means, whatever the US consider OK at a given moment. Imagine now the F-35…

er, the safety margin includes much more than the fuel spared for “not having to climb to altitude”…

either that, or you have even less endurance than the first mig29 versions

They cannot put similar loads. Rafale is only integrated with 110kg MICA. so it load distribution will be lighter. They dont even have same internal fuel capacities.
MIG-35/F-18 has 175-190kg AAMs.

heavier aircraft generally takes more runways than lighter. F-18 empty weight and internal fuel capacities are 50% higher than Rafale but thrust is 40%. so the other factors dont matter. The closest competitor to Rafale is J-10 with similar TWR (engine in J-10 is less powerfull but should have comparable TWR).
half runway length?. now that is unbelieveable BS. it can only happen if Rafale is take much smaller amount of fuel.

http://www.uscost.net/AircraftCharacteristics/acfa18ef.htm

For F-18E Take off distance with minimum load is 1300 feet.(21.7 tons weight) with maximum load is 3600 feet.
we take the middle weights. like 4 ton weopon load and 6.8 ton fuel. that will bring it to 25ton takeoff weight. and use middle of take off distance at 1800feet. that is 550m.
now show me Rafale with 4.7 tons fuel and 4ton of external load to take off at less than 250m. F-18E still will have longer range as it is still carrying 2 tons of extra fuel.

1/ standard load: everybody has to carry the same amount of fuel and the same weight of weapons (‘seems simple, though)

2/ all these lengths are nice and well, but they’re given for sea level. how do they translate into altitude? how much thrust engines loose when getting high and hot (depends of the engine construction and no two engines react the same). another thing worth noticing is that the SH has about 50% higher wing loading than the rafale (not to forget that their aerodynamic formula – delta wing vs classic wing differs as well). might be that with altitude, the lifting capability degrades faster on the SH than on the rafale

In any case, we can talk about it for ages, the one result is there, the rafale got better results in technical trials than the SH, and as SH’s electronics are top notch, the french must have made a difference somewhere

shoudl be F-35C.. but politics have a logic of their own…

rafales in malaysia soon?

JSR

the whole point is: it does need a longer runway… and, rather than extending their runways, the IAF will preferably take the fighter with better T/O capability for a given load

that’s exactly what Shiv1971 was saying

well, the whole idea of classification is not to hide things from general public, but rather from “those working in the armed forces” in the first place…

so, what SPECTRA truly is capable of is possibly a lot more or a lot less from what we may imagine, or anywhere in between…

the only thing that can be said, is that it seems to do its job well since the rafales could fly pretty much safely in an enemy airspace when others delayed their entering until the defences were soften up… for the rest, it’s just speculation based on “hints” more than any real data