considering the distance, if Libya had rafales, they wouldn’t need SCALP to reach france… with a combat range of 1000+ nm on a penetration mission (-> wiki), it could reach southern coast of france and go back without refuelling.

I guess the french refusal has more to do with the fact that SCALP is clearly an offensive weapon and prefer not to give khadafi some bad ideas (or at least, some more than these he already has 😉 )

as for “not selling there anything in near future”, it all depends.. france, as the US or anyone else, if there’s a potential market (and no interdiction from the UN, for example) will sell materials to libya as they previously did

we agree it’s a pointless debate, and what youre saying is what I’ve said earlier: UK won’t buy the rafale at least in order to avoid helping a competitor.

but when I said there was no valid reason, I was talking more from the technical POV…

as for the closing line, as I said earlier, they won’t close it unless they have something else to sell.

I find quite funny that “certitude” that the rafale will go out of production in a couple of years or so…

when dassault was on the rafale they could close for good the M2000 line when no more orders were there because they had a product to follow on..

by the time the french end their rafale orders, you'”ll be well in the 2020’s, and by then, if UK wanted to order more, that would be quite simple for dassault to sell it.

actually today’s alternatives are

– F/A-18 E/F SH
– Rafale

there are no others that could compete today.

The only other today’s naval fighters would be the Su-33 and the Mig-29K, both of which aren’t made for CATOBAR and take off with reduced payload from STOBAR carriers (add the necessary integration of “compatible” avionics and you’d get an aunsuitable fighter costing way too much for UK’s use of it.

So, basically, if the UK is to have a naval fighter aircraft, it will be a US one (F-35 or F-18 SH) or a french one (Rafale)

Snow Monkey, it doesn’t matter what exports the typhoon may be facing or not, for BAe it’s a competitor and even if they’re “out” on this or that market doesn’t mean they won’t try to get back in.

what’s more, they have part of gripen NG (if it ever gets built) to make, so, even for that reason they’ll do whatever they can to undermine the rafale (but talking about the gripen, which is considered as a swedish plane won’t appeal all that much to british citizen’s feelings.. for the argument of “saving british jobs and supporting the typhoon” will be put forward.

another argument could be “they waste money on buying rafales and don’t buy typhoons for the RAF, BAD POLITICIANS!!!” 😉

any argument will do as long as it stops the rafale from being sold

Even if they had to do with better visiblity, they shud have compensated it with a higher seating position rather than making the nose smaller. In my view Rafale’s greatest drawback it have lest growth potential. The French should have taken care of the nose while designing.

See the difference of the MiG-29 and Rafale…..unfortunately Rafale will have to live with this drawback for rest of its life.

well, I seriously doubt that for a product of that price, the engineers would have messed that up so simply.

what’s more, nothing proves that they can’t make a “bulkier” nose to accomodate a bigger radar if really necessary. it’s been done before .

what’s more, as any modern fighter, the rafale was made with fully integrated electronics all over the place, you can always bring evolutions, improve and upgrade them… especially when one considers that the electronics get more and more miniaturised and that between upgrades on a fighter it takes, usually a couple of decades or so…

actually, considering the rafale would be a good alternative, but that probably won’t ever happen, even if the F-35 is cancelled, if for any reason, a commercial one:

the british have an aircraft to sell, and buying a direct competitor (even if it’s a specific version that doesn’t exist for the typhoon) would obviously be seen as an excellent selling argument for the rafale, and eventually complicate future typhoon potential exports

gotta love the “will be” argument… so much certainity about an aircraft that still has to end its development, not to speak that numbers don’t necessarily add up for that claim….