TooCool_12fThe most likely task for the smaller European air forces is participating in expeditionary operations not fighting off hordes of enemy aircraft. That said, I have yet to see any conclusive evidence that the Rafale or Eurofighter is better in an air-to-air role.
your question should go the other way: they are modern operational fighters, while the F-35 is still in development i.e. it has yet to prove that it is worth anything in air to air role (or any other role for that matter)
TooCool_12fconsidering they expect still to sell the typhoon on several markets where it faces the rafale, it is fully in their interest that Dassault doesn’t get any sales anywhere as that may:
1/ bring down costs per plane (make the rafale more competitive)
2/ encourage eventual customers to choose the rafale as it becomes more widely used (more credible against lobbying)
TooCool_12fI might be wrong, but it seems to me that that very same newspaper was strongly advocating another (Gripen) aircraft during the FX-2, and publishing all sorts of crap agaibst other contenders… might just as well simply be another episode of lobbying against the sole competitor left…
TooCool_12fnot to forget that US parts in an aircraft mean that US congress can block an export anytime… an aircraft with no US parts in it (at least nothing that can’t be replaced) removes that possibility as well
TooCool_12fSo, basically, they made a simulation in which they fed data from two non existing aircraft and one that they don’t have all data available (as a whole bunch of things are classified: RCS, how SPECTRA would manage the target’s defenses…), decided to attack from high altitude a SAM site and came out with the F-35 as a winner?
you know what, they could’ve just as well say “we want the newest toy on the block” without ever looking into what it can or can not do…
TooCool_12fjust a reminder for those claiming that when the Typhoon would be mission killed when the F-35 would just “avoid being detected and go away”.. the Typhoon, or any other aircraft that drops stores is either targeted by a SAM or has interceptors coming his way fast… in such a situation, dropping ordnance is a matter of survival.
Put the F-35 in the same position (“a SAM/interceptor coming his way, fast” ) and the “continue on his way undetected” becomes just a fantasy. IF you’re in that situation, the “bad news” see you, are close and have already messed up your day, so you either do whatever you can to survive (including “drop everything that’s not absolutely necessary right then and there”) or you die, pure and simple
TooCool_12f😉
TooCool_12fRegarding your statement about ‘too’ quick is flexibility and maneuverability, the SR-71 took over 3 or 4 miles to make a turn at Mach 3, I suspect that “Kelly” Johnson was not making maneuverability highly important when he designed the SR-71 back in the 1960s and the Skunk Works could be making the same decisions with the SR-72.
er, you might have forgotten a “0” in your turn radius… should any aircraft make a turn (meaning 180° ?) with such a small radius at Mach3, it would have to pull an insane amount of G’s
TooCool_12fand yet, they had the Typhoon to somewhat limit LM’s apetite… if BAe had followed a, for once, wise decision from Dassault not to loose their time in Korea, the deal would probably be even worse for the Koreans
TooCool_12fas said, the f414 is about 30% wider than the m88… and also significantly heavier… you just can’t fit it in a Rafale. and, providing you ever manage to do so, you’ll modify so heavily the airframe that it would be a completely new aircraft… and, if they really go for a new aircraft with engines off the shelf, why not the F135? they’ll have to redo the whole thing anyway…
hopsalot claims the rafale is underpowered, by UAE’s standards, except that even they dropped the 9t engine requirement once the aircraft was demonstrated to them in its current shape… they don’t ask for it anymore… once they realized how it really performs
as for competitions, Morocco asked France to buy rafales, as it was a logical follow up frop their Mirages F1 they were pretty happy with. They didn’t even bother to make a competition at all. They received first a Dassault’s proposal, and then, some idiots at DGA (french weapons acquisition agency) kicked in making another one… and the two weren’t really compatible making the whole thing rather messy… so much for “giving your customer a feeling to work with professional people”… what’s more, the french refused the way Morocco wanted to finance the buy (something like “the saudis pay for it, and morocco pays them back later”… ) in the end, tired of all that nonsense, Morocco turned to the USA and bought the F-16, which the US were pretty happy to sell on a marked they didn’t even try to get in the first place.
TooCool_12f:rolleyes:
What the Indian evaluation showed was that they considered only the Rafale and Eurofighter to have met their requirements, and of those they believed the Rafale to be cheaper.
well, over 600 requirements which put together don’tg leave much room for something else…
The Swiss evaluation did score the Rafale the highest, but considered the Gripen NG adequate and cheaper and so selected the Gripen NG.
er, no, the swiss evaluation (tests and so on) evaluated the aircraft, and even the “evolved version of the gripen ” scored poorly compared to the other two contenders… it’s t a decision by a politician (Ueli Maurer) that had put the gripen as a most adequate choice… nothing to do with an “evaluation”
Of course you seem to have forgotten the “real performance vs Rafale/Eurofighter BS” that was demonstrated when the F-16 beat the Rafale for the UAE and Morocco orders, or when the F-15 beat the Rafale and Eurofighter for the Korean (FX-1) and Singaporean orders. Naturally those don’t count… :stupid:
what UAE orders? the Rafale was nowhere near when UAE bought the F-16s. Morocco wasn’t “lost to the F-16”, it was messed by the French all alone without any competition.
as for korea, considering they won’t ever buy anything not american, or at least for as long as the US have troops on 38th parallel, it is anything but an argument proving the value of an order… singapore are a bit more open, but economical interests there are so important that it’s pretty much the same story as for Korea… it’s US aircraft or nothing
Who said anything about easy target? … and what is with the feature list? If you compare the same list to the F-16 Block 60 that was flying 10 years ago you will see…
-IRST
-AESA
-Falcon Edge EW system
-Link-16
-no Meteor (not operational anyway)
-AMRAAM/AIM-9x
-HMDSo what is your point? That the Rafale is now more or less where the F-16 Block 60 was a decade ago?
you said F-35 would win easily… well, for now, it still has only promises, nothing else
I said nothing of the sort. I made it quite clear that the approach the F-35 took has strengths and weaknesses. Internal storage is the way of the future due to stealth requirements, and it does have some aerodynamic advantages, but it also has disadvantages. A 5th generation jet will most certainly have the edge over a 4th generation jet flying with weapons pods because that is something the 5th generation jet was designed to do from the start. (internally)
the advantage of the 4th gen jet is, as said previously, the capability to adapt its aerodynamics to the necessities of a mission… something the 5th gen jet can’t do
TooCool_12fwhat turn @2000mph? at such speeds you turn will have at least a 30-mile radius… it’s a gentle curve at most… any SAM will match that no matter what you try unless it’s already out of speed. Should you fly at a sufficiently close distance of a SAM site, the XB-70 would be in pieces almost every time.
the missile won’t try, nor need, to stay “with it”, it will just come and blow it out of the sky
TooCool_12ffrom wikipedia:
Empty weight:
C: 9,500 kilograms (20,900 lb)
B: 9,770 kilograms (21,540 lb)
M: 10,196 kilograms (22,480 lb[182])
normally that would be with all fluids except fuel, and no weapons nor crew
In A2A load, as of today the Rafale M (the heaviest) has the T/W ratio of 0.988, still according to wikipedia, which would mean that its weight in that configuration is 14.8t.. put in 18t of thrust instead and you get something a T/W ratio of 1.21 for the M version, 1.26 for the C version…. not bad at all by any standard. The F-22 in the same configuration has 1.09 T/W, and the typhoon 1.15
TooCool_12fThose new engines would really have to be something amazing…
as of today, they already give a pretty good performance… add 20% thrust (already possible with the 9t engines in the works, if you can manage to bring more air to them – which is why new intakes are being talked about)… as the C version weighs somewhere around 9tons (slightly more), that would mean a T/W ratio of almost 2 for the empty aircraft, and above 1 even when fully loaded for A2A today, no other aircraft can show such numbers
TooCool_12fthing is, the “passive ways to gather information” are developed for others as well (for example, the Rafale is already perfectly capable to give the pilot a whole clear picture of what’s going on around him by presenting all data gathered by all its captors, and captors of other Rafales around him, on a single screen without emitting anything), and, as the F-35 is not fielded yet (except for a few not combat ready airframes) comparing it to others is pretty much irrelevant, as the others keep evolving and improving. In the end, the only thing that can be compared today is more or less the aerodynamic performance. The level of “stealth” of each fighter is a matter of multiple factors, passive and active, and their real efficiency is a secret (that is why the F-22 still does carry radar reflectors in exercises, not to give away its true signature to other participants).
Different countries have chosen different ways to move on (and I speak of those who actually do build the aircraft, not just buyers) and how they’ll fare against each other is anyone’s guess. LM claims that its new marvel is beyond anything others will field… well, show me a seller that doesn’t present its toy that way and I’ll show you a future unemployed guy. The French feel quite confident in their capabilities which rely more on active ways to deceive radars and IR detectors, the Russians consider that the frontal stealth is most important.. (basically, “we come in unnoticed, kill everybody, and, therefore, don’t have to care about who’s left to look for us behind…” ). Who’s right? only a real war involving one or the other may give a hint, but even then, it depends on so many external factors…
Take Serbia for example. While NATO attacked them in 1998, they should have had F-22s, or PAK-FAs, or Rafales, or Typhoons, or P-51s, it wouldn’t have a slightest bit of difference… as they had only something like 6 airworthy air to air capable (and unsupported for almost 10 years, so most equipments didn’t work anyway) airframes… Regardless of their capabilities, their chances to win in the air were simply nonexistent.
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