Seahawk :
So if Typhoon would be 1m², Rafale would need to be <0,1m².
Well done , spot on ! Or at least not far off . 🙂
I also found the same number . A SU-27 is 150 times bigger than a Rafale from a radar PoV and the Raptor is about 100 times smaller than a Rafale from the same radar PoV .
Opit :
They claim they did, of course, yet they managed to tell us that Typhoon RCS is 1/8 that of the Tornado. That put it in the F-16 league, with Mirage 2000, Gripen and Super Hornet doing better (to name a few).
Incorrect .
That puts the Typhoon in the 1 square meter RCS , which is correct .
The F-16 C is a 5 square meter RCS target . M2000 , Gripen and SH are round 2 .
Typhoon is only slightly ahead of the M2000 wrt RCS . Its overall RCS is , at least , 10 times bigger than Rafale ‘s and maybe 20 times bigger in the front sector .
These numbers can be seen as huge but they are not . It only translates in a relative edge (40-50km) with a light AtoA load .
But a Typhoon with 2 external tanks , 2 Storm Shadows , 2 AMRAAMs and 2 ASRAAMs is still 10 time bigger from a radar PoV than a Rafale with 2 external tanks , 2 Scalps , 2 Mica EM and 2 Mica IR .
It turns out that the 50 km range difference that was translated to 10x lower RCS reminded me of all that old stuff. Add to that many press releases that keep telling Rafale RCS is lower, and you begin to have a hard time to dispute what become increasingly obvious.
+1 .
Sintra :
Trying to imply that somehow Dassault obtained such a massive advantage (a 10X reduction) from a team who had previously worked on a LO design (part of the MBB team that worked in Lampyridae ended up in the signature reduction department of Eurofighter) using identical techniques and technologies is, has i´ve said before, counter-intuitive.
Irrelevant .
I give you an example Sintra : in this life , I have been a Pastry-Chef for more than 15 years besides doing other things . Give to two pastry-chef flour , eggs , sugar , chocolate , cherries and kirsh . One will make a nice stuff , the other will make a brilliant dessert .
It is about brain power and not only about what you do with the same ingredients (components) .
You get it ? 😉
I am not saying that there is no brain power in the UK , in Germany , etc , etc . Of course not .
But right from the drawing board , the very first blueprint , the Rafale already enjoyed a clear edge with regard to RCS . The Typhoon was a kind of M2000 with wrongly placed canards and air intakes “a la” F-16 .
While the Typhoon is using some kind of RAM (or RAP) to smooth-up the not too discret design , the Rafale is using RAM to help the overall design . Big difference .
More often than not , I read that the French did poorly wrt the nose cone size . Did they ? No .
Sacrifying some 40-50km radar range just to lower the RCS by 2 is a good move when you have third part assets to brief the fighter ( AWACs and so on) .
If you think that Dassault did not know what kind of radar they could fit in the nose and why they did it , you are missing one factor .
I don ‘t want to repeat what I said on another site , but the Rafale did spend entire months in anechoic chambers and the nose design , the wing design and the blending has been changed and modifyed at least 3 times .
Even the first Rafale CO1 (the black one) has a bigger RCS than our actual Rafales :
The Rafale is certainly not a VLO aircraft but its RCS , for now , is the lowest of all 4th gen fighters .
Then (and this is probably the most important part) , while the Eurofighter Team ran a competition to get the best general purpose ECM suite suited for the Eurofighter , which implies funding bottlenecks and rivality , Dassault asked Thalés to directly build an ECM suite from the anechoic chamber room results . It is the reason why Dassault changed the design few times , to lower the overall RCS and to “ease” what was going to be known as Spectra .
But this is a different story …
While all I ‘m saying is nice and shiny , the RCS difference in between the Typhoon and the Rafale is not really a game changer as long as both fighters have AWACs around . And they always have 🙂
Cheers .
Scorpion82 :
Basically it would be fine if people could cool down a little bit.
I agree . I ‘m very cool myself , by the way 🙂
Really? Why? Because you say so?
Of course not ! If one doesn ‘t believe what the French pilots say , fair enough , but the one should simply look at the pit outfit and how and why it is made this way to make his/her mind up .
By analogy , a car dashboard is telling much about the technology onboard . We know cars and we see enough TV adds , don ‘t we ?
Sorry to go this “low” , but I had to make myself clear .
Again , it goes down to the drawing board and the main ideas running the aircraft design . The Dassault Rafale has been designed to survive . It might sound weird and a bit “[I]Yeah right[/I” , but it is the truth . The Typhoon has been designed as a BVR Killer] .
Then , the AtoG and Nuke capabilities were ,on Rafale , the secondary ideas . To fullfill its role , the aircraft had to be an “ear” rather than a “mouth” , if I may say . Passive long range detection to evade threats were more important than to destroy them because penetration was a must .
We put a LOT of work to provide excellent long range detection means and , obviously , a LOT of work to give to the pilot all he/she needs to know the easiest possible way .
The Typhoon followed a different way . For a plane of its size , the bet was on speed , raw power , big radar and powerful short range ECMs for protection . In fact , it is a 4th gen Raptor . It also has the same kind of pit design but it lacks the EMCON capability of the US Raptor .
It is why I said that I am impatient to see the 2020 Typhoon . With a big AESA dish and Meteor , it is going to sing “Rule Britannia” in many airspace .
But I would bet my left forefinger on the Rafale ‘s MMI .
Why a separate TV camera if your IRST/FLIR does the same job?
They don ‘t do the same job . Think about what you say Scorpion 😉 no bad intended 😉
Since we used both IR and TV on Rafale with the first gen OSF , we know what we talk about 🙂
Read the Tiger Meet debriefs and you ‘ll see what made the difference WRT ID the targets from far away . We used the TV , not the IRST/FLIR .
An IRST is not showing you the flags , colors , “cocardes” to ID once for all what you look at . A TV does .
TR1 :
Also, I keep hearing about this Rafale detecting Eurofighter first, can I get some proof? No, Rafale pilots claiming so does not constitute reliable proof.
The officials French reports on the matter have never been discussed by the RAF anyway , including the 4-0 over the Med sea .
This is all we have anyway .
TR1 , I personaly believe that the Typhoon is very well equipped to kick some Sukhois a** . Whatever people in general think , the European war aviation industry is ahead of the Russian one and by a reasonable margin .
Russian stuff is overated , most of the time . (but not the women , I ‘ve been with one 😉 )
Scorpion :
Take a look at the pictures… You can easily spot the thin RAM layers on the leading edges of the canards, wings, the fin and the inlet.
I am not sure than that is RAM . It could be some kind of Radar Absorbant Paint as far as I can see . I did not ask for nothing . Then , where are the sawtooth design like the ones on Rafale ? You talk about the inlets , but the moving parts (!) doesn ‘t look like RAM covered , then , there is no RAM inside the inlets , just before the S-duct curve , why ?
Rafale :
I don ‘t want to be picky but , you know what I mean I suppose .
What I want to say is that , maybe , we could trust what we see and not what we sometimes read on the Net . Even without knowkedge , a picture is telling , don ‘t you think .
I am still trying to find a decent proof that the Typhoon has , at least , a RCS in range of the Rafale ‘s . So far , I failed .
Keep in mind that I am no basher as I also praise the Typhoon .
Cheers .
EE :
Actually, how much of the Rafale is made up of Carbon Fibre Composites, any specs available?
From the top of my head , Typhoon and Rafale are very similar but Typhoon has a little bit more Carbon Fibre Composites (around 65% for the Rafale) .
Why don’t we all just get along, if one believes in something then let it be, everyone has their opinions on many things
+1 .
Now , this is true that the Captor-E is a bit larger than the RBE2 . It is also the reason why the Typhoon has slightly more powerful engines because it needs more electrical power to run the bigger dish . Some should have pointed the fact well before I do …
This is the problem with radars , they need a lot of juice . The Captor-E has a better range than the Pesa RBE2 (around 40-50km better) but the Rafale still detect the Typhoon first which prove the RCS difference , if it needed to be proven .
The AESA RBE2 brings parity on range , but with all the AESA ‘s bells and whistles of course .
WRT the refueling probe , it seems that the pipe is made of alloy covered by a thick “anti-shock” rubber type with RAM properties .
It is not a secret that I rate the Rafale higher than the Typhoon but the margin is not that big . I am impatient to see the 2020 Typhoon .
For now , it is not a match for our Rafale F3s in every way you can think of , besides the fact that the Typhoon is climbing like a home sick angel !
The Eurofighter needs to improve in AtoG big time , we know it , but it also needs to improve the pilot workload , the MMI .
WRT passive detection , PIRATE needs a long range TV because it allows to fire first 90% of the time , due to nowadays harsh RoEs , both in AtoA and AtoG .
WRT to ECMs , it is up to speed . Myself , I would just put more money on an AESA system (a la Rafale) working jointly with the towed decoys .
Overall , the Typhoon is a very promising beast ahead of the US Teens and ahead of the Russian aircrafts in many ways .
But I still think that the Rafale will win in India .
Cheers .
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