no gun use until 2019 as per some journos.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-f-35-wont-fire-a-shot-until-2019-2014-12?IR=T

I want to be absolutely clear. Yes, either you or the pilot you claim to have spoken to are lying or badly mistaken. Both the “one crank of [afterburner]” and the supercruise with three drop tanks and missiles require much greater proof than “I heard it from a guy.”

The data sheet claims from Le Bourget are impressive, but perfectly plausible. M1.4 with six missiles in dry thrust would be excellent performance, approaching that specified for the USAF’s ATF competition back in the day, but within the realm of reason for an otherwise slicked off Rafale providing a marketing point.

Similarly “supercruise,” likely meaning a marginal M1.1, while carrying a centerline tank and four missiles is also impressive, and also plausible with an otherwise slicked off aircraft.

Expanding those claims to M1.4 with four missiles and a centerline tank, or to “supercruise” with three tanks and missiles takes them well outside the realm of plausibility.

If the Rafale were capable of those later two claims why on earth would they put the former two on the brochure? Seems like kind of a funny way to go about marketing doesn’t it?

First thing you should know is usually Dassault and much more important DGA don’t make “marketing” in the US way. Facts are more or less plausible in your opinion. I just repeat what i heard. And i think the reputation of 2/30 is high enough to think he didn’t lie to me. It is exactly like when people said Rafale is a hot potato in BFM even vs F-22. Many ppl just laughed. Then a video came. This video doesn’t prove in anyway that Rafale is superior to F-22 in BFM, but it doese prove it is a tough opponent.

I have personally no issue with F-35 1.6 M top speed. F-35 is not a Mig31. But sometimes “plausible facts” aren’t true as unplausible are. Writing a book about Mirage 4000 atm for example. Would you accept the fact that in most configurations it was kinetically superior to F-15? I don’t think so.
But i have the diagrams…

Remember the 1250 L drop tanks are specifically designed for supersonics…

DRAAGGG, one tank vs. three. You are semi-right about thrust to weight ratio unless other factors come into play: F-15 is a bigger aircraft which means extra weight means less compared to the Rafale carrying three tanks, Drag- Rafale “may” have a trim drag advantage due to canard delta layout, CFT are far less draggy than pylon EFT, pw-229 vs M-88 bypass ratio not a significant difference to offset drag. And you still have only a Rafale “fan” site to contrast real flight test data of an aircraft that is more powerful, and designed with variable intakes.

Simply put, one tank: believable, within the realm of reasonable comparison. Three- you are talking our of your nether regions with only a “fan” site to document your claims. Do your own research, the devil is in the details. Explain the difference between a Block 50 F-16 and the Rafale and I will discuss it with you further.

But be warned, the F-16 barely clears the trans-sonic range with two supersonic tanks. Quite frankly you sound similar to the worst of the F-35 apologists: “I don’t care what the data says. I’m right dammit”. Not a good look.

I can only quote a Rafale pilot met this summer at Sepentex : you will probably need 1 crank of PC to pass transsonic regime with 3 drop tanks in a A/A missile, than supercruise on dry thrust. Not very precise, but gives an idea.

I think you are right.

The idea that went in mind was that since the deck coating is not in service (the planed introduction of the C is much latter, so they might have no reason to coat their deck too early), they might use fuel or thick oil to absorb the extra heat: the liquid is sprayed on teh deck surface bellow the hottest point underneath the engine nozzle, it then get heated by the exhaust, absorbs the calories and then just burn away preventing any deformation in the deck material.

See it like an electrical fusible.

Ideally the fluid don’t burn every time.

My 2 cents only of course

Sensible answer. Thank you.

WSO carries a samsung tablet. Aswell as pilots. (entering into service little by little). Decalco communicates with tablets with a ultra confidential system : WI-FI hehe
But the original capability (JTAC sending images with embedded data to the plane) still exist.

At a time, SFs were trying a new system (black diamond vests). These vests include a computer “hub” for googles, gps and satcom, but there are troubles due to the lack of computing power (a celeron). Writing a story about serpentex, will let you know when finished.

hello hotshot. You won’t find any. The photo i sent was taken by myself during Serpentex exercise. Originally it was a simple uplink system for vectorial images named scarabée (and classified). This uplink still exist, but the idea is now to network ground and air assets via L-16. Rafale eg. Receive the data on a dedicated computer named decalco (mainly for WSO). Tactical operation Center will fuse data and distribute them to jtac and planes. Hope i can write a paper on it soon, and i’ll tell you if. Alliance is meant to be compliant with future NATO “FMV” standard.

The rafale also has ROVER:
http://www.dassault-aviation.com/en/…crete-sensors/

it has better than only Rover, it also has an uplink named Alliance (fromerly Scarabée) (kind of “reverse” rover)

Here is an image of Alliance from ground asset. (data are fused, sent to a specific computer and displayed on pilot/WSO notepad, have no image of in board “air” version of alliance, sorry