UAE officially integrating locally built (jointly with Denel) Al tariq GBUs on their mirages. IOC in two years…

Taurus will be tested on german IPA7

Italian alenia will be used for storm shadow tests.

Hmm Rii, to stay off topic, world of warcraft is a french owned game, future of usa is problematic imho (kidding)

According to rumours in french press, there will be two stages. A MLU and a Rafale “NG” around 2030.
In order of appearance, we hear about conformal antennas (Head of DGA confirmed these were “on the table”, weapon pod (already studied for Korean competition a decade ago), CFTs (already flew with dummies), redesigned nose, inlets and wings, possible dual fin.
What is sure is that the billion spent in order to establish F3R standard seems a lot as compared to what it will be publicly.

Sure, there are some upgrade projects in the works, and there will be for some time, but that type of work only delays the inevitable unless clean slate projects materialize.

This is the same problem that is confronting Boeing. They have kept busy with their Silent Eagle and Advanced Super Hornet projects, but they know their future in the fighter business is dependent on their early 6th generation work and to a lesser extent their T-X work.

As for FCAS, what constitutes “fully funded?”

Prrogramme prepararion phase is ro end next months, demonstration phase 1 contract will be awarded half 2014. The six industrials involved already gave a ffinancial and technical proposition in september.

To varying extents this applies to Western Europe as a whole. Saab is working on the Gripen NG, a derivative of the original Gripen, but besides that and a few semi-funded drone efforts there is precious little in the way of new projects.

Dassault is working on Rafale MLU, and was just allocated 1 billion euros for F3R standard + further studies.
Phase 1 of FCAS (and provisions for the beginning) is fully funded by UK and Fr governments.

Here is a photo of concept model presented at pas 13 btw

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Hope they’ll pay a few royalties to Dassault (after all, they stole the design)