The Rafale - As good as it can get. Stealth.Supercruise.Omnirole.

Originally posted by Harlequin
If Rafale is that good , why are India still throwing money away with MCA.

Oh brother!

> India could buy the Rafale if it so desires. But if everything is bought from outside, what about the indigenous defence industry ? what about indigenous research ? from where will one learn technologies ? what if there is a fallout with France sometime in the future ? who will supply the spares? etc, etc the list is endless... and most importantly > Why buy, when you can make it by yourself ??

> > It is too early to speculate anything about the MCA but the MCA appears to be F-35 class and IMHO it is intended to be more stealthier than the Rafale. It might end up being much cheaper than the Rafale as well.

India's MCA to fly in 8 years

BANGALORE: The Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), the aircraft design house of the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) in Bangalore has formed a core team to design a medium combat aircraft (MCA), an advanced multi-role fighter with stealth capabilities.

Full Article >>

[edit on 31-12-2005 by Stealth Spy]

[edit on 9/26/07 by FredT]

reply to post by CarlosG


Well, apparently, you can have underwing stores without increasing the radar cros-section. I didnt do the research myself, but I've read that there are many proven sources that acknoledge that fact. So if you are interested, the internet is yours to roam!

Lol, for the same reason the French went alone in the first place. In order to be independant and develop national technologies. Apparently they don't mind risking having an inferiour self-built plane, because they hope the R&D will outweight the possible drawbacks.

Originally posted by kilcoo316

Originally posted by NWguy83
Sure the Rafale and the Typhoon can supercruise, but they can't cruise while in supercruise like the Raptor. The Raptor can supercruise up to mach 1.5 but it's cruising supercruise speed is mach 1.2 .

WHAT?!?!?

What exactly does that mean?

If its under military (non afterburning) power, its effectively cruising no matter what way you cut it.

He probably means that it can supercruise (i.e. under military power) until Mach 1.5 (though 1.4 is more of an official number), but to allow much larger engine life, it stays at 1.2.

Originally posted by Figher Master FIN
Your threads are always as impressive...

I was just wondering about that stealth issue... how good is it really...??

I don't know about stealth. The vertical stabilizer and rudder will show up like a barn door on radar. Not much you can do to hide the signature produced by it.

I will admit it does look quite sexy though.

Why is no one buying it? Why has it been criticised by the French Minister of defence? Why is it likely that it's continued development will be curtailed? It's a pretty aircraft which at the moment has an edge (just) on the Typhoon in A2G. But even in that role it doesn't have it's own Laser Designator. A2A against a Typhoon it's dead meat. Claims that it's stealthy revolve around over hyped, dubious and unproven claims about SPECTRA and nods and winks about a special formula radar absorbing coating! Typhoon (when clean) can super-cruise but I can't find any evidence that Rafale can. In-fact it's current engines have been a source of concern. It's scheduled to get AESA in 2012 but even a question mark hangs over that. It's clear it's only going to keep pace with the competition if they secure sales to pay for further development and that's just not happening. The F 35 is the plane the French need but misplaced chauvinism means they won't get it.

Originally posted by Fransje
...it can supercruise (i.e. under military power) until Mach 1.5 (though 1.4 is more of an official number), but to allow much larger engine life, it stays at 1.2.

The Raptor can super cruise significantly past Mach 1.5 and the official top speed is Mach 1.72, however the max super cruise speed (weight, drag, conditions considering) is likely even above that. Usually it either cruises sub sonic for very long range and endurance or high super cruise when in an active combat situation or fast point to point travel is necessary.

Originally posted by Fransje

Lol, for the same reason the French went alone in the first place. In order to be independant and develop national technologies. Apparently they don't mind risking having an inferiour self-built plane, because they hope the R&D will outweight the possible drawbacks.

France went it alone because they wanted a carrier capable aircraft, and none of the other countries involved in the FEFA (Future European Fighter Aircraft) wanted that capability and so the program split into two - the Eurofighter and the Rafale.

This thread was copied from Key Forum Aviation.

Stealthspy has just added some bold front and highlighted India-centric material

Originally posted by RichardPrice

France went it alone because they wanted a carrier capable aircraft, and none of the other countries involved in the FEFA (Future European Fighter Aircraft) wanted that capability and so the program split into two - the Eurofighter and the Rafale.

Well, actually the French Navy didnt want the Rafale at all, they wanted off-the-shelf, second-hand, american F-18s, made available after aircraft-carrier retirement in the 80s..
But in order to make the Rafale unit price "affordable" they were forced to by it by the government. Decision the very same government came to regret during the first Golf war. It does appear they are happy with the plane now though.

Originally posted by Fransje
Well, actually the French Navy didnt want the Rafale at all, they wanted off-the-shelf, second-hand, american F-18s, made available after aircraft-carrier retirement in the 80s..
But in order to make the Rafale unit price "affordable" they were forced to by it by the government. Decision the very same government came to regret during the first Golf war. It does appear they are happy with the plane now though.

Have you a legitimate source for this assertion?

Regards

I'll bet he doesn't have a source. The F3R upgrade will enhance the Active Cancellation technology and once the M90 engine is available it will erase all the advantages the Typhoon may have had in air superiority. I had a great source, from India, for this but it disappeared, as I suspect they had posted somewhat sensitive information which was then removed. India needs fighter engines and has signed an agreement with the M88 manufacturer, which has produced an engine for the Tejas fighter, which I believe is just possibly going through testing, as in flying in an airframe and that engine would also be available as an upgrade for the Rafale, with the M90 designation, the numbers I saw were 65 kN dry thrust and 104 kN with afterburner, which is more powerful than the Typhoon engine. Also with the Active cancellation the RCS for the Rafale is currently 0.06 but with the F3R upgrade that will be improved to 0.0006 which is close to the F-22.

Here is the source with the claim, but it is no longer there, as it has up and disappeared.

tejasmrca.weebly.com...

Rafale is officially said to have a frontal RCS of about 0.1m2 and comes under the category of Low observable (LO) aircraft. But with the aid of SPECTRA which can perform “active cancellation”—receiving a radar signal and mimicking the aircraft’s echo exactly one-half wavelength out of phase so the radar sees almost nothing, the RCS is reduced to about 0.06m2.

But it doesn’t stop there. Dassault has admitted that a new upgrade package is almost ready for operations which would further decrease the RCS of Rafale to that of a Sparrow! Called DEDIRA (Demonstrateur de Discrétion Rafale / Descreet Rafale Demonstrator) it aims to improve the SPECTRA suite on the F3R version of Rafale. This program is linked with another one called INCAS (Intégration de Nouvelles Capacités à Spectra) which deals with the integration of GaN modules in RBE2 and SPECTRA suite along with GaN modules incorporated ‘smart-skins’ for all-passive day/night and all weather long-range detection and targeting capability involving all passive sensors available to sensor fusion.
​
The DEDIRA program will further improve the active stealth aspect of SPECTRA to bring down the frontal RCS of Rafale close to 0.0006m2. For reference, the unofficial frontal RCS of Raptor is 0.0001m2 without active cancellation, which is a Very Low observable (VLO) aircraft. DEDIRA is already integrated on a test Rafale numbered B301.

Oh brother, where to begin!

Describing the Rafale as stealth is like saying a Typhoon is a stealth platform, BOTH are 4th (arguably 4++) gen platforms, both world class at what they do - swing-role work, no current stealth platform performs that role and so it shouldn't.

The biggest caveat here is the SPECTRA system, firstly in all operational usage, it's proven useful but only reduces SOME RCS by about 20%. The Rafale is generally regarded as to be a tiny bit larger in RCS than a Typhoon (damn refuelling probe is a dead giveaway) , in most combat loadouts it's definitely higher due to non conformal missile carriage and the larger external tanks it has to carry. Lack of target designator doesn't help either.
Folks on here pointing out about carrying external stores ruining RCS are perfectly correct, hang stores from the wings of an F22 or F35 and they too suddenly get a LOT more noticeable.

I was on active duty during the Libyan campaign, talked to both RAF and French pilots about how they regarded each other, the RAF boys had good words to say about the Rafale at low level in A2G scenarios (as did the French about the RAF boys) but that was basically a permission environment, apart from a few weird factions sporting some MANPADS and a strange SAM site we came upon when we went in to sort out some groups there were no real ground threats.

It wasn't generally known to the public at the time but both air forces were doing weapons integration work during that conflict, Rafale was having LGB problems and the Typhoon crews were using the time to get a lot of work done on getting Brimstone to work (hitting live targets with it was all done by the Tornado lads, apart from one)

That conflict showed up a major concern with Rafale, it's engines, they are simply not powerful or reliable enough, that has been known from day one, and it was the no 1 reason for Rafales being unservicable during the operations.
I know that at least one RAF supply flight into Cyprus had been diverted and delayed to pick up 2 M88 engines from France on the way.

During A2G the engine power problem isn't too much of an issue but anyone thinking a Rafale can get even close to a Typhoon when it comes to power is frankly deluded. The only other issue I have with the OP text is the Rafale's IRST system, in operational usage it's range dipped well below the 50K mark, it works but it's not a world leader, the optical sensor is good but I heard mention of a lot of maintenance issues with in during that conflict.

All that being said, the Rafale is a very capable 4th gen platform, it's combat proven now but it doesn't have a long lifespan, originally when the 2nd QE class British carrier was planned to be available the French want to use it, the French carrier is not in good health these days - getting old but those plans appear to have been shelved completely due the Rafale not performing well on ski jumps and cost of upgrading arrestor gear to suit.

Unfortunately France suffer from the same complaint as we Brits, lack of money.. we can't actually afford the F35's we've committed to without cuts elsewhere otherwise we'd be taking the Typhoon engine, radar and conformal tank upgrades to give them a service life well into the 2040's
The French can't afford a new carrier, can't afford to develop a new platform on their own and since the last BAE debacle they certainly won't be part of any collaboration involving the British in the future.

But having seen them operate close up, watched them hit targets well I can say the Rafale works well, just this OP went completely overboard and copied the fanatical sales brochure, the equivalent of the "F22 can't be defeated in A2A" and "The F35 is completely invisible to all radars" nonsense a few years back.

Oh an interesting final point, one Typhoon pilot told me the only aircraft that has surprised him with it's unlisted capabilities (War modes as we refer to them) is the SAAB Gripen, he was amazed how effective it's EW suite was in combat tests "I still nailed it A2A but that little f**ker was a bit of handful at times"

a reply to: GrumpyBollocks
Well that was an interesting series of observations you had there, and first hand makes them more compelling. I totally agree about the M88 engines, it seems France is having trouble dealing with the next generation as also evidenced by the problems Safran have had with the Silvercrest civilian motor it has been failing to deliver. I'm also not surprised by your claims over the Gripen, I have heard similar things about it too. The E model should prove to be a real winner building upon the C models capabilities which is the model I presume the pilot you spoke to had faced. It actually disproves what you said about Britain and France not having enough money as Sweden has spent even less than the Rafale and Typhoon programs but arguably has achieved at least as much. Clearly the Swedes have focussed on building a fighter instead of a state sponsored jobs program, which if it works will employ people anyway. And what's more the Gripen , even in E model form appears to be significantly cheaper to run than most of the contemporary systems out there. I predict if the Swedes dont loose their brain that whatever follows on from Gripen will prove just as ground breaking.

a reply to: thebozeian

Oh I'm in complete agreement that SAAB produced a great platform with the Gripen.. the pilot I spoke to had been part of a testing engagement between two modified Typhoons two Gripens acting as sensor test beds for the new Griped NG (or the E as it is called for production) , with SAAB it's always difficult to pin down exact costs of a program as they get some decent under the table state aid but production and flight costs are always lower for single engine platforms.

That being said, the main capability it had against Typhoon (similar to engagements against F35's) is that standard radar has a problem getting a clear acquisition at BVR, there was a defined point I'm told where a solid signal lock occurred and that was outside of the effective range of the Gripen against Typhoon (which has it's own smart EW tricks too)

The pilot expressed that all parties enjoyed the exercises and found them very useful as it gave them chance for some decent scenario testing using experimental gear without having to involve large amounts of personnel, he did mention the Gripen pilots have a strange defensive A2A maneuver involving an induced stall, direct nose down and then full reheat to try and sort of play dead for a second, apparently it caught the Typhoon pilots unaware the first time before they decided on a countermove - I love to hear forces with so-called inferior hardware finding inventive ways to make the best of what they've got.