In a world where the transatlantic link is looking surprisingly shaky, the French charm offensive is continuing. And as some of the competition are fighting delays, cost overruns, and uncertainties, the Rafale is steaming on ahead seamingly without any major hiccups. In the short term, that means rolling out the F3R standard which will sport AGCAS (Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System), introduction of the MBDA Meteor long-range missile, and a host of other less noticeable upgrades to the aircraft. The F3R is an intermediate step, building on the current F3 model. The big step will then be the F4, which is expected in the 2023 to 2025 timespan, coinciding with the deliveries of the first HX-fighters in initial operational capability, which is set to happen in 2025.
If Rafale would win HX, it is the F4 standard which would be delivered to the Finnish Air Force. Dassault is expecting that the French baseline will suit Finland just fine, though they leave the door open for the Finnish aircrafts to have unique weapons and external sensors if so required. Dassault is keen to point out the benefits of this model, making sure the Rafale is sporting mature but modern technologies through incremental upgrades according to the roadmap laid forward by the DGA, the French Directorate General of Armaments.
Everyone can improve technology, but you can’t change the concept […] France can’t operate dedicated aircraft
The benefit from a Finnish viewpoint is that besides the Swedish Air Force JAS 39E Gripen, the French offer will be the only one which will be operated by the host country’s single-aircraft air force (though both the JAS 39C/D and Mirage 2000 will linger on for a few years more). The lack of dedicated fast jets for different roles ensures full support for the multirole capability from the host, something which certainly would make the Finnish Logistics Command sleep easier at night.
One point which Dassault brings up when I meet them at this year’s air show which wasn’t discussed last year is the capability per aircraft. While the ‘how much bang can you create for 10 billions?’-approach of the HX-tender might hand an edge to some contenders, the politically motivated decision to acquire exactly 64 aircraft will on the other hand favour more capable aircraft. This is where Dassault see their strengths. The Rafale is largely assumed to be second only to the F-35 when it comes to signature reduction amongst the HX contenders. At the same time the Rafale is from the outset designed to be able to operate with limited support and low maintenance hours, a feature stemming both from the requirement to be able to operate from the relatively small French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle as well as from replacing the sturdy Jaguar and Mirage F1 in operations in austere conditions, often in Africa and in the Middle East. The latter is in marked contrast to some other contenders, and Dassault likes to point out that this is not just a design concept, but something the aircraft does every day.
We have over 30,000 flight hours in combat
When it comes to combat, the keyword is ‘agile’. Rafale is able to adapt to different scenarios and conflict levels, thanks to the multitude of sensors and weapons available to the pilot (and WSO in the case of the Rafale B). These capabilities goes all the way to peacetime, where the Rafale has provided assistance to emergency authorities by documenting natural disasters and floods with their dedicated reconnaissance pods. But while peacetime assistance is a nice bonus, HX will be bought for its combat potential.
And here the Rafale is able to provide serious hours of combat potential, both on a daily basis as well as for prolonged periods of time. The Rafale can do 10 hour CAP-missions, and is able to surge over 150 monthly flight hours per aircraft. The latter has been demonstrated repeatedly during combat operations such as Operation Chammal, the French strikes in Syria and Iraq. The single most high-profile mission in the area is without doubt the strike on Syrian regime chemical warfare installations earlier this year. Here, the Rafale demonstrated the “seamless plug and play” capability of the Rafale to integrate with other NATO-assets to carry out a complex long-range mission. Five Rafales, including two-seaters, flew out of bases in France to strike two facilities at Him Shinshar, one of which was targeted together with US Navy, Royal Air Force, and the French Navy, while the other was struck solely by the Rafales. As was noted in the immediate aftermath of the strikes, they took out all intended targets without interference from neither the Russian nor the Syrian air defences.
Another benefit the Rafale brings to the table is the second engine. While the benefit of twin engines for normal flight safety redundancy is limited these days, in combat the ability to lose an engine and still limp home is an asset. “It’s more comfortable,” as a former Mirage 2000-pilot puts it.
Last time around the Mirage 2000 was the only fighter other than the F/A-18C Hornet to meet the requirements of the Finnish Air Force, but suffered from what the evaluation thought of as a “maintenance system which would be difficult for us”. This is not something Dassault expects will be repeated, as the maintenance requirements for the Rafale is one of the areas which have seen vast improvement. The Rafale feature a fully digital mock-up which has provided the basis for the maintenance studies. These theoretical calculations have then been validated by comparison to an airframe which has been tortured in Dassault’s laboratory. The final outcome is a maintenance program centered around on-condition maintenance rather than the traditional by flight hour system, and a scheduled airframe maintenance which is halved compared to that of the current F/A-18C/D Hornets. While the Rafale is not unique amongst the HX-contenders in taking maintenance to the next level, it is hard to see the aircraft being dropped on what was a weak point for the Mirage 2000.
In the end, talk about the Rafale always comes back to the ‘here and now’. This is an aircraft that is immediately available, ‘fly before you buy’ as Dassault puts it, and keeps balancing nicely on the edge between maturity and cutting edge. The key role it plays in French defence also means that it will continue to be kept updated throughout the lifespan of HX. Like Eurofighter, Dassault is keen to point out that Rafale will also play a part in the Franco-German Future Combat Air System (FCAS), which true to it name is a system and not just a new fighter. The Rafale stands out in many ways from the competition, offering a number of unique solutions and concepts. Time will tell if these will catch the interest of the Finnish Air Force, or if a more conservative solution will be sought.
Corporal Frisk 
One interesting thing regarding the French-led FCAS, in the framework of HX, is that the Rafale will benefit from significantly more political and industrial support from France than Eurofighter, which is UK-backed up in Finland (the only Eurofighter nation in FCAS being Germany).
The British seem to have grass cut under their feet as we have seen with their hasted announcement of Team Tempest, which for me looks like more of a PR stunt to try gaining momentum and attract partners than a true involvement to start developping a 5/6. gen. combat aircraft – something that will be largely unlikely if the British remain alone or with less-than-significant partners. I believe Airbus-BAE relations will get quite steamy too.
Tempest will also bring a certain of issues, as it would mean RAF to operate three aircraft around 2040: the Tempest (?), the late Typhoon, and the F-35. That would imply several challenges, both on the design stage to avoid redundancy especially with the F-35, and on the support side, as logistical efforts will be much more spread out than for the French who will smoothly transition to a dual FCAS/Rafale force around in the 2050 decade, then full FCAS from late 50-early 60s, fitting the HX lifetime as well.
Overall I think your article have greatly underlined the benefits of maintenance on Rafale, which is an issue which has been largely taken into account during the design phase of the machine. This is not something that can be said of all aircraft, i.e. Typhoon, which by some accounts is said to be a “very human ressource intensive”, in the Swiss evaluation, if i recall. I can’t pronounce myself on other HX contenders, especially the F-35 which remains a big question mark.. although likely to be very expensive one!
And of course, capability wise, the aircraft is very solid. Its development continues (albeit quietly, unlike other who are bringing a whole fanfare for minor updates.. follow my look), and it’s showing what it’s worth in a very busy optempo for French forces.
F-35 maintenance time has been improved : now it can fly a mission every 28-32 hours.
In case of you put 2-3 tech-teams and 2-3 pilots at the job for each Rafale. This was proven in combat situation for a full week time when Rafales entered 1st in Libya (and addafi had the latests Russian anti-stealth radars… Guess why Yankees didn’t sent F-22 or B-2…), then you can fly 10-11 missions per 24 hours. Normal use with a single team +1-2 pilot(s), 5-6 missions per 24h is OK.
Rafale has already kicked Typhoon and F-22 butts in all drills.
It was invited to Red Flag once and ridiculed USAF, now the Yanks organise the Atlantic Trident drills with no press around, you only have F-22, F-35, Typhoon and Rafale.
Recently retired boss of USAF ACC (air combat command) said that F-35 was irrelevant if they don’t keep F-22 adding he needed 8 F-35 to do the job of 2 F-22.
A Pentaon SPOX also once said that F-35 needed F-22, Typhoon or Rafale protection but… If you have Rafale, you can do strike job and air-superiority at the same time.
I think Dassault should do advertising using TER/QERs (triple/quadruple ejector racks), they could show Rafale with the 3000L drop tank, conformal tanks, the 2 underbelly Meteors, the 2 MICA-IR on wingtips then… 4 QERs each with 4 Meteors and 2 TERs with 1 Meteor and two MICA-IR/EM… 20 Meteors, 6 MICAs… More than it takes to shoot down a full squadrons at 200km+…
Another config should be shown again with the 3000L+conformals :
Recreating a rocket pod similar to Matra JL100 used on old Mirage-3/5 : 19 rockets and 250L fuel. The pod was supersonic BTW). I’d even consider pods of 22-24 maybe with 330L.
Now Thales/TDA propose their Aculeus ILGR 10km range guided 70mm rocket than is fired through induction (fast reload of pods: no need for wiring, zero launch accidents since these induction-launch rockets are used on Airbus choppers),
MBDA also introduced the laser-guided Zuni-LG : twice+ the warhead of a Hellfire, third of the price… They propose the use of the classic Zuni pod of 4. I’d consider pods of 7 instead…
Now go the QER/TER way, Rafale could so be shown carrying :
8 pods of 24 Aculeus + 1320L of fuel and 4 pods of 7 Zuni-LG under 4 hardpoints
3000L under the belly + 2300L in 2 conformal tanks
2 underbelly Meteors, 2 wingtip MICA-IR
with 2 TERs under the outer wing hardpoints, add 4x Meteor and 2x MICA
In the end, this config would carry :
192x 70mm Aculeus guided rockets, each with warheads on par with a TOW ATGM
14x 127 mm Zuni-LG able to blast any T-14 Armata
6x Meteor AAM
4x MICA AAM
Now consider a squadron of 18 :
3456 Aculeus, 252 Zuni-LG, 108 Meteors, 72 MICA.
This is what I call serious air support for the boots! Enough to blow 7 MBT (main battle tank) battalions per flight, added to 3400 IFVs/APCs/Technicals or combat/artillery/mortar/ATGM posts while staying away from ManPADS and CIWS/C-RAMs and having enough to bounce 6 fighter-jets enemy squadrons.
Another thing : MBDA should propose a conventional version of ASMP/ASMP-A : a Mach-3 stealth cruise missile at hand and Rafale can already carry it due to its nuclear missions, c’mon! For sur, SCALP-EG or Exocet are way cheaper, but if you have to sink a Kirov-class heavy cruiser filled with AK-630M2 and Kashtan-M (and soon Pantsir-M instead), it may take smth harder to intercept than subsonic missiles.
I think that clients should consider custom demands : India asked for custom features and got these, now the Elbit HMD F-35 was supposed to have is Rafale-OK, Rafale can also use many Russian, Israeli or Indian weapons…
French are great technicians but pretty bad salesmen, at the contrary of Anglos…
Now better think twice : do you want efficient defence potential for your country or buy hype, just like NATO did with crooked competitions where countries bought F-104 instead of Mirage-III.
F-104 was soon proven irrelevant and a flying-coffin, the aces of the aces for fighter jets is still a Mirage pilot and Mirage-III keeps the best kill-ratio against peers in combat (OK, F-15 is great too, but it only fought outdated gear and they kept some A2A losses secret, blaming these on SAMs). Same stuff for Mirage-2000 : Clinton pushed India and Pakistan into not publishing the aircraft losses in the Kargil war, nevertheless, Pakis bought about 70 (mostly 2nd hand) F-16 in the 30 next months while the official inventory of their AF was still the same after.
India wanted to buy lots of brand new Mirage-2000-5 soon after since they were very happy on how these behaved over Kargil, but Dassault already had switched to Rafale production…
33 years later, India still has 51 of the 60 M-2000 they bought in 1986 and these will still be in service at least until 2030.
The only “official” combat between a (Turkish) F-16 and a (Greek) Mirage-2000 ended with the F-16 shot down, nevertheless, Pakistan obviously lost about 50-70 F-16 when they invaded Kargil and were bounced by India 😉
“The Rafale is largely assumed to be second only to the F-35 when it comes to signature reduction amongst the HX contenders”
Doesn’t really mean much since the plane’s RCS is not even within the same order of magnitude. Also the Block III Super Hornet has further (albeit minor) RCS reduction measures so I don’t think there’s any meaningful difference.
Rafale RCS signature is to be compared to a seagull, then France started to develop an active stealth system by 180° phasing of returned radar waves since 1960 in order to make nuclear missiles stealth. US started befor (1958) but since they couldn’t make it work on short notice and CIA spied Soviet theory of physical diffraction that led to their passive stealth, they gave up. It took a very long time since actually, you need serious computing power. First system was put on the LaFayette-class frigates, then, thanks to Moore law, size of computers reduced, so by early 00’s, Rafale has been equipped with it.
Plasma stealth is in the pipeline too, maybe for the F4 upgrade since some system is said to equip the a-coming French hypersonic nuclear cruise missile and next upgrade to the M53 SLBM.
Rafale has already been tested flying high altitude over S300 SAM batteries without being noticed at all. Rumours say it worked the same probing the S400 battery in Hmeimim, Syria.
Rumour also says that Northrop B-2 has similar active stealth system but it’s very cumbersome, that’s why you won’t find it in US fighter-jets.
Hello again, I have kept Rafale fighter a little like the black lamb on the Hx-project. I think someone” expert” said that Rafale is too old fighter. And it won’t last 2060 when the next fighter’s will probably come.
The Rafale is not any older than the Typhoon, JAS-39E/F or the Super Hornet, and is arguably the most modern and capable of the bunch. The F-35 is naturally on its own league.
F-35 is in it’s own league when it comes to stealth generally, and particullarly the important frontal sector in X-band. To get there it has certain drawbacks, some due to the focus on stealth and some due to politics. It remains to be seen how these factors will play out in the rather particular Finnish requirements.
The F-35 has several other advantages besides all-aspect stealth (which is a massive advantage), mainly:
-F-35 has overall the best sensor suite. The only competitor at the moment is Rafale 4
-F-35 has the most capable EW system. Even if the other aircraft have equivalent systems the F-35’s order of magnitude lower RCS will make the system far more effective (for example potentially reducing the burn through range by ~31.6 times)
As far as performance is concerned the F-35 doesn’t really have any drawbacks. It for example has pretty good kinematic performance and maneuverability. Sure it only has room for 4 AMRAAMs internally at this point but in future this is meant to be increased to 6.
These capabilities have been verified in numerous exercises such as: Red Flag, Green Flag, Northern Lightning and Atlantic Trident.
The Norwegians and the Dutch are also happy with the F-35s.
Dassault has been pretty quiet about himself when compared to how much Saab and Lockheed have been mentioned. And I feel like Boeing thinks they can only sell Super Hornet because there’s an F – 18 fighter now in use. Rafale is a beautiful machine, but it’s exciting, which fighter is the winner. I am not an expert, but I think it would be great that Finland would choose the European fighters.
The F-35 has not all aspect stealth : except from front, it’s passive stealth is even inferior to Rafale which’s tail is radar transparent. F-35 also hasn’t al-frequencies active stealth system : as soon radars are not X-band or upper S-band, F-35 is no more stealth.
Good luck if you have to face the Nebo-M VHF AESA radar : you’re toasted!
When it comes to 360° vision, Rafale had already such EO/IR sensor suite from the start. It’s already upgraded with F3R and unlike F-35 DDAS, don’t get blinded by sun’s light.
Dutchs don’t seem too happy with F-35, same for Aussies, Norwegians were threatened of degraded relations with USA by US ambassador wouldn’t they go for F-35. US blocked the delivery of AESA radar and F414 engine to Sweden as long Norway didn’t signed for F-35.
There was NOT a SINGLE competition won by F-35 over Rafale where comparative tests were held, it was always bought “on paper” with aledged performance that are suposed to become available in the future and by the time these are fielded, Rafale constant upgrade policy fields something better…
Rafale 4++ gen are the best. Modern fighter aircraft money can buy…India knows this and need these in order to stop China from raping them over there northern Border.
Gen4, Gen5 are a Lockheed-Martin advertising stunt.
Dassault is into small step evolution. Making Rafale stealth was decided in 1988 and kept as a state secret until Dec.2015. Actually, Rafale is less optimised for passive stealth as F-22 from its front only, but passive stealth and the use of external payload are compensated by an active stealth system that deletes returned radar waves.
Rafale also has the lowest IR signature of any fighter jet and F3R is the only with quantum-well IRST of 2nd generation. 1st gen could already lock a F-22 from 80-120km from the front and 400km+ with view on engines’ exhaust. Russian OLS-50M mounted on Su-57 is 1st gen and will be retrofitted on Flankers. Chinks are about to field a 1st gen ‘QWIP’ too, wrongly called ‘quantum-radar’ by some idiot translator.
F-35 has the biggest IR signature on market.
India even gave up the Su-57 since its stealth is inferior to Rafale.
Air-Marshall SB Deo confirmed on Dec.2016 that Rafale was stealthier than Chinese J-20
“decision to acquire exactly 64 aircraft will on the other hand favour more capable aircraft.”
Will heavily favour least expensive offers that can fit into acquisition and annual budget. Ministry of defense has basicly set the game firmly between Super Hornet and Gripen E, unless others can pull some cost miracles from their hat.
It is also very clear that 10 billion is too big figure for Social Democrats and Greens. it will be adjusted to 7-9 billion, making the acquisition red line even harder or downright impossible for several competitors.
Super-Hornet and Grippen-E end even over Rafale’s flyaway costs now.
US Navy was stunned when Rafale-M operated from their aircraft carriers : only 3 techs and 2 carts were necessary to maintain each aircraft!
Rafale-M were pushed to 10-11 missions per 24h for a full week from the DeGaulle CVN when operating over Libya. Intensive care for a Super-Hornet allows only 4 missions per 24h, Maybe you can hope 5 missons in intensive use with Gripen-E since both use the same engine but Gripen is easier to maintain than a SH. Rafale with techs only working on office hours already allows 5-6 missions per 24h.