The Strategypage is a comprehensive summary of military news and affairs.
 News As History - November 8, 2009




New Strategy - Wargames at Discount Prices
1.Modern Air Power: War Over the Middle East
2.Commander: Napoleon at War
3.Close Combat: Watch am Rhein
4.Gallic Wars
5.Fast Action Battle: The Bulge

100+ Computer and Board games all with free shipping.
 
 
 
Military History | How To Make War | Wars Around the World Rules of Use
How to Behave on an Internet Forum
Fighters, Bombers and Recon Discussion Board
Sign In   Return to Topic Page
Subject: Rafale AESA and Supercruise
Bluewings    3/30/2006 5:33:18 PM
Since few US posters don 't believe what FrenchStratege and myself are saying , it is time to clear ANY doubt on some important issues .

Rafale HAS an AESA radar and Rafale CAN supercruise .

#1: AESA :
"In April 2002, the DGA, the French defence procurement agency, appointed Thales to develop an active array radar demonstrator optimised for the Rafale omnirole fighter. Called DRAA (Démonstrateur Radar à Antenne Active, or Active Array Radar Demonstrator), the programme culminated in a series of demanding flight tests to validate its detection performance. Although the development schedule was
extremely tight, the DRAA met all programme milestones on time. This Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) demonstrator will pave the way to a production equipment for the Rafale.

With the adoption of an active antenna, RBE2 radar performance will be
even further increased : detection and tracking ranges will be significantly improved, angular coverage will be considerably expanded and reliability will be boosted to unprecedented levels.

Test-flying the DRAA

In December 2002, the first flight of the AESA system was carried out in a Mystere XX flying test bed belonging to the French MoD located in the Flight Test Centre at Cazaux (South-West of France). Subsequently, the DRAA demonstrator was fitted to two-seat production Rafale B301. ?For us, it was essential to prove to our customers that we could
easily fit a new array to the existing RBE2 hardware, stresses Jean-Marc Goujon, Rafale Radar Programme Manager. As such, one of the main goals of the DRAA programme was to demonstrate that the new array could easily be fitted to the B301?s current RBE2 electronic scanning radar without any modifications of the whole radar architecture. This modification was a total success, Thales and Dassault engineers being able to complete the task in less than three hours! This is a considerable achievement that proves impossible for our competitors who would have to completely redesign and rebuild their radar sets to
accommodate an AESA.? The first flight in Rafale B301
was recorded from Istres in May 2003. During the comprehensive flight test programme, the fully integrated Band X DRAA radar successfully transmitted, received and collected radar data, confirming all Thales prediction, a clear indication that the company totally masters AESA
technology "
****************************
#2: SUPERCRUISE :
(From 2 Pilots of the 12F Squadron onboard CdG)
«The Rafale is ideal for the job, stresses one of the two duty pilots.
It can climb to 40,000 feet in under two minutes and accelerate very rapidly to supersonic speed. More significantly, it can super-cruise in dry power, even with four missiles and a belly drop tank. Endurance is excellent too, and we can stay airborne up to two hours with one tank.» The pilots also praise the Rafale?s advanced man-machine
interface which considerably reduces their workload"
******************************************************
I hope is it clear for everybody .
As usual , I can upload the Pdf. file for your enjoyement .

Cheers .
 
Quote    Reply

Email Me When A New Comment Is Made
Show Only Poster Name and Title     Sort in Reverse Order Posted

Pages: PREV  1 2 3 4   NEXT
Bluewings    RE:Rafale AESA and Supercruise   3/30/2006 7:03:22 PM
Leroy , or you believe Journalists , or you believe the French Gvt. and the French DOD . Singapor : maybe I shouldn 't say this here , but NOT being under ANY French contracts or ANY French Authority , I tell you something : To reach Supercruise , Rafale has to use Post-Combustion . Same with Typhoon . And THAT has not been accepted by the Sings . They wanted to see an Aircraft able to reach Supercruise WITHOUT using PC . Please , stop trusting Wiki . Anyone who is a member can upload stuff for Wiki for cry out loud ! Cheers .
 
Quote    Reply

DarthAmerica    RE:Rafale AESA and Supercruise   3/30/2006 7:13:28 PM
>>>To reach Supercruise , Rafale has to use Post-Combustion . Same with Typhoon . And THAT has not been accepted by the Sings . They wanted to see an Aircraft able to reach Supercruise WITHOUT using PC .<<< ---LOL the F-18, F-16, F-15, F-14, EE, F-104, Mig-25, Mig-31, Mig-29, SU-27 and many others could all do that. This is not supercruise as it is understood today.
 
Quote    Reply

hybrid    RE:Rafale AESA and Supercruise   3/30/2006 7:15:42 PM
BW I'll help with some parts here: Performance specs from wiki Performance * Maximum speed: Mach 1.8+ (2,130 km/h, 1,320 mph) * Range: 1,800 km (1,120 mi)** * Service ceiling: 18,000 m (60,000 ft) * Climb rate: 333 m/sec (65,550 ft/min) * Wing loading: 326 kg/m² (66.6 lb/ft²) * Thrust/weight: 0.63:1 **Note Dassault says this is their radius of action for a penetration mission However here link Suggests the combat radius is smaller, approximately 925km but then later on goes on resuggest that the combat radius is greater than 1000nm. So I'd say it depends on combat loadout but lets assume 1000nm for right.
 
Quote    Reply

Bluewings    RE:Rafale AESA and Supercruise   3/30/2006 7:23:05 PM
Hybrid , some of your quotes are incorrect : *Max speed :mach2.2 (cannot go faster or RAM materials suffer) *Climb rate :350m/s (with M88-2 stage 4 , 360m+/s with M88-3) Cheers .
 
Quote    Reply

Bluewings    RE:Rafale AESA and Supercruise   3/30/2006 7:26:29 PM
DA , none of the Aircrats you mentionned can MAINTAIN supercruise in dry thrust . Cheers .
 
Quote    Reply

hybrid    RE:Rafale AESA and Supercruise   3/30/2006 7:27:13 PM
"Please , stop trusting Wiki . Anyone who is a member can upload stuff for Wiki for cry out loud !" Yep and its actually edited by quite a few people, doesn't necessarily mean the stuff in there is not verifiable, what caused controversy over wiki was that several of the more obscure sci theories were messily conveyed on wiki. Hence the bruhaha. As for supercruise, the problem there was that Dassault said it could use supercruise, but didn't say exactly HOW they were achieving it. Also I'd be correct in assuming the post combustion is essentially reheat which in turn is essentially afterburning, which in turn means it doesn't belong in the definition of supercruise technically. Technically being because if you reach mach 1.21 depending on the conditions you're transonic but areas around the plane will have an airflow that is supersonic.
 
Quote    Reply

hybrid    RE:Rafale AESA and Supercruise   3/30/2006 7:33:29 PM
Problem is BW that Dassault's own website doesn't suggest that Load factors +9g/-3.2g Max speed M 1.8+/750 kts Approach speed 120 kts Landing distance 450 m (1,475 ft) Max climb rate over 1,000 ft/sec Operational ceiling 55,000 ft Radius of action (penetration mission) more than 1.000 NM Combat air patrol loiter time over 3 hours Mach 2.2 is a BIG jump from Mach 1.8+ nearly 160 m/s faster in fact, I'm guessing thats max speed then possible in full afterburn with clean config?
 
Quote    Reply

DarthAmerica    RE:Rafale AESA and Supercruise   3/30/2006 7:35:59 PM
Neither can the Rafale. In fact it would run out of fuel so fast its not even practical. Read up on SFC.
 
Quote    Reply

Bluewings    RE:Rafale AESA and Supercruise   3/30/2006 7:43:19 PM
Max speed is not practical for ANY Aircraft , it burns too much fuel . Yes , max speed (Mach2.2) was with a clean Rafale . M2000-5 archive Mach2.32 @31.000ft with less thrust . Cheers .
 
Quote    Reply

leroy    RE:Rafale AESA and Supercruise   3/30/2006 9:45:09 PM
"To reach Supercruise , Rafale has to use Post-Combustion ." Do you mean afterburners? Because if so... that isn't supercruise.
 
Quote    Reply

leroy    RE:Rafale AESA and Supercruise   3/30/2006 9:49:11 PM
"Mach 2.2 is a BIG jump from Mach 1.8+ nearly 160 m/s faster in fact, I'm guessing thats max speed then possible in full afterburn with clean config? " And probably with engines that don't actually exist. Janes, and everything else lists the Rafale's max as ~1.8. An extra .4 Mach does not come easily and until BW actually manages to produce some proof for any of the stuff he is saying I am going to just assume it is BS like his claims about Spectra, AESA, supercruise, and the Rafale in general.
 
Quote    Reply

Bluewings    RE:Rafale AESA and Supercruise   3/30/2006 10:08:02 PM
I am telling the truth and uploaded official Pdf. files to back-up my claims . Which is not the case for some people on theses forums ... Cheers .
 
Quote    Reply

Nichevo    RE:Rafale AESA and Supercruise - Thrust/weight: 0.63:1   3/30/2006 10:32:48 PM
Says it all, doesn't it? About the same thrust as the F-16 with about 20% higher MTOW. Now why is this plane a superstar again? The canards?
 
Quote    Reply

karlos    RE:Rafale AESA and Supercruise - Thrust/weight: 0.63:1   3/31/2006 12:21:46 AM
Yes, it is. the canard and vectoring thrust makes all different. It is not fair to compare them by MTOW, classical parameter of manuvourablity. BTW I am enjoying to read this kind of thread, Rafale or Raptor. In order to make the argument messy, I would put some data, SFC of Raptor and Rafale. F119 (Raptor) 0.75 lbs/hr/lbst (dry) 0.86 (mil.power) 1.95 (reheating) M88-3 0.56 lbs/hr/lbst (dry) 0.69 (mil. power) 1.66 (reheating) F119 was designed to achieve ultimate supersonic performance but not promissing for conventional flight. M88-3 was designed to achieve the sort of ultimate efficiency as Europeon did like that all the time. Which one would be more useful for real battle field for now and future? Regards,
 
Quote    Reply

hybrid    RE:Rafale AESA and Supercruise - Thrust/weight: 0.63:1   3/31/2006 1:20:36 AM
"M88-3 was designed to achieve the sort of ultimate efficiency as Europeon did like that all the time." Cept the M88-3 isn't funded nor in development past the paper stage. The F-119 is in production. You're direct comparison in this case is incorrect. A closer comparison would be the M88-2. link link Of course in comparison, F119s are in a whole different ballgame altogether. Hell if you really want to make a comparison you'll note that the M88-2 is a significant enough development that in technicality it could be called a totally different engine from the original M88 (which by the way if you go back far enough you'll find the original Rafale flew with a General Electric F404), that being the case you'd want to compare the F135 engine.
 
Quote    Reply
Pages: PREV  1 2 3 4   NEXT



StrategyWorld.com© 1998 - 2009StrategyWorld.com. All rights Reserved. StrategyWorld.com, StrategyPage.com, FYEO, For Your Eyes Only and Al Nofi's CIC are all trademarks of StrategyWorld.com Privacy Policy