Started with hope that BW will limit his comments here instead of in every other Fighter thread. I'll start off with:

1 - no export sales
2 - no laser designator
3 - no AESA
4 - overpriced 4th gen fighter

-higher wing loading than the Typhoon. (326 kg/m^ vs 311 kg/m^2) under burden

-inferior engines to the Typhoon. (75,200 kilonewtons versus 92,000 kilonewtons)

-inferior radar to the Typhoon. (estimated effective detection threshhold range 100 kilometers interval detect for an RBE2 against an FA-18 sized object in still air clear day at 5000 meters versus CAPTOR 150-200 kilometers same object in a head-on pass same altitude.

-inferior acceleration to the Typhoon. (305 m/s vs. 320 m/s)

-better bomb truck as it has more potential A2G standoff ordnance to integrate-alas: if only it had the electronics to EXPLOIT it!.

-cursed with the MICA missile. Other aircraft carry Sidewinders, AMRAAMs, Pythons, Derbys, ASRAAM, IRIS-T, Archers, Alamos, even Adders. Even the RoCs and the Japanese fly with their own native stuff that is better.

 

I could go on but why bother.

 

Herald   

 

It's not fair to bait Blue Wings, like this....really.

 

It's like starting a thread entitled, "The Brilliance of William Halsey" or "Why General Kulik is the REAL Hero of the Great Patriotic War."  It's just Herald Bait...you shouldn't do the same thing to BW.

5 - no HMS, putting it at a disadvantage against every other modern fighter in WVR

6 - no IR optics in current production models.  Obviously this can be overcome with a pod, but it's worth pointing out since the OSF is so often touted as a magical solution to all problems

7 - defensive jammer system based on three small electronically-steered antennas, which means serious angular limitations on its DJM emitters (since it is well known that beam-steering transmitters suffer from significant reduction in power as the angle of the signal becomes less perpendicular to the array)

8 - production rate of less than one aircraft per month leading to serious quality and support supplier issues

9 - terrible reliability (one of the four Rafales at Red Flag had to be grounded and cannibalized for parts to support the other 3)

10 - tiny radar aperture (550mm) insufficient for an air superiority fighter and limits radar performance regardless of future AESA.

11. No towed decoy (unlike the F-15, F-16, F-18, EF, etc etc)

12. No stand-off jammer capability

13. Limited to only a handful of air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons

14. No reconnaissance pod

15. No anti-radiation missile

What're you talking about?  Halsey was brilliant!  (Just not off Samar in October 1944.)

*ducks*

 

Its a joke, but you know as well as I do, we have the evidence that this useless braggart who had a penchant for chasing obvious decoys, sending better men and more able commanders than him to their deaths to retrieve his tactical mistakes, and this press happy racist bigot, was the WORST of our Pacific commanders.   

 

End of the Halsey topic. 

 

We had so many threads about the Rafale that it 's really annoying to repeat everything again and I will not .

So briefly :

""1 - no export sales
2 - no laser designator
3 - no AESA

"

MICA has a mass of 112kg.  Subtract warhead, electronics and structure and I would guess it carries half of the propellant of an AMRAAM with more than half of the weight and drag to go against.  There is no way with the laws of physics and chem that it can be a decent BVR weapon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But then of course I can, BW.

Enjoy this parable. You know what part you play here?

 

On topic: The Rafale is everything I said it was. Poseur 2's assertions to the contrary, I KNOW the current physical and ELECTRONIC limits of the French technology tree. He doesn't. You can only get so much out of RBE2 if it was designed to work right. It wasn't. We've already discussed the sidelobe propagation foul-up in the original PESA design, the THALES  who failed to do the actaul physics calculations right, were never able to fix. Given that the SAME cast of engineers are involved with the AESA upgrade? I don't respect those Cartesian logic trained THALES clowns, nor their shop. Not enough experiment and bench-test based engineering-too much "theory" of what should work foisted as an ideal direct paper to hardware solution.

 

You see the same exact mistakes made with MICA, ASTER, the Laugh-it-ups, The Chuckles de Gaulle, etc. You cannot develop bleeding edge technology by skipping steps or trying to do it on the cheap. You have to proof the concepts step by step. Something you overlooked in your development process will always bite you when you skip steps or assume you can paper solve a problem. THALES and DASSAULT and a few other outfits, just don't get it. You don't see ARIANESPACE use that crap approach. Why do these other companies do so? 

 

I remind Poseur 2 that the French Assembly in a report they published complained bitterly last year, that their defense industries promised France a worldbeater aircrafter in 1988, but couldn't even deliver a decent working bombing aircraft to the 1988 specs claimed when a pair was sent to Afghanistan last year.   

.  

Its not exclusive to France, (Northrop Grumman with the WEDGETAIL and LockMart with the SPARKY are in the middle of couple of  BOLOS now, and I said so here.) so I am not France bashing. What I am tired of though is seeing Frenchmen being sold a bill of goods by !%er THIEVES and POSEURS.

 

That includes you, Bluewings.

 

At least some Americans have enough honesty to say what's wrong with our own, admit it, and try to FIX it.

 

Herald

 

 

We had so many threads about the Rafale that it 's really annoying to repeat everything again and I will not .

Too busy to read everything at the moment, but this caught my eye:

 

I love how his answer to every different major shortcoming is to say "oh we could do that right away if we wanted to!"