Herald

You and I will have to debate this in another thread.  *raises battle flags*

Assuming that the Rafale doesn't have adequate ECM protection, I wonder if the French will be looking at Growlers anytime soon for the AN Rafales.

They'd correct their biggest mistake, build some more high quality subs, and SCUTTLE the Charles de Gaulle. Slapping a new EW plane on a nuclear powered target tow sled isn't going to help much.

 

Herald

BW - first a bit of non-thread related news - you seem to bust into EVERY other fighter thread - from Spad to Raptor - with some argument about Rafale.  Once you bust in - the thread quickly degenerates into an insult contest.  The reason why I started this thread is to try an restrict you to the subject at hand - not Raptor, not Hornet, not F-15, not Flanker, not Falcon but Rafale and its more than obvious shortcomings.  Thus, the other threads can progress on their topics unhindered by the flag waving.

 

Second, your evaluation of the situation regarding Rafale appears to be so far off base as to bring your mental reasoning into question.  We all have read the poorly constructed arguments that you have lost again and again over radar, detection, weapon systems and tactics.  This time I note that your fascination with a failed jet figther has clouded your judgement.

 

For example, the claim that you are "working on it", saying you can mount AESA and Laser designator systems in a matter of "hours" is pure fiction.  The claim is so far from reality as to make me wonder what parts of engineering and physics do you not understand?  Just mounting these systems will take weeks of work and months of testing much less trying to train operational pilots in their use.  You clearly have no understanding of the complexity that such radical avionics packages place upon integration into the aircraft, pilot and crews.

 

Of course, if you had a plane that was being produced at a rate of more than 1/2 an airframe a month it *might* make a difference and shave off a few days but you don't.  The US will produce more F-35 production models in the first half of 2009 than Dassault will make of its 4th gen Rafale all year.

 

Don't get upset at me about Paris and your defense budget - we have zero to do with it short of helping your Navy keep carrier qualified pilots (e.g. landing the Rafale on an operational US carrier while the CdG is laid up).  If anything you should be grateful we dedicated our funding to help out.  It would appear here that your grace in regards to us helping the French Navy pilots stay sharp in carrier landings is ... much like Rafale... a little short.

 

I love your 4.5 gen comments - its almost as if you believe it.  If anyone else believed it - then you would have an export order.  Marketing factors aside - the fact remains - Rafale is a 4th gen fighter with limited capability and a limited production run.  It is a footnote in aviation history living in the shadow of the Mirage.

...one way to view the Rafale, from this not expert view, is to think of it as the P-40, Warhawk.  The P-40 is a good plane or a dog...depending on where, when and against whom it was flying.  Certainly it was no P-51 or P-47, but it wasn't a bad plane, at all.  And it made significant contributions to winning the Second World War.  It just wasn't GREAT...It was adequate for it's time and place, though it was a very pretty plane.

 

It seems that the Rafale fills that role, here...it is adequate.  It is pretty...it may not be a F-22 or a Typhoon, but in it's place and time, it will get the job done.

 

For Heaven's Sake BW, give it up, it seems obvious that Rafale is NOT anything but an adequate plane...Hey the P-40 did its part in ending the threat of Fascism and Japanese Militarism...it just wasn't an outstanding a/c, as compared to others in the same era and role.

 

And please, stop talking about how Capability "X" could be added in a matter of hours...even I don't buy that...so you could add an ASEA radar in a matter of hours...so you have dozens of them just sitting around, uninstalled...but you could retrofit and upgrade your entire force in just a matter of hours?  I had a foreman once who liked to say, "Tell lies small enough that you'll believe'em."  Really no one is likely to believe that France has dozens of radars, designating pods, or ECM sets just sitting around, lacking on the impetus to mount them.  It just cannot be....

The Curtiss P-40 was used by the air forces of 28 nations during World War II. By November 1944, when production of the P-40 ceased, 13,738 had been built.

The Rafale is currently in service in one nation and having a very very hard time finding #2.  Its current production rate has been slowed to about 1/2 an airplane a month and total production run is supposed to be about 280.

Well good points, but it is less about numbers and more about capability...the P-40 was a GOOD plane, just as Rafale is a GOOD plane, neither was or is a great plane....but they'll do their job, as long as "the job" doesn't involve extended combat with GREAT planes, in roles the Rafale is not suited for.

 

I'm just trying to get, I know hopeless, BW and others to place the Rafale in a context where it needn't be "all that" or a piece of Sh*te...and the P-40 seemed one of those contexts.  It was a very important a/c in a number of theatres, just not dominant like other a/c were.

has a better track record in its role than the Rafale has in its. The Mig-21 was a badly flawed plane-is a badly flawed plane, but it can claim something the Rafale cannot..........victory.

MiG 21: part1.

 

MiG 21: part 2. 

 

A thread about the Rafale that has turned AWAY from the Rafale...

No flame war intended, would you call the MiG-21 flawed or limited?  I certainly would call it an influential plane.  Yeah, it had instability problems and a bad gun sight, IIRC, but it was a very good daylight interceptor/fighter, at higher altitudes...I mean it did its job, and well.  It was limited in what it could do, but as long as you didn't try to make it do what it wasn't designed for, A2G, or low-altitude work it was a good performer.  Was it likely the Soviets would have been able to improve it, at a reasonable cost?  Would the improvements have been cost-beneficial?

Herald

 

 

 

I think the F-105 was a SUPERALATIVE A/c, but then I love the P-47...power over elegance, in my house....

Are you saying you think the Rafale is the Thud, at low altitude and as a bomb-carrier?

 

The F-105 might have been something of a mistake, the goal to make TAC a mini-SAC...and so develop a nuclear-capable fighter-bomber.  But in practice it just seems such an amazing a/c.  Not a bad fighter, a few A2A victories, a lot of bombs, and a good Wild Weasel a/c...certainly not the F-4, but not bad.

 

And I certainly see that most folks here reject BlueWings, not the Rafale...It would seem the Rafale is decent a/c...I just cannot see the MICA as what BW says it is, just from a theory PoV.  A system that is both a "Dessert AND a Floor Wax"?  I don't think so, people have AIM-9 and AIM-120 for a reason, generally what works in one field isn't a shoe-in in another field.

Lo-Hi-Lo dash against a fixed target, with a lob toss at the end.

 

Herald

 

 

"And please, stop talking about how Capability "X" could be added in a matter of hours...even I don't buy that...so you could add an ASEA radar in a matter of hours...so you have dozens of them just sitting around, uninstalled...but you could retrofit and upgrade your entire force in just a matter of hours?  I had a foreman once who liked to say, "Tell lies small enough that you'll believe'em."  Really no one is likely to believe that France has dozens of radars, designating pods, or ECM sets just sitting around, lacking on the impetus to mount them.  It just cannot be...."

 

Of course it isn't true, just like most of the stupid stuff the fanboy posts isn't.

 

Not only does France not have stockpiles of AESAs, targeting pods, standoff jammers, etc just sitting around, they don't even have any serious plans to procure these items.

 

Take for example their AESA, certainly one of the highest priority upgrades.  It is not currently available, and even when it does finally arrive it will only be on new build Rafales.  France has no plans to upgrade its existing Rafale fleet.  That means the AESA will only be produced in the same tiny numbers as the Rafale itself(around a dozen a year), guaranteeing high prices per unit and other issues. 

 

The Rafale is simply a program France can't afford to finish.  They don't have the money to do it themselves, and they can't find anyone to buy it until they finish it.  It is a catch-22.  Instead they are building aircraft in tiny numbers to various different specifications, driving up costs.  Some have link-16, some don't.  Some have an IRST, others don't.  Soon a few will have AESAs, while the rest of the fleet will not.   This is one reason why France mothballed some of its earlier Rafales rather than try to upgrade them to the current standard. 

 

 

...one way to view the Rafale, from this not expert view, is to think of it as the P-40, Warhawk.<JFKY

 

Well that clearly is not fair to the Curtis P40. The P40 was sold to many international buyers before WWII even started. Nobody wants the Rafale because it will deliver what the F16 delivers at twice the price with half the options. The P40 was competitive with every theater it flew. Allied air forces employing the Warhawk/Kittyhawk had an even to superior kill ratio against all comers from Dec. 7 to the end of the war. In fact rookie US pilots fighting Luftwaffe veterans ran up a 10-1 kill ratio against the bad guys even though none of them had ever been in combat (Google: Checkertail Gang/P40). Neither the Zero or the BF-109 were better than the P40 in any critical examination of its performance characteristics. The P40 was faster than both in level flight and could run away and hide from either in even a shallow dive. The P40 had superior maneuverability compared to the -109 (Nothing on the planet could turn with a A6M not even the vaunted Spitfire). It had better armament than either. The Rafale is comparable in it's flight envelope to any number of fighters from 20 years ago, nothing like that could be said of the P40 which was state of the art when it was introduced and stayed competitive to the end of the war.

 

If you ever critically examine a Curtis Warhawk you will find incredible functionality, workmanship, and quality right down to the smallest component. The same is true of its contemporaries the A6M and the Messerschmidt -109/-110. I have seen close-ups of the Rafale that would make a high school shop teacher cringe at. Their workmanship is simply sloppy (we have many pictures here on Strategy Page to support that view and I'm happy to reproduce them here for any who'd like to argue the point).

 

The Warhawk in its day has it all over the Rafale anytime.

 

Check Six

 

Rocky