What are you not sure about?

1) Russian Areospace has accomplished more in the early 6o's to early 70's than France has in 50 years.

2) Russia has been building modern long range stratgic bombers for over 40 years and France hasn't even built one.

3) Russia has put out world class fighter jets of all types every decade since 1950. France has not put out 10% of that.

4) Russia builds its own AWACS, France buys American.

5) Russia builds world class Air defense systems that even outclass most US systems, like the S-300 family, which includes the best M/L Range SAM in the world the S-400. France does not come close.

6) Russias knowledge of Nuclear Submarines in a better part of four decades has only been second to the US.

7) Russia has been buliding true attack helicaptors for over four decades, France does not even come close, then or now.

8) Russia bulds heavy stratigic long range cargo planes France does not.

9) France does build better armored carriers, and has more of an edge on avionics and Electonic equipment.

Now I know that technology is not everything, training, morale and tactics are also important, but the subject here was technology, and by far Russia is ahead of France in some very important areas.

"FS was already outed as a pretender.  He's an internet fanboy who may or may not have friends/acquaintances in the industry.  He originally claimed to be some kind of consultant but his stunning lack of grasp of basic facts revealed him.  I think FS and BW should be banned the next time they mention Rafale in a non-Rafale thread.  We have to create Rafale threads in order to draw their fire away from every other air thread."

 

I very much doubt he has any contact with anyone in the industry.  Professionals don't have time for his kind of behavior.  All of the French professionals I have worked with were quite competent and would not be likely to put up with a liar who claims to be someone and something he isn't.

 

Professionals in general don't sit around bickering about who's platform is better, and they certainly wouldn't do it by making up one ridiculous capability after another.  At that point it is little more than a creative writing contest. 

The Rafale has been a disappointing program overall, the French I know are more bitter about how it has turned out than any foreigner could ever be.  They recognize that the plane has not only failed to deliver on its promise, but it has jeapardized a good chunk of the French aviation industry by sucking up much needed funding that would have been better spent elsewhere.  Even if the Rafale picked up a few export orders at this point it would be too little, too late.  The program is already well into a death spiral that it is unlikely to recover from. 

 

The aircraft was supposed to be reasonably priced and well suited to the export market, but that led the design team to aim too low technologically.  Then, despite that, the program started running behind schedule and over budget.  By the time it arrived it lacked standard features like a helmet mounted sight, towed decoy, AESA, and modern EW system.  It was already suffering from obsolesence even as it entered service.  From day one it needed a new radar, new engines, an upgraded EW system, a new IRST and it didn't even have a datalink.  

The major design limiter was a plane built with a SNECMA engine to fit the Chuckles de Gaulle. and also be a fighter attack.aircraft.  Sometimes physical size and brute force matters. 

In an effort to find funding, France reduced production to provide new R&D money, and even mothballed the first production Rafales which were quite simply unreliable duds who were embarrassed even in friendly exercises against other 4th generation jets.(The exercise against the US F-18s is just one example.)  The reduced production rate led to higher unit costs, and buyers were rightfully skeptical of promised features that had not yet been demonstrated and the cycle continued.

This is sadly what has happened to the F-22. Some bad production decisions and one major tech disaster probably killed that bird too. At least the Raptor didn't fail in its design function.

 

When you look at the Rafale today what do we see? 

A Jaguar that costs too much.

The initial engines have received a reliability update, but are still not up to par with other Western engines and potential buyers are demanding a major upgrade.  The current production standard aircraft lack an IRST because the previous one relied on now obsolete components.  The EW system is already showing its age and is no longer capable of providing effective protection against high end radars and SAM threats, once again due largely to component obsolescence, and France is scrambling to get a first generation AESA antenna for their existing PESA radar into production that won't even bring them to technological parity with the US.  (and with its smaller physical size, performance will not come close)  France has no plans to retrofit these first generation AESA antennas into its existing Rafales, meaning the new radars will only be produced one at a time in a lab, like prototypes, less than a dozen per year will be produced, just like the Rafale.  This virtually guarantees they will be expensive technological oddities, a long-term maintenance nightmare.

 

So getting back to what I was originally talking about, French professionals don't like talking about the Rafale.  They know the failure of the program has put their aviation industrial base at risk and they know every other professional knows it too.  They would much much rather discuss their various successful programs, things they do well and are proud of.  Every country produces a few real failures despite their best efforts, the US has its share. (XB-70, A-12, RAH-66, etc we could spend all day)  The Rafale happens to be France's, and it has really bruised the pride of everyone involved.

 

If they had it all to do over again, what would they do? 

I honestly don't know. Even the most pragmatic of the engineers wanted a "FRENCH" solution if they could pull it off as a first choice. One thing is certain, many of them would drop or postpone the carrier capable requirement as a feature just to save the weight and remove the physical size restrictions on the plane. There is no doubt in my mind that Dassault could have built something about the size of  Sukhoi with far superior performance. They'd have to shop around for British engines and German/Italian  avionics and keep the THALES thieves away from the program at all costs, but Dassault CAN design some good aircraft.  

Most I know would have stayed with the EF program and worked to make sure it would also meet France's needs.  A navalized EF with some French avionics and perhaps even French engines would cost a small fraction of what they dumped into the Rafale.  With the extra money they could have funded UAV programs, developed some stealth technology,  or developed two families of missiles rather than just Mica, or who knows what, maybe something we haven't even thought of. 

2. The French could have joined the Italians in a partnership to develope a followon to ASPIDE. That missile in its SARH form was what SPARROW, from which it started, should have been. ALENIA virtually rebuilt it from front to back, making it a far better A2A missile. The active RH version development of it was killed by an Italian socialist government that bought into AMRAAM and then later ASTER. The French went it alone with MICA with the results we now see. Whuch brings us to (3.)

4.  ELBIT EL/M2032  Radar that works in everything from a Mig 21-to an F-15.

 

     ELBIT EL/M2052  Ditto. Built to fit the customer and aircraft.

 

     Then there is ARROW and  BARAK,   PHALCON etc..

 

 Which brings up the question..........  Why can Rafael and Elbit do now with missiles and radars (they work in COMBAT) what Dassault, Thales, and MBDA cannot? 

 

 Herald

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

""The Rafale has been a disappointing program overall""

 

Rufus , this is your opinion and nothing more and it is your right to think so . Unfortunatly for you , you 're not French , you do not know what the French Gov and French DGA 's position on Rafale is and you 're not a French Pilot . The Rafale program had a very hard political start but the technology involved has been running rather smoothly .

For a start , I direct the posters to the story of Rafale :

 

h*tp://www.strategypage.com/militaryforums/6-32204.aspx

Rufus doesn 't know a 10th of what I know about the Rafale , let this be very clear .

 

 

 

Herald , are you really trying to compare the rather "common (?)" AN/ALQ-165 with SPECTRA ??!

You must be joking , lol !

Since you gave us a crap link about the ALQ-165 , I give you a better one :

ALQ-211(V)4

 

Herald , read and repeat after me : the AN/ALQ-165 include two receivers, two transmitters, and one processor .

And that 's it .

The system can barely do interferometry and is omnidirectional . It can 't do directional jamming and even less precise directional jamming . Then , its modes are NOT compatible with active AESA antennas .

Try something else Herald ...

 

Cheers .