...while much less logically consistant is I suppose enough cardboard for you to fashion into a shield. Like eh, I dunno, the US air industry is dying (ROFL) and uh needs to suppress the Rafale or... uh, they're angry with France after 2003 and want to punish France by going after the Rafale and supportin the Euro Fighter... yeah...

Oh, was a long time since a Rafale thread was in the Hot Topics section :-P

Let's try to keep it worthwhile then. 

I personally don't care about "first this, second-best that" judgements, since they're useless in the real world. What matters  is "can the plane do its mission well". The rest is dick-waving and pissing contests.

Of course we can all agree that the F-22 is the best air superiority fighter, or A-10 is the best CAS plane. It's easier when it's specialized in one task (yes I know the Raptor can drop bombs, but it's still not its primary focus !).

For years some Typhoon supporters have been claiming it was the "second best" after the Raptor in A2A. Good for them. I would seem it's not as clear-cut according to what transpired of the UAE ATLC exercice. I am personally willing to trust what the AdA said, because lying right under the nose of the most likelt export buyer would be too stupid for words.

Again it's not about bashing the Typhoon (okay, not seriously !). What's important is that Rafale demonstrated it could achieve the missions it was given, whether in A2A or A2G.

That said, apparently the latest issue of Air & Cosmos gave additional detail about the ATLC results. I'm repeating what another poster wrote on Keypublishing (haven't had the opportunity to read the issue myself already).

The score against Typhoon was confirmed (no surprise). 

The F-22 trounced the Rafale in BVR, the juicy bit being it also says that the F22 clearly dominated the rafale in BVR. In fact The F22 didn't used its radar and when rafales had to turn it on to look for them they were able to track them silently.

Amusing if true,  I would like a more complete excerpt from that article if you get a chance Kardinal.

 

 

Well I was able to read it yesterday at the newsstand (those mags are expensive in overseas territories !). It was a 6-7 lines "hot news" piece. From memory :

The Raptors were able to locate the Rafale's emissions (it didn't specifically mention "radar emissions"...) and lob Amraams from a safe distance without having to turn on their own radar. No mention whether they had external support (AWACS data for eg.). 

They also went for a gun kill a couple times and the Rafales didn't see them coming.

I'm assuming that the latter was a different setting than the previously announced results which were arguably "for fun" WVR dogfight. 

If the A&C piece is right then it shows that Raptors have a silent interception capability even without an IRST. And that they're clearly the kings of the skies if anybody still doubted it, especially since they have the additional weight of the USAF's force multipliers behind them. One can theorize (fantasize ?) all day about 1 vs 1 jousts but what counts is operational scenarii.

Well I was able to read it yesterday at the newsstand (those mags are expensive in overseas territories !). It was a 6-7 lines "hot news" piece. From memory :

The Raptors were able to locate the Rafale's emissions (it didn't specifically mention "radar emissions"...) and lob Amraams from a safe distance without having to turn on their own radar. No mention whether they had external support (AWACS data for eg.). 

They also went for a gun kill a couple times and the Rafales didn't see them coming.

I'm assuming that the latter was a different setting than the previously announced results which were arguably "for fun" WVR dogfight. 

If the A&C piece is right then it shows that Raptors have a silent interception capability even without an IRST. And that they're clearly the kings of the skies if anybody still doubted it, especially since they have the additional weight of the USAF's force multipliers behind them. One can theorize (fantasize ?) all day about 1 vs 1 jousts but what counts is operational scenarii.

Updated : got the full text, in French :

Si les aviateurs français se sont largement étalés sur les "tôle" mises par leurs Rafale au Typhoon britaniques lors du dernier exercice ATLC aux Emirats arabes unis, peu de choses ont été dites sur la confrontation entre le delta Dassault et les F-22A américains présents sur place. Lors des engagements hors de portée visuelle, les Raptor américains n'ont pas même daigné allumer leurs radars, restant invisibles au RBE2 et au Spectra tout en localisant avec précision les émissions électromagnétiques du chasseur français, sécurisant ainsi leur tirs d'AMRAAM à distance de sécurité. A deux reprises au moins, les F22A se sont aussi "enroulés" avec les Rafale en combat rapproché, assurant à chaque fois un "gun kill" sans grande difficulté. 

Thanks, can we get a line-by-line translation?

 

 

 

I'll do my best : 

F22 vs Rafale

Untouchable Raptor

While french aviators widely communicated about the "spanking" their Rafales gave the British Typhoons during the latest ATLC exercise in the UAE, few things were said about the confrontation between the Dassault delta and the American F22As present. During BVR engagements the American Raptors didn't even bother to turn on their radars, thus staying invisible to the RBE2 and Spectra while still precisely locating the French fighter's electromagnetic emissions, therefore managing to fire Amraams from stand-off distance. At least twice the F22As also came into close-range fight and every time ensured a "gun kill" without much difficulty.

 

Again, usual caveats about DACT results,

Ian

This is very interesting if true...The F-22 seems to deliver what they were made to deliver, never understood why their shutting down the production. How did the Rafale do against the Typhoon??

 

I would love to read the french article even i my french is worse then my english....what magazine did you buy`?