Posted on 06/11/2011 7:28:02 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
France's Rafale fighter proves its 'omnirole' skills
By Craig Hoyle
France's Rafale fighter programme is midway through what could be a pivotal year in the Dassault type's potentially half-century service history. Already involved in NATO-led combat operations over Libya, the aircraft will return to frontline duty in Afghanistan inside the next two months. Its industrial backers are, meanwhile, edging seemingly closer to a long-awaited first export sale.
One of three fighters now in production in western Europe, along with the Eurofighter Typhoon and Saab Gripen, the Rafale has been in French military service since 2004, when it entered use with the nation's naval aviation wing.
Air force operations began two years later, and by late May the users had recorded more than 64,000 flight hours with a combined total of 94 aircraft. In September, Dassault and its programme partners, which include Sagem, Snecma and Thales, will celebrate the delivery of their 100th aircraft, including four development examples.
While the French navy's initial batch of 10 carrier-optimised Rafale Ms entered use with its 12F unit in an air-to-air-only standard dubbed F1, the fighter's capabilities have evolved greatly through two subsequent production standards. Each added new air-to-surface weapons and further capabilities, and as evidenced by the missions being flown in support of France's Harmattan commitment to NATO's Operation Unified Protector over Libya, the aircraft is now a truly potent asset.
© DGA
French air force Rafales have been involved in the coalition campaign to protect Libyan civilians from attack since "day one, hour one"
Dassault describes its Rafale as being an "omnirole" fighter, a tag that it says denotes the type's
(Excerpt) Read more at flightglobal.com ...
When did they start putting two engines in the F-16?
Multirole such as the Rafael and F35 is stupid.
Buy the best air dominance planes you can. Buy the best anti-radiation and anti-AA weaponry you can.
Then buy lots of cheap flying busses and hogs to drop bombs and provide ground support once those do their jobs.
Duh.
They never learn. Trying to create an airplane that does everything invariably results in one that does nothing well.
So i take it you would be happy with F-22s and A-10s.?
The French (or most other countries) can’t afford to develop an air dominance fighter like the F-22 in meaningful numbers. So they need solutions like the Rafale.
The Rafale by itself is a sound design with a lot of advanced systems. Where it has lost out so far is its high cost (due to be an all-French system) and slow pace of development.
I wonder if F-15 pilots would agree.
Yup. Many F22s, and lots and lots of A10s and (updated) B52s.
Strip the multirole parts out of the Rafael, use the savings to add some air dominance tech and buy busses and hogs, and the combo would easily handle anything France needs to handle. It’s not an F22, but it’s a d@mn good platform IMHO.
Buying a lot of overpriced multirole Rafaels won’t be nearly as cost effective.
BTW, this isn’t a ding on France. We’re making the same stupid mistake...
Good Post! In Iraq (First Time) our sophisticated aircraft and cruise missiles took out the air defenses. Then the B52s bombed them into submission. High tech coupled with a bomb trucks that carries a precising munitions will ruin your whole day. Circular area of probability of 3 meters. 500 or 1000 lbs of high explosives within 3 meters will hurt.
And how would we know that busses/hogs can handle everything France needs-say over a 30 year period? The Rafale isn’t perfect, but a Hog is a flying duck in a high threat environment. The Rafale can be considered a progression from the F-16; a high performance multirole aircraft.
Once you own the air, you can fly whatever relatively cheap planes you want. And more of them, so a few losses to accidents and ground fire, man portable missiles, etc. won’t hurt you as bad.
If you don’t own the air, your multirole capabilities are useless or at least high risk. Expensive, too, because when you lose a plane on a ground attack mission, you lose an expensive air superiority asset (and pilot) too.
Multirole is misguided, with some exceptions if you have the budget to buy lots of planes of many types.
That’s all I’m saying.
I am afraid its not as simple as you put it to be. Let’s take the F-22; it comes to about 150 million USD a piece. Now since it’s not available for the French, they would need to develop a similar air dominance fighter. With their higher industrial and labour costs and drip-funding style, the overall and unit costs of such a fighter would zoom up.
For the sake of argument, put the cost of such a French F-22 at 180 million; the Rafale comes to about 100 million a piece. Once a country like France buys a pure air dominance fighter in reasonable numbers, it will have money for little else.
You keep talking about cheap planes-what constitutes cheap? Can a A-10 or Super Tucano take out long range air defense assets or carry out offensive electronic warfare? Can it carry out stand-off strikes? Heavy anti-ship warfare? You could theoritically modify an A-10 for such roles, but then it would end up costing as much as any ‘multi-role’ fighter.
There’s a reason why pretty much every country like France, Sweden, China, Japan and Russia have developed single aircraft types for different roles. The Rafale as I said is a sound platform. It can carry out a variety of strike missions while being agile enough for the air superiority role. The F-35 is a wholly different affair with the STOVL requirement, but you can’t stretch the same argument to other systems.
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