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French Rafale Scores a Simulated ‘Kill’ Against an F-35 Fighter in a Dogfight
National Security Journal ^ | 8/27/2025 | Reuben F. Johnson

Posted on 08/27/2025 7:25:37 AM PDT by whyilovetexas111

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I love the F-35 but any fighter can be beat! Period.
1 posted on 08/27/2025 7:25:37 AM PDT by whyilovetexas111
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To: whyilovetexas111

I scored a simulated kill of a Rafale this morning when I took my wet constitutional.


2 posted on 08/27/2025 7:27:04 AM PDT by brent13a
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To: whyilovetexas111

Wasn’t the F35 not really designed for a dogfight, supposed to engage beyond visual range?

Not an aircraft guy, so just curious.


3 posted on 08/27/2025 7:27:51 AM PDT by HombreSecreto (The life of a repo man is always intense)
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To: whyilovetexas111
Read the article:

features of Rafale make it more than a match for these US aircraft within the visual range part of the engagement envelope

The Rafale would be dead before it even got within visual range.

4 posted on 08/27/2025 7:29:09 AM PDT by Magnum44 (...against all enemies, foreign and domestic... )
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To: whyilovetexas111

“...within the visual range part of the engagement envelope.”............................


5 posted on 08/27/2025 7:30:24 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: whyilovetexas111; Jim Robinson

Your blog is trash.
You are pimping trash.


6 posted on 08/27/2025 7:30:25 AM PDT by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
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To: whyilovetexas111

USAF often allows this stuff to happen when they need funding for a new aircraft. That’s how we got the F35. They were faking like some other aircraft took out the F22.


7 posted on 08/27/2025 7:34:24 AM PDT by for-q-clinton (ui)
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To: whyilovetexas111

No enemy fighter should get close enough to an F35 to ‘see’ it visually or with radar. The F35 shoots missiles beyond visual range and vacates the area. This article says as much.


8 posted on 08/27/2025 7:34:36 AM PDT by Pres Raygun (Repent America!)
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To: Pres Raygun

What the article should say is: “in this singular, very controlled, randomly picked, instance, the Rafale was able to score a kill against the F35.


9 posted on 08/27/2025 7:37:29 AM PDT by brent13a
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To: HombreSecreto
within the visual range part of the engagement envelope

And a Zero could take out a Hellcat in low-speed, horizontal dogfight. So what?

10 posted on 08/27/2025 7:38:09 AM PDT by Jeff Chandler (The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.)
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To: HombreSecreto

The question is not how well the F-35 is against and old French Jet, but how well is stands up to a Mig 41 in combat.


11 posted on 08/27/2025 7:40:29 AM PDT by Forward the Light Brigade (. War is Hell, War IS a Crime.)
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To: HombreSecreto

“Wasn’t the F35 not really designed for a dogfight, supposed to engage beyond visual range?”

That’s what I thought too. Of course this may be a push for billions in new aircraft.


12 posted on 08/27/2025 7:45:23 AM PDT by dljordan (The Rewards of Tolerance are Treachery and Betrayal)
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To: whyilovetexas111
how it was one of the first aircraft to have an electronically-scanning array radar, and so on

When you're reduced to talking about how it was the "first" to have something, it means you're relying on past glory days when the technology gap has closed even for that radar.

13 posted on 08/27/2025 7:50:23 AM PDT by aynrandfreak (Being a Democrat means never having to say you're sorry)
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To: All

For a long time now, airplanes have been a great deal less important than the missiles they fire.

Others in the thread have jumped on the Beyond Visual Range stuff. They are right. F-35 is not a great airplane. It’s a stealth weapons platform. If you could have a C-130 with missile pylons and the same radar cross-section (you can’t, but if you could) you would not need to spend on the F-35. The C-130 could sit out at 20 miles and shoot missiles.

In this instance, I suspect they got in close and used missiles with infrared seekers in their simulation. Perfectly legit simulation.

As has always been true with our stealth aircraft, they don’t shoot backwards. So an F-35 has to bore in at some swarm of enemy vehicles, manned or otherwise, to close range, maintain radar lock for the missile’s seeker, and start shooting. At some point one of those enemy vehicles will get into heat-seeker range and get a kill.


14 posted on 08/27/2025 7:51:53 AM PDT by Owen
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To: whyilovetexas111

Dassault had to hide the “Se Rendre” button in the cockpit for the simulation.


15 posted on 08/27/2025 7:53:59 AM PDT by mikey_hates_everything
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To: whyilovetexas111

The F-35 had everything enabled to let it be seen via radar. There’s specific flaps that can be added/opened, etc.

This was a “F-35 at its WORST” vs “Rafale at its best” test.


16 posted on 08/27/2025 8:34:06 AM PDT by ro_dreaming (Who knew "Idiocracy", "1984", "Enemy of the State", and "Person of Interest" would be non-fiction?)
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To: Owen

As has always been true with our stealth aircraft, they don’t shoot backwards

Apparently, the F-22 can.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/TgAKJ5wzefk


17 posted on 08/27/2025 9:09:29 AM PDT by ro_dreaming (Who knew "Idiocracy", "1984", "Enemy of the State", and "Person of Interest" would be non-fiction?)
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To: whyilovetexas111

Cripple Fat Amy until the Frenchie can get a hit on her...

Ok... Now let’s go full force-on-force and see if the Rafale can even SEE the F-35 before a missile takes it apart.


18 posted on 08/27/2025 9:11:23 AM PDT by Dead Corpse (A Psalm in napalm...)
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To: whyilovetexas111

I guess they got the hands-free upgrade, since you couldn’t fly one with your hands up in the surrender position...


19 posted on 08/27/2025 9:16:59 AM PDT by Quality_Not_Quantity ("...for the sake of His name." Psalm 23:3)
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To: whyilovetexas111

I guess they got the hands-free upgrade, since you couldn’t fly one with your hands up in the surrender position...


20 posted on 08/27/2025 9:17:00 AM PDT by Quality_Not_Quantity ("...for the sake of His name." Psalm 23:3)
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