Another great idea for the french air force the dassault rafale will be a boost for french military power and pose a new challenge to the Russian air force Su-35. The Dassault Rafale (French pronunciation: ​[ʁafal], squall)[5] is a French twin-engine, canard delta-wing, multirole fighter aircraft designed and built by Dassault Aviation. Dassault describes the Rafale as an omnirole fighter,[6][7] with a high level of agility,[8] capable of simultaneously performing air supremacy, interdiction, reconnaissance, and airborne nuclear deterrent missions. The Rafale is distinct from other European fighters of its era in that it is almost entirely built by one country, involving most of France's major defence contractors, such as Dassault, Thales and Safran. In the late 1970s, the French Air Force and Navy were seeking to replace and consolidate their current fleets of aircraft. In order to reduce development costs and boost prospective sales, France entered into an arrangement with four other European nations to produce an agile multi-purpose fighter. Subsequent disagreements over workshare and differing requirements led to France's pursuit of its own development program. Dassault built a technology demonstrator which first flew in July 1986 as part of an eight-year flight-test programme, paving the way for the go-ahead of the project. Many of the aircraft's avionics and features, such as direct voice input, the RBE2 AA active electronically scanned array radar and the Optronique secteur frontal infra-red search and track sensor, were domestically developed and produced for the Rafale programme. Originally scheduled to enter service in 1996, the Rafale suffered significant delays due to post-Cold War budget cuts and changes in priorities. Introduced in 2001, the Rafale is being produced for both the French Air Force and for carrier-based operations in the French Navy. While the Rafale has been marketed for export to several countries, it has only been selected for purchase by the Indian Air Force. The Rafale has been used in combat over Afghanistan, Libya, Mali and Iraq; features such as the SPECTRA integrated defensive-aids system have been crucial advantages in Libya. Several upgrades to the weapons and avionics of the Rafale are planned to be introduced by 2018. Design Overview The Rafale was developed as a modern jet fighter with a very high level of agility; Dassault chose to combine a delta wing with active close-coupled canard to maximize manoeuvrability. The aircraft is capable of withstanding 9 g or −3 g.[54] The Rafale is an aerodynamically unstable aircraft and uses digital fly-by-wire flight controls to artificially enforce and maintain stability.[54][N 2] The aircraft's canards also act to reduce the minimum landing speed to 115 knots (213 km/h; 132 mph); while in flight, airspeeds as low as 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph) have been observed during training missions.[54] According to simulations by Dassault, the Rafale has sufficient low speed performance to operate from STOBAR-configured aircraft carriers, and can take off using a ski-jump with no modifications.[56] Although not a full-aspect stealth aircraft, the cost of which was viewed as unacceptably excessive, the Rafale was designed for a reduced radar cross-section (RCS) and infra-red signature.[57][58] In order to reduce the RCS, changes from the initial technology demonstrator include a reduction in the size of the tail-fin, fuselage reshaping, repositioning of the engine air inlets underneath the aircraft's wing, and the extensive use of composite materials and serrated patterns for the construction of the trailing edges of the wings and canards.[53][57] Many of the features designed to reduce the Rafale's visibility to threats remain classified.[55] Armaments and standards Initial deliveries of the Rafale M were to the F1 ("France 1") standard, these had been equipped for the air-to-air interceptor combat duties, but lacked any armaments for air-to-ground operations.[85] Later deliveries were to the "F2" standard, which added the capability for conducting both air-to-ground and reconnaissance operations; the first F2 standard Rafale M was delivered to the French Navy in May 2006.[86] Starting in 2008 onwards, Rafale deliveries have been to the nuclear-capable F3 standard, and it has been reported that all aircraft built to the earlier F1 and F2 standards are to be upgraded to become F3s.[66][60] F3 standard Rafales are capable of undertaking many different mission roles with a range of equipment: air defence/superiority missions with |Mica IR and EM air-to-air missiles, precision ground attacks typically using SCALP EG cruise missiles and AASM Hammer air-to-surface armaments, anti-shipping using the AM39 Exocet sea-skimming missile, reconnaissance via a combination of onboard and external pod-based sensor equipment, and nuclear deterrence operations when armed with ASMP-A missiles.[87]

• published: 24 Mar 2016
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