What is wrong with the Rafale?

[The SC]

Rafales IMO are also underpowered slightly unlike the previous Mirage Snecma M88 engines which were more powerful. Despite great aesthetics, if this article speaks the truth then I do hope that my government considers such drawbacks.

It won't have much of an issue considering the size and war doctrine (which we don't have on active basis), but the price tag is worrisome as compared to our present F/A-18s and we are better off replacing them with something similar in capabilities and reasonably priced.

These are the exact passive technologies I was pointing to in the thread about the Qaher-313, and that you denied vehemently, those are the exact technologies that are used in the Qaher-313, just that it is done on a different scale.

Returning to the topic of this thread, the Rafale is simply one of the best 4th generation fighter planes out there, it was not designed to be a real stealth fighter, although it has some basic stealthy characteristics, it was designed to match the F-16's first generations, and that is the main reason why India decided on it, it may also want to upgrade the Rafale to match the newer generations of the F-16s and to some extent the JF-17s, it is also in order to be in par with PAF, by manufacturing the Rafale at home in India and at the same time get its hands on the French technologies instead of Pakistan who in my opinion will have them anyway.

 

[The SC]

All is not lost for the Rafale. For what avionics improvement that is possible for a still capable airframe, we could take the F-22 as a guide.

F-22 Raptor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Navigation by passive sensors is nothing new. During the Cold War, NATO fighter-bombers routinely practice the technique, albeit with less sophisticated avionics. Essentially, the group will assign individual aircraft to maintain passive watch in a particular sector via its ECM pod. If an aircraft detect that the flight is touching a threat radar, which would be at its maximum reach, that aircraft would alert the rest of the flight to change direction. If the direction change was quick enough, the threat radar could dismiss the brief echo as an anomaly, since the echo was from its maximum range. It was crude, rapid and strict communication discipline was vital but overall it was 'doable'.

The F-22's avionics and datalink automate the entire process, for itself and for the flight. But as indicated, the passive sensors could alert the active sensor, its own AESA radar, as to the direction of the threat. The active sensor then could customize an appropriate active scan. No more than what is necessary to verify what the passive said. The system is good enough that if necessary, the passive sensor could even launch a missile towards the threat direction.

The F-22's system was originally designed for the aircraft. It would be very difficult to equip the Rafale with such a conformal passive antenna system. Conformal sensors would not add to the aircraft's overall RCS but it would be costly to retrofit every aircraft. System integration would require complete redo. If not possible to retrofit with conformal sensors then the alternatives would be blade antennas in strategic locations or even pods on the wings. The latter would offer the quickest retrofit but the least efficacy. Pods would make the Rafale look like the EF-111. Not good.

These are the exact passive technologies I was pointing to in the thread about the Qaher-313, and that you denied vehemently, those are the exact technologies that are used in the Qaher-313, they are done on a different scale.

 

[gambit]

These are the exact passive technologies I was pointing to in the thread about the Qaher-313, and that you denied vehemently, those are the exact technologies that are used in the Qaher-313, they are done on a different scale.

You do not even understand the basic operations of these technologies, let alone explain how Iran could use them 'on a different scale'. What 'scale' are you talking about?

 

[halloweene]

Article is from Rufus, persisrent french basher, and full of factual errors, or at least twisted facts. If you look at it a bit, there is only opinions there, no fact...
Cant quote rafale rcs apart from public facts : it is significantly lower then EFA and more then 10 times less then M 2000. (anw rcs is an ambiguous notion depending on angle, distance etc.)
Btw, another public data : during Mace XII exercise, spectra allowed a Rafale B to fly unlocked over a S300 pmu1...
Ah and Rafale now has an AESA radar since C137. Range is now quoted as 200 kms+ vs"fighter sized" target... For what it means...
And F22 conformal antennas project was dropped...

 

[The SC]

You do not even understand the basic operations of these technologies, let alone explain how Iran could use them 'on a different scale'. What 'scale' are you talking about?

If you do not understand what the word scale means than there is no point of talking to you. you show your pretention of knowing these matters while you copy paste from articles on the net, I can show you better scholarly articles and thesis on these matters, to no avail, since you can not understand very basic expressions like on a different scale.

 

[gambit]

If you do not understand what the word scale means than there is no point of talking to you. you show your pretention of knowing these matters while you copy paste from articles on the net, I can show you better scholarly articles and thesis on these matters, to no avail, since you can not understand very basic expressions like on a different scale.

If you are that confident of my 'pretention' of these subjects, here is your challenge...

http://www.defence.pk/forums/americ...anced-capability-3-missile-2.html#post4671242

 

[halloweene]

.defesanet.com.br/rafale/noticia/10893/Shooting-Down-an-Aggressor-on-My-Six--Vive-la-difference-/
Cant link images yet, but you may find this test by a brazilian test pilot interesting...Interesting tests of F18 and Gripen by the same pilot also there.

 

[The SC]

If you are that confident of my 'pretention' of these subjects, here is your challenge...

http://www.defence.pk/forums/americ...anced-capability-3-missile-2.html#post4671242

It is a marketing article, meaning this system is good enough for sale.They have said the same things and more about the first of these systems and it failed in real war. So I am keeping my opinion about your pretentions.

 

[gambit]

It is a marketing article, meaning this system is good enough for sale.They have said the same things and more about the first of these systems and it failed in real war. So I am keeping my opinion about your pretentions.

You obviously have a reading comprehension problem. Read my post again, and carefully this time. If you have this reading comprehension problem, your opinion of me is irrelevant to the readers.

 

[SQ8]

These are the exact passive technologies I was pointing to in the thread about the Qaher-313, and that you denied vehemently, those are the exact technologies that are used in the Qaher-313, they are done on a different scale.

So what you are claiming is that the Iranian fighter has embedded sensors throughout its airframe that provide sensory and electronic data to a supercomputer that correlates the emissions with a massive digital library which has been compiled over decades to assessment of threat systems. While the Americans did this using aircraft such as the EC – 135 and EA – 6B, the Iranian's were able to procure such a library and will use it on a fighter that is not even in prototype status. The supercomputer will then decide if these emissions are from in particular aircraft and cue an AESA radar (that we have no idea of existence, surprising since Iran declares its accomplishments very publicly) that the Irani's have managed to fit into that small nose with a reasonable diameter and its associated cooling systems. If that is indeed the case then Iran is worthy of congratulations..

 

[The SC]

So what you are claiming is that the Iranian fighter has embedded sensors throughout its airframe that provide sensory and electronic data to a supercomputer that correlates the emissions with a massive digital library which has been compiled over decades to assessment of threat systems. While the Americans did this using aircraft such as the EC – 135 and EA – 6B, the Iranian's were able to procure such a library and will use it on a fighter that is not even in prototype status. The supercomputer will then decide if these emissions are from in particular aircraft and cue an AESA radar (that we have no idea of existence, surprising since Iran declares its accomplishments very publicly) that the Irani's have managed to fit into that small nose with a reasonable diameter and its associated cooling systems. If that is indeed the case then Iran is worthy of congratulations..

Those are old technologies that you are citing, Iran , unlike the US or NATO can have a system to recognize only the types of aircrafts that those two uses, the list is not big at all.
For the radar part of it, yes there is the possibility of a small AESA radar and its equally small cooling system to be implemented in the Qaher. If you look for it you'll easily find out that Iran manufactures AESA radars, I do not know about the small ones, there is a big possibility of Iran being able to manufacture them, since some already exist on the market , and are produced by small private companies, I think that Iran who already masters the technology can easily miniaturise it.

You obviously have a reading comprehension problem. Read my post again, and carefully this time. If you have this reading comprehension problem, your opinion of me is irrelevant to the readers.

We can argue on who has the reading problem for an eternity. For me it is a commercial article promoting the patriot system 3 for sale, backed by a purchase by Kuwait.

Read it again yourself, and look at reality of things rather than what you only want to see proving your lack of understanding some very simple matters that you can not see, because you are blinded by your one way of looking at things.

Here is what the article says:

The flight test involved ripple fire engagement of two PAC-3 missiles resulting in target destruction by the first interceptor, while the second missile self-destructed on command as planned.
Lockheed Martin missiles and fire control PAC-3 programmes vice-president, Richard McDaniel, said the PAC-3 missile continues to provide customers with proven and reliable performance along with unmatched lethality.
''The capability PAC-3 provides continues to draw significant interest from a number of international customers,'' McDaniel said.
The US Army Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM) awarded a contract to the company last week to continue PAC-3 missile production, including 244 hit-to-kill PAC-3 missiles, 72 launcher modification kits, associated tooling and programme management services delivery for the US and Kuwait.

The $308m contract represents the first foreign military sale (FMS) of the PAC-3 missile to Kuwait.

It talks more about customers, money sale and contracts than anything else while they talk about the system very briefly in general but in powerful marketing psychological words like 'the advanced' system, you can find the same words used for the Patriot 1.
So, Why should anyone believe the first sentence at all, what do they want to prove or mean with: the second missile self destructed ? are they covering the fact that it succeeded at 50%?, otherwise why shoot 2 missiles at one target if they are sure of its accuracy, furthermore, these tests are made in ideal situations weather and environment wise, that is why it failed in the real not so ideal situation in the gulf war.

 

[gambit]

Those are old technologies that you are citing, Iran , unlike the US or NATO can have a system to recognize only the types of aircrafts that those two uses, the list is not big at all.
For the radar part of it, yes there is the possibility of a small AESA radar and its equally small cooling system to be implemented in the Qaher. If you look for it you'll easily find out that Iran manufactures AESA radars, I do not know about the small ones, there is a big possibility of Iran being able to manufacture them, since some already exist on the market , and are produced by small private companies, I think that Iran who already masters the technology can easily miniaturise it.

I doubt you understood what Oz was talking about. I do and I find it laughable that Iran could achieve even 1/10th of what Oz was alluding to.

We can argue on who has the reading problem for an eternity. For me it is a commercial article promoting the patriot system 3 for sale, backed by a purchase by Kuwait.

Read it again yourself, and look at reality of things rather than what you only want to see proving your lack of understanding some very simple matters that you can not see, because you are blinded by your one way of looking at things.

Here is what the article says:


It talks more about customers, money sale and contracts than anything else while they talk about the system very briefly in general but in powerful marketing psychological words like 'the advanced' system, you can find the same words used for the Patriot 1.
So, Why should anyone believe the first sentence at all, what do they want to prove or mean with: the second missile self destructed ? are they covering the fact that it succeeded at 50%?, otherwise why shoot 2 missiles at one target if they are sure of its accuracy, furthermore, these tests are made in ideal situations weather and environment wise, that is why it failed in the real not so ideal situation in the gulf war.

Like I said: serious reading comprehension problem. I was talking about post 18, not the Lockheed article about the PAC 3 missile, of which the testing regime you do not understand how anyway.

 

[SQ8]

I doubt you understood what Oz was talking about. I do and I find it laughable that Iran could achieve even 1/10th of what Oz was alluding to.

What is quite a sad state of affairs is that projects like the Qaher are being touted as something out of Stephen Coonts novels while every military expert in the world is having a sarcastic smile to the whole deal. There were excellent projects in Iran that had the potential to propel its industry forward.. but apparently they've decided to go the way of Iraq with Asad Babils and Baghdad bobs.
Compare the quality of the mockup of the HESA Shafaq with the "prototype" of the Qaher

One aircraft they could have had years before.. and would be a viable step for their aviation industry..the other.. will Lets just leave it at that.

 

[Argus Panoptes]

What is quite a sad state of affairs is that projects like the Qaher are being touted as something out of Stephen Coonts novels while every military expert in the world is having a sarcastic smile to the whole deal. There were excellent projects in Iran that had the potential to propel its industry forward.. but apparently they've decided to go the way of Iraq with Asad Babils and Baghdad bobs............

It is much more easier to dream and make tall claims than to act and deliver. Simple explanation.

 

[Super Falcon]

french are real artist whatever they make they do show some beuty in the beast and rafale is example of this