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Further Reading

Rafale

It was reported on 31 January 2012, that India had selected the Dassault Rafale fighter jet as the winner of its MMRCA competition. The Dassault entrant had been selected over the Eurofighter Typhoon. It was reported that Dassault had been the lower of the 2 bidders, with the deal being estimated to be worth $11 billion. Under the deal, 18 Rafales were to be delivered ready-made, while 108 more would be built in India. Further negotiations were expected to take place before India finalized the agreement.

The Rafale program is composed of three versions of multi-purpose twin-engine combat aircraft -- the single-seater air version Rafale C, two-seater air version Rafale B and single-seater navy version Rafale M. These three versions are fitted with the same engine, the same navigation and attack system, the aircraft management system and the flight control system. They are all able to perform all types of missions from ground attack to air superiority.

The first production aircraft Rafale B1 flew for the first time 04 December 1998 and was delivered to the French Air Force. Firm orders by the French Government totalled 61 aircraft to be delivered from 1998 to 2005. The total program for France, Air Force and Navy, was set at 294 aircraft.

When the RAFALE program was launched, the Armée de l'Air and the Marine Nationale (the French Air Force and the French Navy) published a joint requirement for a balanced multirole aircraft that would be able to replace seven types of combat aircraft then in use.

The new aircraft would have to be able to carry out an extremely wide range of missions:

• Air-defence / air-superiority,
• Reconnaissance,
• Close air support,
• Precision strike / interdiction with conventional weapons (air-to-ground and anti-ship attacks),
• Nuclear strikes.

These needs were taken into account from the start of the RAFALE's development; thus it enabled the engineers, using all the new technologies, to conceive an aircraft which goes beyond the objectives of each mission. The RAFALE has exhibited a remarkable rate of survivability during the latest main French Air Force and Navy operations thanks to an optimized airframe and a wide range of smart and discrete sensors. It is slated to be the French armed forces' combat aircraft until 2040, at least.

Directly derived from the slightly smaller RAFALE A demonstrator, the three versions of the RAFALE retain all those qualities which have today been proven in flight : 750 kt, 9 g/-3.6 g, 32° maximum angle of attack, 115 kt approach speed, take off and landing in less than 400 meters. These qualities and performances stem from the "delta-canard" aerodynamic concept combining a delta wing and an active foreplane judiciously located in relation to the wing so as to optimize aerodynamic efficiency and stability control without impeding the pilot's visibility. Moreover, shapes and materials have been continuously selected to minimized the aircraft observability to both electro-magnetic and infra-red sensors.

• The Rafale C is a multirole fighter with a fully integrated weapons and navigation systems, making use of the latest technology and is capable of outstanding performance on multiple target air-to-air missions and air-to-surface missions deep behind enemy lines.

• The two-seater Rafale B retains most of the elements of the single-seater version, and its weapon and navigation system is exactly the same; the Rafale B can perform any operational mission with a lon pilot or with a crew consisting of two pilots or of one pilot and a weapons system operator.

• The Rafale M, a single-seater designed for seaborne use, carries the same weapon and navigation system. Its airframe has been designed for aircraft-carriers but retains most of the elements of the other versions.

The RAFALE features a delta wing with close-coupled canards. In-house research in computational fluid dynamics has shown the specific benefits of close coupling between the wings and the canards: it ensures a wide range of centre of gravity positions for all flight conditions as well as benign handling throughout the whole flight envelope. The choice of the close-coupled canards / delta wing configuration was decisive to ensure that the new fighter would offer the highest levels of performance during air-combats: even at high angles of attack, the RAFALE remains superbly agile, and its operational range for strikes at very long distances with incredibly heavy weapon loads is unmatched for such a compact design. Every effort has been made for the sake of tactical flexibility to obtain balanced performance between subsonic and supersonic regimes, either in heavy or lighter air-to-air configurations.

An advanced digital fly-by-wire (FBW) control system controls longitudinal stability. The FBW system is quadruple redundant with three digital channels and one separately designed analog channel. Design independence between channels is pivotal in preventing anomalies simultaneously affecting several channels. This is a unique feature, the result of Dassault Aviation's extensive in-house experience in FBW design: in over one million flight hours with full fly-by-wire (i.e. without any mechanical back-up), not a single accident has ever been caused by the Flight Control System.

Moreover, Terrain Following modes allow the RAFALE to automatically fly unobserved at very low altitudes whatever the weather conditions, optimising its survivability in a high threat environment. Minimising the radar cross section has also been a design driver in order to make stealth tactics possible. Most of the stealth design features are classified, but some of them are clearly visible, such as the serrated patterns on the trailing edges of the wings and canards. Dassault Aviation has a long praised tradition of designing sturdy airframes that sustain over 30 years of operation without heavy structural retrofit. Thanks to a Dassault Aviation unique know-how in finite element modelisation, the RAFALE airframe fatigue is monitored with a gauge-free concept, a now proven concept which, day after day, has demonstrated its relevance on the Mirage 2000 fleet.

Composite materials are extensively used in the RAFALE and they account for 70% of the wetted area. They also account for the 40% increase in the max take-off weight to empty weight ratio compared with traditional airframes built of aluminium and titanium.

The M88-2 turbofan is a new-generation engine featuring state-of-the-art technologies, including non-polluting combustion chamber, single-crystal turbine blades and powder metallurgy disks, etc. It also features the latest advances in reducing electromagnetic and infrared signatures. In short, the M88-2 (11,250 dry to 17,000 lb of thrust with afterburner) is a very compact powerplant, offering a high thrust-to-weight ratio and exceptional controllability, especially in terms of acceleration.

The M88-2 was designed from the outset for high dispatch reliability, along with easy maintainability and lower operating costs, to reduce the overall cost of ownership. To further ameliorate performance and increase the life of some critical components, Snecma (Safran Group) engineers have recently designed a new M88-2 variant called "4E". This variant is fitted with an upgraded high-pressure compressor and with an improved high-pressure turbine. With these new modules, engine durability and availability will be significantly increased while operating and maintenance costs will be brought down. This new M88 variant will be delivered to the French Armed Forces from 2011.

Since 2006, the French Air Force and Navy RAFALE fighters have been engaged in countless combat missions in Afghanistan where they have demonstrated a very high availability rate. In the theatre, they have fired their weapons (250 kg laser-guided bombs and 30 mm guns) on numerous occasions. In early 2008, the AASM precision-guided, modular, air-to-surface armament was successfully utilised for the first time, scoring direct hits with remarkable precision.

.From 2013, the RAFALE "omnirole" fighters will be delivered with the new Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar. The new AESA radar technology offers many operational advantages: increased detection and tracking ranges, enlarged surveillance coverage in azimuth, and significantly ameliorated reliability thanks to the introduction of the new redundant transmit/receive modules. This new RBE2 variant will be fully compatible in terms of detection range with the future extreme long range METEOR air-to-air missile.