Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning and F-22 'Raptor' : News & Discussion
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You really don't understand anything, stealth or not, the detection is the same with anti-stealth techniques, there is no reason for conventional aircraft to be seen better than stealth aircraft.
Lol. Like clockwork the mantra has switched for "Rafale most stronk" to "stealth is dead". Meanwhile the Rafale and Typhoon failed to even get past the first round in Finland. Apparently Spectra is so good at making the Rafale undetectable that Finland couldn't see its benefits
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This thread gets more and more stupid everyday.
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.This thread gets more and more stupid everyday.
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Whilst at the same time, copying the F-22 and F-35. Claiming the next Dassault plane will be stealth. You know, the thing they now claim is obsolete.Lol. Like clockwork the mantra has switched for "Rafale most stronk" to "stealth is dead". Meanwhile the Rafale and Typhoon failed to even get past the first round in Finland. Apparently Spectra is so good at making the Rafale undetectable that Finland couldn't see its benefits
This thread gets more and more stupid everyday.
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No, if your pilot is already experienced, it is very useful to go on a good simulator to learn the new controls, then the familiarization on a Rafale is very fast:
FLIGHT TEST: Dassault Rafale - Rampant Rafale
Flight International test pilot Peter Collins is the first Briton to fly Dassault's F3-standard Rafale. Read his exclusive evaluation of the 'omnirole' type ...www.flightglobal.com
That's the opinion of a TP, with thousands of hours under his belt already. And he's only referring to an evaluation, that's not the same as being combat-ready.
You will still need to put in the flying hours necessary to be certified. One TP can only fly one jet at a time. There should be a minimum of 27 pilots in a squadron. Can't have all TPs for this.
F3R is only the F3+ with some new software. The fact that it took 28 months using existing hardware alone shows that it takes time. With the new hardware coming in with F4.2, it's gonna take longer. Pilots need hands-on training in real world conditions to get used to the minimums and maximums even if the pilot is already 1000+ hours on an older jet.
For the IAF, pilot training began in early 2019, so they could start flying after the first jet was delivered. It still doesn't change the fact that the first 12 pilots will need 5 years to get to 1500 hours experience even after flying 300 hours per year. That's 2024. With faster training, around 5-7 of those pilots should be able to achieve this number in just 4 years, ie, 2023.
No, you can't. The very fact that you claim F3R pilots needed until 2021 is proof enough already. To support your argument the F3R should have become combat-ready in 2018, ie, one year before delivery.
For the 4.2--
France orders $2.3 billion upgrade for Rafale warplanes
New weapons and data-connectivity features are meant to keep the French go-to military aircraft relevant.
www.defensenews.com
Your 4.2 pilot training will only begin in 2027. Count a minimum of 28 months after that.
You mean hangar? Yeah. It is shorter than the Mig-29, and only a slightly bit wider.
That is a big problem. If the Rafale has ended up being too expensive to cross the first round, then the Finnish ended up with only the SH, Gripen and F-35 in the final tech round, and we already know for sure that the F-35 is better than the other three. The idea was for Rafale to make it to the last round so we can get a clear winner between the two.
Yes but 1.5h cockpit familiarisation on the ground is very few, I didn't ask for such a training but I take the F3R delay.
You said F3R is only software, but all our standard are only software! but the new software can manage old hardware and new hardware, for F3R it was mainly METEOR, Talios, AESA antenna, DDM ng, FSO IT. Not so bad.
I'm sure you already have Rafale pilots capable of taking on the Chinese in the IAF. If you take a veteran SU-30 MKI pilot and convert him to the Rafale, he will be operational within a year.
Your document is produced by an American journalist who confuses tranches and Standards because French notions are quite different from American ones.For the 4.2--
Parly announced that a further 30 aircraft at the full F4 standard would be ordered in 2023 for delivery between 2027 and 2030, taking the French Rafale fleet to a total of 210 fighters.France orders $2.3 billion upgrade for Rafale warplanes
New weapons and data-connectivity features are meant to keep the French go-to military aircraft relevant.
Your 4.2 pilot training will only begin in 2027. Count a minimum of 28 months after that.
The safest planning is the one I have already given you and I will explain it with links to back up my words:
First look at this document, it is a translation of a french article (the more acurate one) I don't give the French article because it exist only on paper.
You will find this very explicit extract page 7
At this time F4.2 was planned for 2025 and F4.1 for 2024, so how could we deliver 28 airframe in 2021-23 as F4.2? It is because F4.2 is only a software with no impact on airframe. As for F3R new equipments will be plug and play on these airframe and then you can plug old equipments and run F3R or F4.1 on these airframe. When the new equipment will be available it will be able to be mounted on these aircraft and of course we will be able to use F4.2.
Now F4.2 is planned for 2024, F4.1 is planned for 2023 and the 28 airframes are to be delivered in 2023-24! which explain what I have said.
The 30 Rafales in 2027 is not because of the F4.2 delays, but because we don't need these planes before that date. On the other hand, we will have to replace the Greek and Croatian aircraft and they will be F4.2.
The document I have linked is the translation of the 3 articles by Henri-Pierre Grolleau published in the Air Fan Special Salon du Bourget of June 2017.
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We will need to wait and see. The HX was running from 2015. I don't think the team that were doing the RAFALE. Said on day one 'it's too dear' and then sat back with their feet on the desk for 6 years. Rafale put in their best and final price in May of this year, after the evaluations were done.
Best And Final Offers For Finland's HX Program Received
The evaluation of the five competing bids is expected to be completed by this autumn, leading into a final decision by the end of this year.
www.overtdefense.com
Reminder that it's F135, with no dash. There are no dashes in American engine designations. The effdash prefix is for fighters only.
Quite literally, since not passing the gate checks meant that there was no operational evaluation.Meanwhile the Rafale and Typhoon failed to even get past the first round in Finland. Apparently Spectra is so good at making the Rafale undetectable that Finland couldn't see its benefits
AFAIK, F4.1 is mainly software and F4.2 is hardware. Only some systems are expected to become available in F4.1 and the majority of the new hardware will come with F4.2.
We will need to wait and see. The HX was running from 2015. I don't think the team that were doing the RAFALE. Said on day one 'it's too dear' and then sat back with their feet on the desk for 6 years. Rafale put in their best and final price in May of this year, after the evaluations were done.
Best And Final Offers For Finland's HX Program Received
The evaluation of the five competing bids is expected to be completed by this autumn, leading into a final decision by the end of this year.
There's nothing to see since they are not gonna reveal anything. Without entry into the tech round, we have no way to know how the Rafale actually compares with the F-35. That was our only available benchmark.
We now know that the Rafale is definitely more expensive than the F-35 to procure, at least during the time the F-35 is at peak production, whereas controlling sustainment costs entirely depends on how many F-35s the USAF actually buys in the end. But the main selling point of the Rafale was it was supposed to give as much capability as the F-35 at much lower costs. So it has lost when it comes to this. In case the future procurement price of the Rafale drops, possibly when the F-35 ends peak production, it's gonna be irrelevant because the world will enter into the generation beyond, making any cost advantage meaningless, for NATO at least. Not to mention the fact that most or all of NATO would already be operating all the F-35s they need, leaving the more expensive F-35s to non-alliance customers. Even if the Rafale F4.2 does indeed end up being better than the F-35, it's gonna be irrelevant due to its higher cost anyway.
United Arab Emirates Threatens to Pull Out of $23 Billion F-35, Drone Deal With U.S.
WASHINGTON—The United Arab Emirates is threatening to pull out of a multibillion-dollar deal to buy American-made F-35 aircraft, Reaper drones and other advanced munitions, U.S. officials said, in what would be a significant shake-up between two longtime allies increasingly at odds over China’s role in the Gulf.The Emirati government told U.S. officials that it intended to kill the deal because Abu Dhabi thought security requirements the U.S. had laid out to safeguard the high-tech weaponry from Chinese espionage were too onerous, officials said.
It was unclear whether the $23 billion arms deal, inked in the final days of the Trump administration, is dead, or whether the Emirati threat is a bargaining move on the eve of a planned visit Wednesday by a high-level U.A.E. military delegation to the Pentagon for two days of talks.
“The U.A.E. has informed the U.S. that it will suspend discussions to acquire the F-35,” a U.A.E. official said in a statement. “Technical requirements, sovereign operational restrictions, and the cost/benefit analysis led to the reassessment.”
The U.S., the U.A.E. official said, “remains the U.A.E.’s preferred provider for advanced defense requirements and discussions for the F-35 may be reopened in the future.”
The letter communicating the threat was written by a relatively junior official in the government, suggesting the overture was a negotiating tactic heading into the meeting, U.S. officials said. Other officials said that while the U.S. has legitimate security concerns, there was a scramble to salvage the sale of weapons to a Gulf ally.
U.S. officials acknowledged receipt of the letter and the Emirati concerns. The U.S., however, has grown increasingly troubled over China’s influence inside the U.A.E., and has spelled out conditions that would ensure the fifth generation jet fighter and advanced drones wouldn’t be vulnerable to Chinese espionage.
“We remain committed to these sales, and the Emiratis have raised some concerns,” said a U.S. official. “Frankly, we have some questions of our own. This sort of back-and-forth is not unusual for significant arms sales and we are hopeful we can work through these issues and we think the joint military dialogue will give us an opportunity to do so.”
The Biden administration has undertaken a vigorous campaign to persuade allies to be wary of getting too close to China on security issues. Countries like the U.A.E. who have deep economic ties to China are also expanding their security ties, and U.S. officials increasingly believe that the Chinese government poses a threat to U.S. national security with their activities in those countries.
The collapse of the deal would fuel perceptions within the Middle East and elsewhere that America’s decadeslong role as security provider of choice in the region is diminishing. Top Arab officials have expressed alarm over a series of events in recent years, including the Obama administration’s secret nuclear talks with Iran, the U.S. failure to respond to an attack on Saudi oil facilities by Iran-backed Yemeni rebels, and the chaotic U.S. exit from Afghanistan.
The threat to cancel the contracts comes less than two weeks after the Emirati government signed a deal with France to buy 80 Rafale jet fighters and a dozen military helicopters. The nearly $20 billion deal with the French government suggests the Emiratis are looking elsewhere for security partners.
Relations between the U.A.E. and the U.S. were rattled this spring when U.S. intelligence agencies learned that China was secretly building what they suspected was a military facility at a port near the Emirati capital of Abu Dhabi, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal.
Senior Emirati officials have said they didn’t think the site the Chinese were constructing was a military installation. But it was shut down after several rounds of meetings and visits by U.S. officials, the people familiar with the matter said.
The U.S. has also long been concerned about Abu Dhabi’s entanglement with Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co., which provides the country with its communications infrastructure. U.S. officials and members of Congress say Huawei is a national-security threat, concerned that the Chinese government could use the privately held company’s gear, embedded in telecom networks world-wide, to spy or disrupt communications. The company and the Chinese government have denied such allegations.
The weapons deal, which was finalized on former President Donald Trump’s last full day in office, was worth an estimated $23 billion, and included as many as 50 F-35A fighters valued at $10.4 billion, 18 MQ-9B drones worth nearly $3 billion and other munitions valued at $10 billion, according to a statement issued by the UAE’s embassy in Washington.
In his first week in office, Mr. Biden decided to re-examine the sale while at the same time freezing some arms sales to another key Gulf ally, Saudi Arabia. The administration decided to proceed with the proposed sale, subject to continued negotiations over assurances Washington sought on the weapons’ use. The F-35 jet fighters aren’t due for delivery until 2027.
U.S. and U.A.E. officials have never publicly disclosed the conditions each side put on the sale. Officials have said Washington wanted assurances that the latest U.S. defense technology wouldn’t be shared with third countries, and a ban on using the weapons in conflicts including Libya and Yemen where Emirati forces had been active.
The Emirates, among other requirements, wants the F-35s delivered sooner than 2027, a person familiar with the matter said.
The Emirates’ ambassador to Washington, Yousef Al Otaiba, told the Journal earlier this year: “The U.A.E. has a long and consistent track record of protecting U.S. military technology, both in coalitions where we’ve served alongside the U.S. military and inside the U.A.E. where a broad range of sensitive U.S. military assets have been deployed for many years.”
I almost agree with you, but I would say that the price the US is able to charge for the F-35 is lower than the price France is able to charge for the Rafale. But I remain convinced that the real cost of the F-35 is infinitely higher than that of the Rafale.
I sincerely hope the Emiratis aren't using the French deal as some sort of bargaining chip with the US only to ditch the French once they've reached favourable terms with the US for I find the notion of spending 43 billion USD for defence procurements on the part of the UAE in the next decade a huge overkill given their limited defence requirements.
Moreover much as the UAE may desire to project power in the larger ME region given their intervention in Yemen , Ethiopia , Libya , Syria , etc as of now their principle concern lies across the Persian Gulf in Iran .
Iran slams France for selling arms to UAE, ‘destabilising’ region
Iran on Monday accused France of "destabilising" the Gulf region after Paris signed a record 14-billion-euro deal with the United Arab Emirates for 80 Rafale fighter jets."We must not ignore France's role in destabilising the region," foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told a news conference.
"We expected France to be more responsible.
"The militarisation of our region is unacceptable and the weapons they sell in the region are the source of turmoil."
France clinched the order for 80 Rafale fighter aircraft during a visit Friday by President Emmanuel Macron to the UAE.
During the visit, Abu Dhabi also inked a deal to buy 12 Caracal military transport helicopters, for a total bill of more than 17 billion euros (more than $19 billion).
The UAE was the fifth biggest customer for the French defence industry, with deals worth 4.7 billion euros, from 2011 to 2020, according to a French parliamentary report.
France has faced criticism after some of these weapons were used in Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition that includes the UAE is fighting Iran-backed rebels in a war that has created one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
Khatibzadeh also complained that "billions of dollars worth of weapons are being sold to Arab countries" without sparking global concern while Iran's missile programme is condemned by world powers.
His remarks came as UAE National Security Adviser Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al-Nahyan was on a rare visit to Tehran, as the two countries seek to ease relations downgraded five years ago.
Reminds me of how the UAE rejected the Rafale in 2008. If they're using the same playbook, they'll buy the F-35 in 2034.
Remember they currently operate both F-16 and Mirage 2000 -- and they weren't early adopters of either type, but they waited until they could get a massively upgraded version (F-16 block 60, Mirage 2000-9). It would be fitting if they did the same thing here.
Remember they currently operate both F-16 and Mirage 2000 -- and they weren't early adopters of either type, but they waited until they could get a massively upgraded version (F-16 block 60, Mirage 2000-9). It would be fitting if they did the same thing here.
The procurement cost is legally binding though, along with the 5 or 10 years spares and maintenance deal signed initially. What happens beyond that is anybody's guess.