Nope. Dassault is setting one up via offsets. They are gonna make Falcons and Rafales.
Oh great. So we're getting a Rafale line for free then? Wow, stupid Dassault!
The standard we were looking at was F3.4, not F3.
F3 baseline existed. We added ISEs on top of that - but we paid for it all out of pocket.
Right now only F4 baseline exists. F5 baseline will come by 2030.
Which means even if you sign a deal for a notional F5 configuration today, you'll need to wait till post-2030 for the R&D program to complete, because it just started. Deliveries will take place a few years thereafter.
And the IAF is not going to be relooking at all the parameters Rafale's already cleared in MRFA, only the new stuff.
IAF isn't gonna be looking at anything until & unless there's an AoN.
It's been 8 years since the first 36 were bought and still there's nothing.
You just reposted the same link I posted. You feeling all right?
Which SEF has a 30T MTOW limit.
All of them. Cuz that's an upper limit, not lower.
And which SEF can fly with a single engine off?
The kind that's competing in a tender who's various iterations never got anywhere in over 20 years.
Says vital to have indigenous weapons systems to deal with security challenges.
www.tribuneindia.com
On the future of a multi-role fighter aircraft (MRFA) programme that would plan to make 114 jets with a foreign partner and India partner JV producing jets in India, the IAF Chief said, “ We needed the MRFA as of yesterday”.
I hope you know you are Indian?
What did you expect them to say?
Wow, you are mixing things up so well. Mk2 is a modernization, not an upgrade like Mk1A. Those terms are completely different. Do you think MKI MLU is undergoing PDR and CDR too?
Lol, MKI isn't getting a new engine, neither a longer airframe nor increased payload or internal fuel capacity.
You're comparing apples with oranges.
We actually did. The Uttarlai AFS had Mig-21s until Oct 2023, and were replaced by the 13th MKI squadron on the same day.
In fact, the IAF publicly said all the old Mig-21s are directly being replaced by MKIs with the additional 80 they ordered. Only the bases closest to Pakistan require LCAs, like Jalandhar and Pathankot.
Cuz we were desperate. MiGs were falling out of the sky, Tejas wasn't ready and we couldn't waste the flight hours on the precious few M2Ks we have.
MKI had to do it. But it was never meant to.
Mk2 can perform 70% of the TEF's missions at 50% of the cost. For the remaining 30%, we need MRFA.
30% of 126 is 38. 30% of 189 would be 57.
Great. So I was wrong. We don't need to buy 2 more Rafale squadrons, we just need 1 more.
Rest of the MRFA requirement can be met by additional Tejas Mk2.
ACT won't do all that. And yes, a minimum number of TRMs are necessary to make use of radar, and it's more than you think. Just like you need more than a candle flame to cook rice.
Dude, please stop. You literally do not know what you are talking about. I'm actually being very serious.
Take a typical 1000-TRM FCR. The main beam can consist of up to 600 or more TRMs while still leaving enough to do other jobs like TWS.
Now tell me how the 15 TRMs on your EW emitter are going to deal with this 600 TRM main beam that's trying to scan you.
The AESA radar can drastically reduce the enemy’s jamming capability. This is done by a radar technique called “frequency-hopping” where the frequency at which the radar is transmitting can be changed with every pulse. In addition to that, the radar also has the ability to distribute frequencies across a wide band even within individual pulses, this radar technique is called “chirping,” also known as “pulse compression.”
Gripen E's Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar has many antennas that help in jamming and other mechanical errors and failures.
www.saab.com
AESAs can also produce beams that consist of many different frequencies at once, using post-processing of the combined signal from a number of TRMs to re-create a display as if there was a single powerful beam being sent.
en.wikipedia.org
In short, a 600-TRM beam can be in many more places of the 8-12ghz (X band) range at the same time than what a 15-TRM EW emitter can. If you cannot modulate your output as much as the threat radar can, you cannot send him back the signal you want. You can only send back a small portion of it.
If a 1000-TRM threat radar were to be simultaneously tracking, say, 50 targets with ~20 TRMs dedicated to each track, in that hypothetical scenario it may be possible for a Rafale to sufficiently fool an AESA and slip by. Otherwise you ain't escaping an AESA with ACT, sorry.
And this is all when talking about a Rafale facing a single threat radar at a given time, which is not at all a realistic scenario.
You can start here.
www.radartutorial.eu
You should try sending this link to Dassault's email address and tell them they're wasting their time on stealthy things like nEUROn.
Lol.
Like I said: Do you want competitors to tell openly they are pursuing French tactics?
Even the French don't openly talk about this that much, so not like anyone would care.
They call it different things, which at least I know you won't get.
The Ministry of Defense requested the government’s approval for the acquisition of the 4th tranche of the European fighter jet, effectively launching the
theaviationist.com
The system’s integrated sensors and jamming equipment deliver situational awareness to the pilot and equip the aircraft with a “digital stealth capability”, achieved through advanced electronic deception techniques.
You generally get such information via hints and clues, 'cause unlike the French, these guys are in the process of introducing it.
FFS, they're talking about the DASS suite's ECM/ESM functionality. This is what Typhoon means by Digital Stealth:
www.eurofighter.com
It doesn't work against advanced threats. Surmounting the challenge of 5th gen jets with this reads like a joke.
And note that they, like the Americans, refer to this as an EW technique. There's a time & place to use it (just like for all other EW functions. You don't try to jam an AWACS with a ELL-8222 now do you?).
It's just you that seems to think it's some magical holy grail the French alone are guarding, which negates the advantage of 5th gen jets with shaping & internal weapons.
You wanna tell the Italian, German & Brit air forces that they're wasting their money buying F-35s when their home-grown Typhoon can beat it at stealth?
As I said, they want a modernized Rafale, not SCAF. This seems more like a political project than one beign developed out of need. And why do you keep omitting the timeline? It's for 2050+. We're both practically parrots now.
Anyway--
To say that the SCAF new generation combat aircraft program, which brings together France, Germany and Spain, is today on the wrong track
meta-defense.fr
If SCAF fails, the French plan B is to make a Super Rafale and keep that going. They are proposing going on their own for next gen, or pulling in a non-European partner (basically India). Germany's plan B is to join GCAP.
You still don't get it. I'm asking why isn't SCAF itself a modernized Rafale?
It's gonna be verified. And IAF officers have confirmed of the Rafale's stealth characteristics. They call it semi-stealth.
Coming from an MKI? Sure, Rafale would seem stealthy as heck.
Wait till they see what a F-22 or F-35 looks like without the Luneberg lens.
You don't have the technical skills to judge my own knowledge.
That the domestic lobby has gaslit civilians so badly that they think imports are all evil and designed to destroy India.
By definition, they are. By design it must not be so that money goes out of the country in order to procure critical equipment.
But there are certain realities to be considered, our domestic R&D base has not developed to the level where it can substitute all foreign bought equipment. So we just gotta be careful, and only buy things we really cannot develop ourselves.
Spending billions to indigenize a French AESA when there's an indigenous one ready is exactly the kind of thing to avoid. MRFA, as it exists today, is filled with such things.
The IAF had to even defend themselves in the Supreme Court because of that.
It's their job to be answerable to the taxpayers, just like all other public servants. If they think they are above that, then there's a need of an attitude adjustment. Such corrective measures do come along once in a while.
And end of the day, IAF has to realize that it's not fighting its own war - it's expected to function as part of a larger integrated defence establishment. So when a different service comes up with a way to destroy an enemy bunker protected by air defences that can destroy a fighter but can't stop a Mach 3 steep-diving BrahMos, IAF should listen.
And they should readjust their procurement accordingly. They can't be wearing horse blinders. They need to be situationally aware.
ACT works against all signals.
What you are talking about is necessary for ECM, where a signal is compared to one in the suite's library. And the effect comes with a small delay while the signal is processed, compared and then a response is generated. So if the computer doesn't have the same signal in its library it cannot create a repsonse. A human operator is necessary for a real-time response, which is not neecessarily perfect. Earlier, for a perfect response it used to take months of work on the ground, but today it takes a day or two. Pretty soon this repsonse can become real-time via cognitive EW.
But for ACT, the only thing the computer needs to know is the Rafale's echo, which is under the control of Dassault. So the effect is immediate. The ACT signal is merely retransmitted with the Rafale's echo out of phase thereby canceling it, so there is no need to know the signal's characteristics. That's why ACT is not ECM. The only time a comparison is necessary is when it has to identify the source of the signal initially, so it doesn't waste time canceling signals that are not a threat, like cosmic background or friendly signals. So our S-400s will see the Rafale, but the Chinese S-400 won't.
You don't even know what ACT is. Here, have another read:
There is considerable speculation that the AN/APR-50 utilises an ECM technique known as ’active cancellation’ - this stealth technique employs an array of antennas to transmit a signal which is out of phase with incoming radar emissions, thus effectively reducing the intensity of the reflected returns through interference. If the emitted interference signal, travelling in the same direction, is exactly matched in terms of amplitude, period and phase, to the reflected radar signal, then the threat radar would not be able to detect any return signal, thus failing to ’see’ the aircraft. This is called destructive interference. In terms of applying such ECM techniques to an airborne platform, incoming signals will have many different characteristics of amplitude, period and phase, which, combined with the many different directions of reflection, resulting in phase/amplitude shift, will make true ’cancellation’ extremely difficult to achieve in the real world. It is more likely that the characteristics of the strongest incident signal would be selected by the system processor for destructive interference.
