My friend send it to me. He got it from another aviation forum.
A Frenchman making his stand on the Rafale. Happy reading! Very
Happy
Always an interesting subject, rivalry between two aircraft can
often lead to polemics, as some manufacturers have a marked
tendency to emphasize their own products strength as well as
superiority over that of the competition.
In the case of a comparative between Eurofighter Typhoon and
Dassault Rafale, this is very
apparent as the Typhoon have been consistently declared to be of a
superior breed by its makers.
Whether this was the case or could be translated into concrete
figures remain to be seen and one
have to do some home work (a lot of research on the subject) in
order to sort the truth from the usual
commercial propaganda.
I propose to share my finding by editing as much information as I
have been able to dig,
my sources of information, as well as making myself the advocate of
Dassault and this for only
one reason. I like the aircraft and when I see it I see as much
genius on its design as I could see on the
F16 when it won the market of the century, beating Dassault and
SAAB in the process.
As we all know, the aircraft went on to become the most successful
fighter of all time, not the
French aircraft, nor the Swedish.
So you guys might think Im biased because Im French and this is
your right, but I know for
myself that if this aircraft was a not French, I still would see it
as the most aerodynamicaly advanced
design in service today. I also propose to demonstrate why, in my
view its airframe is more advanced
than that of Eurofighters Typhoon.
To do that I will have to start with the genesis of both fighter
and put thing right when it come to
the reasons why did Dassault leave the Eurofighter program.
The Genesis
At the end of the 60s Dassault was all ready well established as a
successful manufacturer with
its delta series of airframes, the famous Mirage. In the hands of
the Israelis, the aircraft became a
real Mig-killer, it was versatile, adaptable, came at an affordable
price and was well liked by both
pilots and ground crews. Nevertheless it had its shortcoming and
Dassault kept experimenting with
diverse solutions in order to reverse them. (Picture
MirageIIIO_01).
The main problem was inherited from its delta configuration which
while providing the aircraft
with good transonic and supersonic acceleration, as well as a high
top speed, did induce an excessive
amount of drag at high angle of attack (AOA).(Picture
MirageIIIC_01).
This in turn translated into a rather high landing speed and less
than ideal stall characteristics.
From a purely aerodynamic point of view, the delta wing was ideally
suited to the Armee de lAir
early requirements for a day-light Mach2+ interceptor but started
to fall short of it when the Mirage 3E
was introduced into service. (Picture MirageIIIE_01). With its
heavier avionics and air to ground
mission often requiring the use of external tanks, the 3E became
tricky to fly and to land.
Its wing loading and thrust to weight ratio did suffer and it
required the most experienced aircrew
to be flown safely, especially the way the French pilots where
flying them, by all weather
at high speed/low altitude (Mach1
Meanwhile, the IAF, certainly the most famous user of Mirages, did
feel the need for more power
as well as a general increase in performances and it have to be
said that probably near simultaneously
to Dassault own studies, IAI started to develop the Nesher which
achieved its first flight on Sept 1969,
and was the ancestor of the KFIR. (Picture Nesher_01)
Another factor was the Embargo of Mirages5J by the French
Government.
Both Air Forces came up with the same solution, and after some
experiments with retractable
canards (Dassault Milan) and strakes over the air intakes in the
case of the KFIR C2, revealed
publicly on June 20th 1969 (Picture KFIR_Plans_01).
The canard surface made its first appearances on Mirages 5/50 a
little earlier on May 1969.
(Picture MirageIII S_01).
The result was an aircraft which combined the best of two world
with the advantages of the
delta configuration, but also far better stall characteristics,
lower landing speed and higher maneuverability at high AOA. The
KFIR in particular, saw combat action with the IAF mostly in the
Air to Ground role and was loved by its pilots for these very
reasons. Only with the introduction of the F16 in the IAF inventory
did the Israelis progressively retire it. (Picture KFIR_02).
As an ordonanceman with the French Air Force in 1975/76, BA-102
Dijon, I have had the pleasure to work on the 3E, eared or read of
the pilots problems and nearly never saw them flying without
external tanks.
The weapons in use at the time where; two 30mm Defa, 1 Matra R 530
(IR and EM),
2 Sidewinder AIM9 B, 2 68mm rockets pods, 2x 700kg dumb or retarded
bombs. We also had to maintain the Martin Baker seats which had
explosive cartridges situated at the base of a tube called gun.
(No rocket and progressive acceleration at the time but a real kick
in the back side, also these seat werent Zero-Zero specs).
Now, why did the Armee de lAir never introduce a canard Mirage
into service? I guess money is the answer. Instead the French Air
Force did wait for the next generation which turned out to be
completely a different design in the form of the Mirage F1.
(Picture F1C_01). Also, while recognizing the 3E excessive high
landing speed, it had enough experienced crews to handle them until
better days; indeed the guys actually flew them with ZERO
visibility at Mach1 at altitude below 500ft following the
indication of the Doppler radar which equipped the 3E. I could
barely SEE them taking off from outside our workshop less than 500
yards from the runway. Nevertheless, Dassault DID gain a lot of
experience from its own prototype as well as sharing a useful
amount of datas with the IAF, other Mirage 5/50 operators, like
the Swiss A-F for example(Picture MirageIIIS_02), and most probably
IAI, the maker of the KFIR, although I could be wrong on the
latest.
From the outset, it may sound strange that the F1 reverted to a
more conventional configuration, but a look at the A-A requirements
of the time provide us with a clue as to why Dassault F1 wasnt a
delta not even a canard-delta. It wanted a dual role aircraft
capable of Mach2,5 dashes at up to 50,000 feets, and good for a
steady mach2,2 sustainable speed, maneuvering at 3G at Mach
2.
Weaponry was basically the same as that of the Mirage 3E, with new
weapons being developed
along with a new radar and engines (Picture F1C_02) (Note; Despite
the comments on the quality of the Matra R 530, it should be noted
that the first kill ever achieved by a Mirage was by IAFs
Yoram Agmon flying a MirageIIICJ, he used a Tahalom, the Hebrew for
the Matra R530, on our National Bastille Day, 14th of July 1966
bringing down a Syrian Mig 21. Having had to work on the missile
myself, I know well about its service record and can say that it
wasnt much worse than that of the AIM9B, also used by the two
MirageIIIE squadrons based at Dijon, but it did require a serious
amount of maintenance, testing and conditioning to stay as
reliable).
What Dassault learned and developed with the entry into service of
the F1 was pure aerodynamics. If a conventional design could
out-perform the Mirage 3 consistently over such a wide range of
areas, then something new and good must have happened. The wing was
quiet well designed, developed and used. Less drag, more lift than
the Mirage 3? (Picture F1CT_01)
In fact it was better than the delta in transonic, reduced the
amount of AOA needed when landing with an approach speed of 190Kts,
touch down at 135-140Kts. Basically, R&D at Dassault never
stopped, its engineers acquiring a real experience of a continual
development program with noticeable improvements, but maybe in the
engine department as well as application of electric or Fly by wire
technology, a little too late. The F1 is a good aircraft capable of
superior performances, it didnt develop enough to beat the Lockeed
F16 at the Paris Air Show in 1975. I know, I saw them flying
during the Air Show and was greatly impressed by the F16.
(Pictures F1E_01/)
The Spanish Air force pits its F1s against Vipers regularly, and
reckon they can win against it,
the Armee de lair turned it into the best NATO tactical Recce
Fighter (Picture F1CR_01). I reckon with aBig engine and the
right radar / weapon system, a F1 could take on a F15C despite
being a lot smaller, which makes it more difficult to see in Airc
Combat. (Picture F1CT_02)
The use of fly-by-wire and relaxed stability came with the next
generations Mirage which had to be a Delta, the Mirage
2000.(Pictures Mirage2000C_01). Then, what Dassault engineers and
test pilots had learned was used to develop what was to become the
basis for the making of Rafale. (Picture Mirage 4000_01).
The mirage 4000 was the real aircraft Dassault wanted to make, as
it was throwing the base of
the 4th generation concept of the future aircraft for both the
Marine Nationale and Armee de lAir
its weight played against it as it was considered to be
unaffordable by the French Air Force which
had to do with its little brother, the 2000. (Picture
Mirage2000D_01).
The 4000 airframe was far more efficient than that of the F15C to
the point that despite the comparatively low power of its engines
it did out-perform its climbing rate performances
significantly,
instantaneous and sustain turning rate also were equal or superior
to the US fighter.
(Note; engine development have always been one major weakness of
all French aircrafts, until the M88, often being less powerful than
their American counterparts, they were instead biased toward
reliability an optimized for medium/high altitude).
A good look at the picture representing the Mirage 4000 from front
(Mirage 4000_02)
reavels the main differences between itself and Rafale.
The combination of shoulder-mounted air intakes and canard surface
is striking. By comparison, Rafale wing root posses a small LEX
going to the air-intakes lips(Picture Rafale C01_01). This provide
for extra-lift when the AOA increases, regardless of the speed but
obviously induces more drag.
In order to create the extra lift generated by the LEX surfaces,
both Mirage 2000 and Typhoon resorts to the use of strakes placed
above the air intakes. These small surfaces creates vertices
which
run over the wing root surface, adding to the lift a high AOA. They
do not allow for controlled lift like
mobile surfaces would and their action increases drag as well.
(Picture Strakes_01).
To compensate for that, Dassault dispensed with the old tech
strakes and limited the LEX size, opting instead for a controllable
way of increasing lift over the wing by positioning the canard so
that they are controlling lift together with pitch movement, in
combination with leading edge flaps, flaps, but also ailerons. At
Mach 2, a 9G turn is likely to generate a huge amount of drag with
virtually any design, so the trick would be to minimize it,
optimize both aerodynamics, relaxed stability and Fly-by-wire
control, this come with a perfect integration of the aerodynamic
devices to the airframe in the
First place, as Fliy-by-Wire technology will only allow for the
aircraft to fly WITHIN its real
aerodynamic flight envelope.
The optimization of Rafales aerodynamics is there to minimize drag
and increase lift all together separately or simultaneously, a
lower RCS and higher was also achieved with design changes from the
A to other Rafales. (Compare Picture Rafale A_01, with Pictures
RafaleM&C-01).
An instable aircraft, like the F16, Grippen or Typhon, Rafale can
generate a huge amount of pitch movement in very little time, to
counter this, they all need to be constantly controlled by their
flight computer. So why not use this characteristic for reducing
drag, optimizing lift, as well as increasing instantaneous turn
rate? Rafale doesnt loose anything by having its canard surfaces
positioned at shoulder level, it actually pushes the development of
the canard delta combination a step further than any other design.
This means also that the performances of the airframe reflect this
level of development. With a minimum controlled speed of 80Kts,
Rafale would eats F16 and F18 for breakfast lunch and diner in a
dog-fight, and would no doubt be more at ease than Typhoon at the
sort of
speed where the majority of these engagements occurs. (Picture
R91_Trap_01).
How is that? During the Afghan campaign, French pilots flying
Rafale N were mixing it up with US Navys F14, F18 (From the USS
Theodore Roosevelt and USS John C Stennis) and Spanish Matadors
From the Italian carrier Garibaldi (which anyone knows to be
Harrier Jump Jets).
An Air Force exchange test pilot and graduate of the US Air Force
Test Pilot School, Commandant Santiago explains the Rafale quickly
gained the upper hand over the F14, F18 Hornets and AV-8B+
harriers. The tomcat is an outdated fighter and not a match for a
Rafale. fighting against a Hornet is a bit harder, but thanks to
low wing loading and extreme agility, the Rafale is markedly
superior, and has the leading edge. Meaning: Rafale is better in
all areas, including low speed, high AOA where fA18 excels; Also,
the hornet is less protected against a departure from controlled
flight at very low speed, and a FA18 pilot have to be more careful
than us. As a result, we can devote all our attention to tactics
whereas they have to constantly think about their flying
parameters. (AFM July 2002).
The other aspect of Rafales features which strikes me as geniuses
is the combination nose cone/ air intakes/ canards. It differs from
Mirage 4000 by a superior use of the aerodynamic characteristics
of
the three and allow the aircraft to reach Mach2 with single-shock
air intakes, something that the F16 and FA18 cannot achieve. Such
an air intake contains NO mobile parts, making it lighter and less
vulnerable to ground fire for example. There also, simplicity and
sturdiness are achieved by a better integration of the diverse
components, which in turn make for a lighter, cheaper airframe but
also
a more maintainable and easier one to repair.
According to Mr. Revellin-Falcoz, from Dassault, visibility in the
froward sector was a priority as well as a requirement, especially
for the Guy in the back or WSO during air to ground missions. But
it wasnt the only gain possible. The aerodynamics where also
improving as well. (Compare picture
Rafale B_01 to Rafale A_02).
So situated, the canards provides with an unobstructed forward
view, more efficiency and better control at low speed for carrier
operation, (all of which are missing on Eurofighters design). They
take advantage of the flow induction over the wing and can be used
to create lift as well as lowering the drag ratio at a given AOA,
and this include high speed/high G turns, and aerobreaking as
Rafale dispenses with the air brakes, their vulnerability and
weight penalty. In a few words, the less part there are, the more
damage-resistant and light the structure can be. There is a slight
increase in AOA when Rafale brakes with the help of it canards,
leading edge flaps, flaps and ailerons and thinking of it, it could
be an advantage while chasing a Hornet or Viper. At high AOA, a
Rafale pilot having the option
to modulate the thrust of the engines while aerobraking
increasing the AOA, minimizing the amount of correction in pitch to
get the gun piper on target. Mach2 fights havent really happened
so far,
I havent eared about mach2 kills until Eurofighter decided to
bring it up. Also, this is a cold war requirement which might not
be of the relevance it once was. Problem is, if an opponent can get
you at lower speed, partly because of more developed aerodynamics,
chances are it will also get you at Mach2 if it can go that fast
and Rafale can do Mach2 as well as super-cruise. (Picture
R91_Deployment_01).
Dassault reckon it WILL do it at Mach1,6 when equipped with Snecma
M88-3, in Air Superiority configuration.
The most comparable model of Rafale to Typhon is the C model, it is
dedicated mainly for Air Defense and I think it is the one I would
fly if I could get my hands on one, (but then again, it could take
time, and then some!). Rafale C pictures reveals what it and Mirage
4000 really have in common.
In the case of the Mirage, (Picture Mirage 4000_02), the nose cone
seems disproportionately large, creating a rule area from just
before the wind shield root, a curved line going right behind the
souris where the splitter plate separates the fuselage from the
air intakes. During transonic to supersonic tests with the
aircraft, someone at Dassault noticed that the souris were losing
part of their efficiency without significantly affecting the
performances. As this phenomenon occurred near Mach2, they
concluded that it was possible to achieve Mach2 without the souris
or any other mobile device.
The key was the shape of the forward section of the fuselage down
to the edge of the splitter plates behind the cockpit. At around
Mach 1,8, an area of high pressure build-up in front of the engine
compressor as it is no longer capable of recycling the amount of
air feed by the air intake, pressures
Behind and in front of it start to grow appart. This creates a
shock wave which reduces intake pressure dramatically. At around
this speed, the F16 intake suffers a loss of pressure of around
25%, thrust loss is>< 45%, increase fuel consumption is
>
The technology used to counter this effect is called Multi-shock
intakes and is used by F14/15 as well as other Mach 2+ Aircrafts,
Mig 21 to 31, Shukoi 30 serie, and MiragesIII/F1/2000/4000 in the
form of mobile plates or souris as is the case of the French
aircrafts and the Mig 21. It is for this reason that the Greek Air
Force have figured that the Mirage 2000 was getting better than the
F16 at higher altitude, this, despite its less powerful engine and
a lower thrust-to-weight ratio. These devices work in two ways; by
reducing the airflow speed before it reached the compressor blades,
but also by creating one or more shock waves to reduce the
amplitude of the one created by the air intake lips.
Rafale design does that by using a shaped area where the formation
of high pressure is controlled aerodynamically and retarded until
the desired speed is achieved. I believe strongly that the larger
cross section of the nose actually creates a slight shock wave but
also that the design of the all airframe in front of the air intake
retards the build up of the high pressures which are causing the
problem,
and this, without the need for mobile parts which is saving
complexity, weight and vulnerability.
The F35 uses the same sort of technology but is not Mach2 capable,
which says a lot about
Dassault Aerodynamics know-how and its Engineers capacities to
implement it.
The idea was simple but the all thing had taken some serious
expertise to put together and that is something that Dassault had
by the bucket. Eurofighter simply did NOT have that level of
experience.
Typhoon air intakes are qualified of bizarres at Dassault,
(picture Eurofighter_03),
they see them as as advanced as that of Concorde as far as the
reacquired specs were concerned.
As a matter of fact, they have a rather good point there, as the
air intakes of Concorde are of the same design but well above 20
years old when it come to their technology.
If there is no need for a higher speed than Mach 2, there is no
need for anything moving in the air intakes. Also, when an engine
suddenly cuts off, the change of pressure in the affected air
intake doesnt cause the other engine to surge, flame out and die
if the air intakes are well separated. This particular point is of
a primary importance when it come to fighter technology, I does not
have any official datas on the crash of the Spanish Typhoon but
Ill bet that this had some to do with this particular aspect of
its design.
After all, it was an engine-off test and both engines went dead on
the pilot (which is not something youd wanted to happen while on a
bomb run at low level, doing 750 Kt with a loadful of
ordonance).
(Picture Eurofighter_Loss_01).
A lateral positioning of the air intakes also helps pressure
recovery, as well as reducing the amount of weight brought by
structural strengthening needed for naval operations, Typhoons
intake design was simply coming with an excessive weight penalty
and this is probably why there is no
Naval version of the Typhoon. So all in all, it was more a case of
having no choice, as it is obvious that Typhoon is was not capable
of meeting the French specifications, and the only option for
Dassault was either to claim design leadership (which was refused
by other partners), or go its own way and develop its own design in
the form of the ACX. (Picture ACX_01).
It is well possible that Rafale will never achieve the commercial
success of Typhoon,
but this is certainly not due to Eurofighters superiority when it
come to its level of aerodynamic
development nor will it be because a superior available power as
Snecmas M88/2 thrust to weight
ratio is well on par with Eurojets EJ200, and that, to make
Typhoon fully Air to Ground capable,
its weight had to grow by nearly a ton to around 11000kg.
(Air & Cosmos Aviation International Sept 199
.
Later version of M88 will also provide a higher thrust (9500kg+
target), a lower consumption and
reduced maintenance level.
One could argue that Dassault never claimed the Rafale top speed to
be Mach 2, but Rafale A
achieved just that with a lower thrust to weight ratio than Rafale
C or M and one cant see why
these models would not do that speed with more power installed. A
close examination of Dassault
own figure reveals an interesting fact, they describe the aircraft
as 10 tons class and Mach 1,8+,
now thats what I call sandbaging, so the clues lies somewhere else
when it come to top speed.
After a few month operating it, the French Navy own web sites
claims Rafale N
top speed to be Mach2. Knowing them a little I cant see them
inflating such figures
just for the stake of showing off, if they say Mach 2 capable, they
pushes them at Mach 2
and surely knows they can do it, as does the US Navy F14 and FA18
pilots by now.
Approach speed during carrier ops is about 160Kts at 16* AOA, less
than the
Super-Etendard while being easier to fly throughout the all flying
envelope.
The all landing procedure is done with minimum stick input (a two
finger thing),
autothrottle taking care of engine regime change, allowing for a
constant AOA and speed.
If ever the question as why to build Rafale was ever asked, the
answer is that the specs are
meet brilliantly and both the French Navy and Armee de lAir have
their 4th generation fighter,
which would have been impossible to achieve with Eurofighter
Typhoon.
Weighting >< 590 kilos more than C, due to structural
strengthening, Rafale M manages
to carry 9500kg of external load, (against >< 8050Kg for FA18
and 6500Kg for Typhoon),
have a higher fuel ratio than the both of them, 2 more hard point
than the FA18E/F, five of them
wet, it is also better suited to Low speed/ High AOA flying than
both of them. If anyone needed
more evidence of Rafale more advanced design it lies on its
performances, not on its makers
commercial gift or the French Government of the time, which did
little to promote it,
let alone help developing it.
Meanwhile both Typhoon and FA18 E/F are entering service or
achieving Opval status at
squadron level. Both these two fighter are very capable indeed, but
cannot claim to better Rafale
nor to bring as much an innovative solution to the challenges given
to their manufacturers by
their customers requirements.
As it turned out, Rafale C was assigned to the French Flight Test
Center (CEV) and used conjointly by Dassault, Snecma and CEV for
test and trials while Rafale N was developed and produced in view
of its service entry with the French Aeronavale as it was perceived
as being most urgently needed, the Navy having to replace its
agingF8 Cruzes ASAP.
The Concurrency
It would be easy for anyone to make claims such as our aircraft is
superior to this of the concurrence but does this come with any
concrete evidence?
In the case of Eurofighter, I think NOT and I intend to prove my
point. There are several aspects where an aircraft can be superior
to another one; Airframe, engine(s), avionics. The first must be as
advanced as the available technology allows simply because a basic
design requires a lot more work time and money to be changed. This
is not the case with the later, or at least by a much smaller
extend as they always can be upgraded as technology
progresses.
Eurofighters EF 2000 was born from a cold-war requierment, when
Britain, France, what was then West Germany and Italy felled the
need for an Agile Combat Aircraft to enter service in the
1990.
It was to be a single seater canard delta, twin engines, with a
primary role of Air superiority, but also an Air to Ground
capability. This is where the discordances between partners began
to appear;
the French wanted to keep the aircraft weight to a 8,5 tones
target, the British wanted something in the neighboring of 10
tones. As they though rightly to be the most experienced in the
canard-delta field, Dassault also wanted design leadership. This
created an insolvable problem and this early study group saw its
most competent partner leave to do it alone.
When Spain joined in 1985, EFA consortium experience was limited to
British V bomber serie, a couple of more or less successful delta
prototypes and more to the point, MBBs work with
Rockwell on the Enhanced Manoeuverability Technology demonstrator,
the X31.
(Picture X31_Infos_01). It was based on MBBs work on the TKF and
Rockwell HiMAT
research drone. No doubt that it provided the two companies with a
lot of useful datas but never evolved into a really advanced
aerodynamic concept as it was not designed to.
First flight occurred in August 1988 and it laid the basis for EFA
basic configuration,
with a cranked delta, long moment harm canards and box like intake,
mounted under the
nose as is Typhoons today. The point made by Rockwell/DASA staff
at the time was; This airframe is designed to provide us with
valuable datas on some flight regimes and part of the flight
envelope that interest us; thus we make it simple to keep the price
down. It was conceived from the outset for use of thrust vectoring
but its aerodynamics were not as developed as that of Rafale simply
because this wasnt the goal. This is where I personally think EFA
lost an opportunity to capitalize on MBBs research, they kept the
basic design, adding only a second engine to it instead of
developing it further and OPTIMISE it. They simply ran short of
experience and know-how when it came to it
and EFA airframe simply wasnt given the opportunity to show the
true potential of the delta canard formula. Has it not been a
question of pride for BAE, the resulting aircraft would probably
have
looked very much like a slightly oversized Rafale C with a pair of
EJ 200 engines. I understand that it could have been unthinkable
for Dassaults partner to accept its design leadership, but history
shows that it would have been the best choice for all. Especially
now that the basic requirements have shifted so dramatically from
Air Superiority to Multi-Role, which includes low level/high speed
capability.
While testing FA18/E, McDonnell Douglas did encounter a wing drop
problem at high AOA, only partially sorted with modifications to
the wings folding systems, the airflow diffusers on the upper
surface of the LEX, and software.
From EAP, its technology demonstrator, Typhoon saw its wing design
change from a crancked-delta to a simple delta platform (Picture
EAP_01).
The funny thing is these two problems were related, in the case of
Eurofighter, inexperience with delta wing pushed them to opt for a
configuration which induced the problem by design, it was kind of
expected as EFA was so closely inspired by MBBs research on the
F31 and that the wing platform of X31 IS a double delta. As
everyone must know at Eurofighter as well at McDonnell Douglas by
now such a configuration have the characteristic to posses not one
but two distinct center of lift (related to both distinctive parts
of the wing) moving aft at a different rate with the increase of
AOA. This cause the two different wing area to interfere with each
others upper wing flow so that a lateral instability occurs when
the AOA increases.
Curiously, by increasing the wings LEX surface by a huge amount
compared to the original
Hornet design, McD replicated exactly the same problem when
designing the E/F, the couple LEX/wing acting just as a double
delta configuration, thus inducing the wing drop problem
encountered during FA18E development. As it is not a delta and does
not rely on relaxed stability, FA18 did not need such a drastic
redesign as in the case of EFAs wing. But the fact remains that
they both encountered aerodynamic difficulties during development
and that their performances are not superior to Rafale but in some
case inferior, as their own manufacturers figures shows.
The interesting fact is that Dassault never really tried to
capitalize on that, and restrained themselves to mild comments such
as We dont have the wing drop problems that the FA18 encounters
, or We never had to change anything on the basic design or the
FBW software.
From a projected 8.500Kgs, Rafale C itself had to take on half a
ton in airframe strengthening in order to allow it to meet a 750Kts
speed at low level against a required 800Kts. This increase in
empty weight also apply to Typhoon and from a superior thrust to
weight ratio and wing loading, it actually turn out to become a
less attractive solution when in its multi-role form.
To meet its latest requierments, Typhoon lost the very edge that
was supposed to make it superior to its competitors and that, with
a less advanced airframe than Rafale. Its fuel ratio is lower than
both Rafale and fa18 E/F and when its critics pointed out that the
canard surfaces would be in the field of view of the crews during
Air-to-Ground missions, Eurofighter answer was that low level
flying was NOT part of its requierments and that, since threats
were very unlikely to appear in this sector, it would not be a
problem. Well Im afraid it is a problem now, and if Typhoon is
going to fulfil the role of the Tornado in the future, It might
well turn out to be quiet one for the aircrews flying it, which
will have to refuel more often, or trade weapons load against
fuel.
The front view issue is also creeping back up, particularly for the
back-seater if not the pilot.
As the Afgan campaign have showed, the capacity for an aircraft to
loiter during long period and carry a heavy warload is becoming
more and more important. The same aircraft is now expected
to hit several different targets during the same mission at the
call of ground troops which lives might well depend on the ability
of the crew and aircraft to deliver in time. (Picture
Eurofighter_04).
This is where Typhoon falls short, with its lower fuel fraction,
its combat radius is given for 250 to 300nm with a max external
load of 6,5tons (fuel and weapon), FA18 E/F claims is 390nm with 4x
455Kg bombs (1280Kg) two AIM9L Sidewinders and external tanks, max
external load of 8050kg, Rafale is doing 590nm with three drop
tank, 12x 250Kg bombs (3000Kg), and four Micas AAMs, max external
load of 9500kg. With 13 hard points, Typhoon scores no better than
Rafale N which posses one less than other Rafales, but have two
more than FA18 E/F.
(Picture 21st Century Combat Aircraft_01).
One can argue that one or the other avionics are more advanced, I
would leave that for a further debate, simply adding that future
Radar developments are likely to become joint-European
ventures
in order to cut prices and harmonize European future armament
industry. Weapon systems are also likely to become an European
matter and at the end of the day, the main difference might well
be
limited to engines and airframe. With both aircraft due to see
upgrades and further improvement in their respective
engine/avionics departments, the importance of a fully developed
aerodynamic formula is now more apparent than ever. The rest is up
to the salesmen and I have to say that in this department,
Eurofighter might well have the edge over Dassault, but that at a
simple technical level, the upper
hand lies with the French manufacturer. Marcel Dassault*, had a
motto: If it look good, it flies good.
You might well think otherwise but my personal experience tells me
that it is true.
Here is a list of my references and links:
Air International/ Air Force Monthly/ Air &Cosmos/ Flight
International/ Combat Aircraft/
Air Zone/ Air Fan/ Aircraft Model Monthly/ Air& space/ AIR
Enthusiast-The historic Aviation Journal No 96/Le Fana de
lAviation/Warships International Review/Scale Aviation Modeller
International/ International Air Power Review- special publication-
Carrier Aviation-Air Power Directory/ International Air Power
Review Vol 4/ WorldAir power Journal Vol 10 and 17 / Rafale; Les
ailes du Future by Francois Robineau (Le cherche midi editeur)/
Design for the kill by Mike Spick (Airlife)/ Fundamentals of
Fighter Design by Ray Whitford (Airlife)/ The international
directory of Military Aircraft 1996/97 by Gerard Frawley and Jim
Thorn (Airlife)/ www.janes.com &/
www.dassault-aviation.fr
I will be open to debate but if you think that Im wrong, but would
greatly appreciate if you could back up your claims with some
substantial datas. About Typhoon, I reckon I find it difficult to
dig, so if you have any serious source, I will be more than happy
to have a look at it.
There no point in making assumptions on the subject as it turn up
too often to be a loss of time, everyone is more than welcome to
come up with more infos, references or links, if there are any
aspects of this that you doesnt understand, I can try to
help.
Also, as a Frenchman, English is not my first language, so if you
find me difficult to read sorry,
I will try to improve on my writing !
Thunder bugging out.
*(Previously Marcel Bloch, the maker of several French WWII
Fighters like the Bloch152 or the 157 which, captured as a
prototype during the German Army advance, did so much to inspire
the FW190!)
