Know Your 'Rafale'

[Bornubus]

Meteor isnt coming for India, you can be sure of that.

No i can't be sure of that and the way this costly deal went on no body is sure of anything.

 

[kstriya]

Can we fix uttam AESAa

su 35 is a single seat flanker with a huge radar and new gen avionics and weapons pakage but as good as MKI and after AESA upgrade mki will be much more better in the role percieved for rafale but what can we say about IAF top honchos .... chootiye saale

Can HAL fit the Uttam AESA in SU30 MKI, it would be great platform to analyze the system viz a viz the Israeli AESA.

 

[salute]

http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/international/mideast-africa/2016/01/23/uae-eyes-moving-mirage-fighters-iraqs-kurdish-areas-procuring-rafales/79108590/

The UAE source stated that the expected cost of each aircraft is expected to be around $250 million for a total cost of $15 billion

Either the UAE is negotiating similar strategic stuff with France just like India or there is no such thing, just the aircraft which costs around $250million a piece

similar how,

what india and france stuck with price and india also wanted half of the total cost reinvested back to india but france was going further one third reinvestment of total cost,

also india wanted dassault to take guarantee of indian made rafales,

tot and other stuff,

india planned to produced rafales at india basically as many as iaf wants,

uae had no such plans dont know do they ???

usually with exception of saudi arabia other arab countries follows indias lead,

what india decides they trusts and wants it,

maybe this recently changed.

 

[garg_bharat]

IAF will start getting Tejas much before any Rafale appears in IAF colours, and that is assuming any Rafales are inducted at all.

So let us see how it goes. Now it has become public that French want 11billion USD for 36 planes, and India is offering 7billion USD.

Su-30MKI costs GOI around 400 crore per unit, or around 65 million per unit.

At 7000M for the deal, per unit Rafale is about 200 million per unit. This of course includes maintenance cost. Still higher than Su-30.

At 11000, each Rafale is > 300M per unit. So optimism has its limits in case of Rafale.

 

[garg_bharat]

IAF wants to believe this hyperbole about Rafale. I doubt the civil side of Govt is so certain.

I would prefer to buy Agni missiles for the money, which cost GOI only 20 crore a piece, and will serve far better in case of nuclear war.

Do I want to use a 300M warplane to drop a dumb bomb on a terrorist camp???

 

[A chauhan]

Mind it, we played game to get ToT by MMRCA, and we were defeated by the west by stalling the deal on financial excuse !!

No matter which MMRCA we would have opted Eurofighter/Gripen etc. they would have delayed us.It was better to invest big amount on Tejas or AMCA rather than doing MMRCA, we lost almost 7 years.

 

[WARREN SS]

I hve seeing lot misconception about rafale here
Let Me Clear some of it
Do you Guess No the Life Cycle Cost of MKI?

Do I want to use a 300M warplane to drop a dumb bomb on a terrorist camp???

The Complete Life Cycle cost you are Adding Here??

 

[Nuvneet Kundu]

S-400 deal will go through

Any news update on this?

Mind it, we played game to get ToT by MMRCA, and we were defeated by the west by stalling the deal on financial excuse !!

No matter which MMRCA we would have opted Eurofighter/Gripen etc. they would have delayed us.It was better to invest big amount on Tejas or AMCA rather than doing MMRCA, we lost almost 7 years.

Well said. We have partially managed to get some things. For example, we have got ToT on GE F414 S6 IN engine, we have ToT on standoff missiles from Israel, we have got offer of ToT for Snecma M88 engine from France, we have already got ToT for stealth paint from Russia during Brahmos acquisition. We have an AESA radar JV with Elta. So almost all ingredients for a good 4++ gen plane lies with us, it's time to start bulk production and sales to other third world countries, make money, use that money for R&D. That's the only way to sustain a defense industry. It will become impossibly costly to sustain so many R&D projects purely on tax payer's money alone, considering we have Trillions of dollars worth of railways and roads to build domestically.

 

[WARREN SS]

Well i go by another analysis that has been with me for some time. Its for a commercial jet but a rough analogy may be used for computation.

LCC is in simple words Design manufacture operation disposal cost over lifetime

http://**********/attachments/upload_2016-1-27_14-27-34-png.289824/
Source: 16,885 Aircraft systems Engineering Cost analysis by Karen Wilcox , MIT, ACDL

Now i can give the Design to manufacturing costs based on open sources and very very rough estimations.

See part 1


http://**********/attachments/upload_2016-1-27_14-23-33-png.289822/

Basically it implies based on the program cost and present confirmed orders (including 36 Indian Rafales), the amortised per unit cost comes out to be Euro 133.61 Mn

Part 2 based on number of orders, this amortised per unit cost comes down as below

http://**********/attachments/upload_2016-1-27_14-25-46-png.289823/
As seen the amortised cost if Rafale reaches a similar number as Mirages of say 600 nos, will be Euro 98.69 Mn per Jet

Part 3,
From the same Karen Wilcox research,

http://**********/attachments/upload_2016-1-27_14-31-51-png.289826/

http://**********/attachments/upload_2016-1-27_14-32-7-png.289827/

FOr the time being let us assume the life cycle cost based on the above model only negating its for commercial jets bcz Crew cost 40% can be replaced by 10% additional cost in fuel and 30% cost of weapons. This means fuel cost is now 30%

and using the publicly available one figure

So if we go from bottom to top, Rafale Operational Cost is estimated at $16,500 per hour

Rafale Loiter time is around 3 hours

So based on the above data

http://**********/attachments/upload_2016-1-27_15-18-30-png.289835/

http://**********/attachments/upload_2016-1-27_15-36-29-png.289837/

Part 4 is total LIfe Cycle costs of all steps together and thus it is Euro 133.61 Mn + Euro 43.40 Mn = Euro 177 Mn or $ 191.16 Mn

If you consider from Flyaway price then life cycle cost is 3 X multiple of flyaway cost.

Considering a scenario under MII with 100 more orders and export follow and new orders, the potential Amortised price of 450 jets is Euro 111 Mn implying LCC cost of Euro 154 Mn
If its for India 200 Jets, and another exports and France orders adding a total of 300 over present 309 orders meaning a total of 600 jets then amortised cost comes out to Euro 98.7 Mn and LCC cost would be Euro 142 Mn

This shows why the line in India is strategic in nature as the MII order allows around of 10-20% savings in cost

Judging by the capital cost component per base setup per squadron should be around Euro 522 Mn so for our 2 base of operations it should be around Euro 1 Bn.

Thats the best i understand. IF anyone has a different understanding pls feel free to explain so that i can also understand from that.

 

[Compersion]

right decision but the implementation and execution can be better. must be something bigger and overlapping behind the "delays".

 

[garg_bharat]

I hve seeing lot misconception about rafale here
Let Me Clear some of it
Do you Guess No the Life Cycle Cost of MKI?

The Complete Life Cycle cost you are Adding Here??

Su-30mki is 50% of 300m in life cycle costs. Iaf knows that well.

 

[WolfPack86]

Rafale air to ground abilities.
1. AASM Hammer very good in terms of range.
2.15 km (9 mi) at very low altitude
55 km (34 mi) at high altitude.

The Armement Air-Sol Modulaire (Air-to-Ground Modular Weapon) (AASM) "Hammer" is a French Precision-Guided Munition developed by Sagem Défense Sécurité. AASM comprises a frontal guidance kit and a rear-mounted range extension kit matched to a dumb bomb. The weapon is modular because it can integrate different types of guidance units and different types of bombs.

The basic version features a 250-kilogram (550 lb) bomb plus hybrid inertial navigation system (INS) / Global Positioning System (GPS) guidance. Other variants add infrared homing or laser guidance to increase accuracy; there are also versions with 125-kilogram (276 lb), 500-kilogram (1,100 lb) or 1,000-kilogram (2,200 lb) bomb bodies.

It entered service in 2007 with the French Air Force and Naval Aviation, from Rafale and Mirage 2000. In 2011, AASM was given the name HAMMER (Highly Agile Modular Munition Extended Range). Chosen for commercial reasons, the English acronym is also used in French. The French pronunciation of "AASM" was deux-A-S-M or A-deux-S-M.

 

[WolfPack86]

Cost of AASM Hammer.
1.The cost is to high but it is worthy weapon.
2. It is better than other weapon.

 

[WolfPack86]

Cost.
According to French Senate's Comité des Prix de Revient des fabrications d'Armement (CPRA) cited by the daily La Tribune, the total cost of the AASM program including development costs and the delivery of 2348 kits is €846m.[10] On that basis the per-weapon cost is $300,000 or twelve times the cost of the comparable American JDAM, although the latter has been manufactured in much larger quantities (~250,000 kits) and would be reasonable to expect a drastic reduction of the price of the French munition if larger contracts are signed and economies of scale are achieved.[11]

The 2012 defence budget presented to the Senate reported the project had cost €592.2m (~US$800m) with a unit cost of €164,000, or €252,000 including development costs.

 

[WolfPack86]

The Variants of AASM Hammer.
AASM comes in several variants according to its size and the type of guidance used.

• The current model features a 250 kg bomb matched to a nose-mounted guidance kit and a rear-mounted range extension kit, containing a rocket booster and enlarged fins. There is also a 125 kg, first tested in 2009, and a proposed 1000 kg version.
• As for guidance, the basic version combines data from a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver and an inertial navigation system (INS) unit through Kalman filtering, achieving a 10 metres (32 ft 10 in) circular error probability (CEP). This "decametric" all-weather variant is complemented by a "metric" day/night fair weather version which adds infrared homing (IIR) guidance that matches the target area with a target model stored in its memory for a 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) CEP.
• A third version uses laser guidance instead of IIR allowing it to hit moving targets with more precision.[12] It was qualified in April 2013.[13]

On October 2010, these versions were given alphanumeric designations with the INS/GPS version becoming the SBU-38 (SBU=Smart Bomb Unit), the INS/GPS/IIR version becoming the SBU-54 and the INS/GPS/SALH version becoming the SBU-64; the system as a whole was renamed Hammer to make it more appealing to export customers

 

[WolfPack86]

Operational use[edit]
The first order for AASM was placed by the DGA in 2000 for a total of 744 units; deliveries started in 2007 after a two-year delay in development.[15] In 2009 a second order for 680 units was placed, by the end of that year deliveries had reached 334.[16]

Afghanistan[edit]
AASM made its combat debut on April 20, 2008, during the War in Afghanistan when a Rafale fighter fired two in support of ground troops.[17]

Libya[edit]
On 24 March 2011 it was reported that an AASM missile fired from a Dassault Rafale was used to destroy a Libyan Air Force G-2/Galeb light ground attack/trainer jet, the first Libyan warplane to challenge the no-fly zone during the 2011 Libyan civil war, on the runway just after the plane had landed at Misrata Airport.[18]

On 6 April 2011, it was reported that a AASM missile fired from a Dassault Rafale was used to destroy a Libyan tank at a range of 55 km.[19]

In Libya, 225 AASM bombs have been fired[20]

"Also referred to as the Hammer, the AASM weapon has impressed during the campaign to date. Incorporating a precision guidance kit and propulsion system, the design will eventually be available for use with standard bombs weighing between 125kg and 1,000kg, although a 250kg version is the only one currently in service. Sagem cites a range capability of more than 32nm from high altitude, or 8nm from low level. Launches can also be made from an off-axis angle of up to 90°, while up to six weapons can be fired against individual targets in a single pass and with just one trigger press." And "Libya represents the first opportunity for the French air force to employ the Thales Damoclestargeting pod, although the Navy gave the system its combat debut over Afghanistan in late 2010

 

[guru-dutt]

Can we fix uttam AESAa
Can HAL fit the Uttam AESA in SU30 MKI, it would be great platform to analyze the system viz a viz the Israeli AESA.

well its a standard parctice some time its told some times it kept under wraps but every institution like this tests every radar on all the possible platforms avilable so i assume yes versions of UTTAM are or will be tested on all fighter platforms of IAF & IN

 

[Tactical Frog]

So what is it going to be ?? Will India buy the damn jets or not ? I bought a stack of Thales stocks, just in case . Man. It is been a long walk, to get there. Dont you think it is time to get some cool firepower, like the Egyptians ?

 

[Gessler]

So what is it going to be ?? Will India buy the damn jets or not ? I bought a stack of Thales stocks, just in case . Man. It is been a long walk, to get there. Dont you think it is time to get some cool firepower, like the Egyptians ?

Relax. Your investments won't go waste.

We will buy the jets. A lot more than 36 eventually. Although most of the rest could be built in India.

 

[Tactical Frog]

I appreciate your optimism. It is just that there has been a lot of negative feedback in french medias after Hollande's trip ending with another MoU and no contract. Still the Rafale is such an awesome plane ... an universal fighter jet , just like the F4 Phantom was for decades. It is actually cheap for all it can do