Know Your 'Rafale'

Corvus Splendens

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Yo what's NATO standard in a NATO bird that frequently flies training sorties and talks with F-35s, Super Hornets, Falcons and Typhoons.
These are the additions we ordered on our Rafales:

1. Radio Altimeter height measurement from 10,000 feet to 15,000 feet
2. Radar Warning receiver (RWR) frequency band from 2.5-18 GHz
3. Low Band Jammer (LBJ) pod with frequency band of 1-4.5 GHz
4. Flight Data Recorder (FDR) recording time from 10 hours data to 16 hours data plus 2 hours of audio
5. High altitude engine start-up to 12,000 feet
6. Non Cooperative Target Recognition (NCTR) mode in Radar
7. Doppler Beam Sharpening (DBS) and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) modes in Radar
8. Ground Moving Target Indicator and Ground Moving Target Track (GMTI/T) modes in Radar
9. Infra-Red Search and Track (IRST)
10. Helmet Mounted Display (HMD)
11. Training Mode in Missile Approach Warning System (MAWS)
12. Towed Decoys, Very High Frequency Omni Range (VOR)
 

binayak95

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Have a look to the super LM spec :

Wonderfull 5th gen technology !
Unfair, come on. Its a supersonic VLO VTOL bird. Its a miracle in and of itself.

SHARs are still a technological marvel, this is more so! Accidents happen, just a part of military aviation
 

binayak95

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In a french forum I gave some datas about the HAL bill to build a Rafale in India. It was 2,7 more expensive than the french price !
A Rafale built in France, without air base accomodation, no spares, no tools and test bench, no weapon cost around 100€ million with VAT. ie 80 million for export.

HAL is out of the game. Even MKI are probably assembled/built for twice the right price.
MKI is actually cheaper because of massive localisation in pvt industry, and an entire ecosystem build around Russian birds since the 70s.

And not to mention successive tranches of upgrades and replacement of Russian systems with Indian/NATO equivalents.
 

DumbPilot

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These are the additions we ordered on our Rafales:

6. Non Cooperative Target Recognition (NCTR) mode in Radar
8. Ground Moving Target Indicator and Ground Moving Target Track (GMTI/T) modes in Radar
That's surprising.. things like these are standard, especially NCTR. That's like charging extra for an IFF system or installing one more mode on the IFF interrogation/response - same with the GMT modes.

Infact, both of those modes have been available on US(since the 80-90s) and I am pretty sure on our own Russian birds/Tejas too for decades.
 

DumbPilot

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Usually NTCR modes in radar will be removed on the export version.
If we buy it as an extra addon, do the French sell us their NCTR libraries as well? Or do we integrate our own only? Or an addition of both libraries?
 

_merlin_

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If we buy it as an extra addon, do the French sell us their NCTR libraries as well? Or do we integrate our own only? Or an addition of both libraries?
I don't think they will sell us that. It might even be that we get a degraded capability NCTR instead of the full spec French one. All these are guesses but usually exported radars does not have full spec as the home country one so stands to reason even NCTR mode added later won't be full spec one.
 

BON PLAN

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Q: What is the majority cost factor in so called “India specific changes” in Rafale?
A: Making NATO standard Litening pod, JDAM/Spice family, HMD, NATO standard jammers etc. integrate with Rafale.

PS: all other NATO jets except EF to some extent have been validated to use all of the above and would not cost the customer.
Litening pod : it's the customer choice.
NATO std Jammers? what is that? All the bird, including jammers is natively NATO.
No JDAM on Rafale. Spice : a customer choice.
 

bubzy

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Q: What is the majority cost factor in so called “India specific changes” in Rafale?
A: Making NATO standard Litening pod, JDAM/Spice family, HMD, NATO standard jammers etc. integrate with Rafale.

PS: all other NATO jets except EF to some extent have been validated to use all of the above and would not cost the customer.


First, it is completely false and already demonstrated by other people here.

But also, Your statement makes no sense at all.

It is not because something is NATO compatible that it is automatically included.
Example : Meteor missile is fully compatible NATO and used by many Nato countries. But it is not included in Super Hornet package. like many other ammunitions and pods.

When isreal order F16, they have asked for many modifications, same for F15SA for saudi arabia, like F35 for Norway and Israel. A lot of customers have there own request to improve or adapt the system they will buy with their own needs.
 

MirageBlue

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abingdonboy

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Navy is going for rafale m

Said so from day 1- Rafale is the only game in town, SH was just to keep the French honest + to tick the regulatory boxes (open multi party bidding)

i hope both sides are finally wise enough to talk sensibly on a strategic level and neither gets myopic and starts bean counting.

If one connects the dots, France is on the cusp of taking over the position Russia/USSR held with India (technological partnership where nothing was off the table) and india continues its policy of keeping the US at arm’s length

the French involvement will surely/hopefully be in:

-Rafale (IAF/IN)
- 110-125KN JV
- IMRH engine
- AMCA (?)
-SSBN/SSN
- civil nuclear reactors
-AWACS (NETRA Mk.2 and AWACS(I) will be Airbus mounted)+SIGINT


along The way there will be plenty more projects popping up if the above go ahead
 

abingdonboy

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Yo what's NATO standard in a NATO bird that frequently flies training sorties and talks with F-35s, Super Hornets, Falcons and Typhoons.
These are the additions we ordered on our Rafales:

1. Radio Altimeter height measurement from 10,000 feet to 15,000 feet
That’s pretty remarkable, airliners don’t fly off rad alt until 2500ft and the IAF wants 15K? Do they want to fly hands off over the Himalayas?
 

Blademaster

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Said so from day 1- Rafale is the only game in town, SH was just to keep the French honest + to tick the regulatory boxes (open multi party bidding)

i hope both sides are finally wise enough to talk sensibly on a strategic level and neither gets myopic and starts bean counting.

If one connects the dots, France is on the cusp of taking over the position Russia/USSR held with India (technological partnership where nothing was off the table) and india continues its policy of keeping the US at arm’s length

the French involvement will surely/hopefully be in:

-Rafale (IAF/IN)
- 110-125KN JV
- IMRH engine
- AMCA (?)
-SSBN/SSN
- civil nuclear reactors
-AWACS (NETRA Mk.2 and AWACS(I) will be Airbus mounted)+SIGINT


along The way there will be plenty more projects popping up if the above go ahead
I only want India to go far as the Rafales and the scorpenes. Maybe the JV with the engines. Other than that I want India to go indigenous full steam all the way. Why? Because France can't scalp us anymore. France has been trying to do highway robbery on us. We deserve it because we were too myopic in the past. Now we have to do it on our own.
 

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