Introduction :
The Rafale or Dassault Rafale is one absolute amazing fighter and is a favourite by many different countries and organizations around the world.Here, we
are gonna look at it and learn as much
as we can about this fighter and get an
understanding of how it works today we
dive into some of its history of how it
was made and how it performs in today's
world France's
greatest fighter the RAF felled assault
is yes of course
a French fighter meaning basically gust
of wind or bursts of fire don't ask me
which one is the actual translation
because I don't really actually know
pretty much.
This is a twin-engine
fighter that ain't just an interceptor but like most modern generation fighters
it can do multiple things such as
interceptor as well as ground assault, reconnaissance and anything that a
fighter needs.
The fighter itself was
created by the Dassault Aviation
Corporation which is a company has been
around since 1929 and they pretty much
basically, you know they know their
fighters they ain't joking around
similar to a lot of modern generation
fighters.
It's also got its start back in
the 1970s as always when it comes to a
new fighter France specifically was
looking for a new fighter to replace the
old ones something that was more
cost-effective maybe better in terms of
combat those sort of things basically
during that time France had what was
known as the Dassault Mirage 4 which was
a good aircraft a supersonic bomber as
well they had the Mirage 3 which was
their interceptor and the Mirage 5 which
was classified not as an interceptor but
as an attack craft and for them they
were pretty much like I'm pretty sure we
could get one fighter to do all these
roles put into one and with that around
that time there were a lot of other
fighters that France was using for
sample.
They had the Mirage F1 and the
Dassault Dornier or better known as the
alpha jet.
There was also the Mirage 2000
which is pretty much the first real
multi-role aircraft for the country and
its first flight was in 1978 with it
first being introduced in 1984 now as
much as the Mirage 2000 was a good
fighter yes they did need to upgrade it
as soon as it came out there was a lot
of advancement with other aircrafts
around the 1970s.
So, Dassault ended up joining the European
collaborative fighter program. With France joining
in a program with Germany, UK, Spain
and a few others which actually led to
the Eurofighter Typhoon.
However Dassault
wasn't really happy with what was going
on within that program so they were like
no, we're gonna leave we've got our own
requirements and you guys just aren't
meeting them so we're gonna make our own
fighter now for the initial development
they called this plane a technology
demonstrator or the Avion de combat
experimental.
Now it
first flew on July 4th 1986, crazy part
is although this prototype meant the
beginning of production in 1986
interesting enough to know that the
Dassault Rafale wasn't introduced until
2001.
It had a long long process in
development one thing that I found
really interesting in its development is that it
originally used the F-18 General Electric (GM) F-404 engine.
The engine it uses
now is known as the two Snecma M88 engines.
The thing with this engine was going
to simply be used as a technology
demonstration and had no intent to be
used in this aircraft for the long term
but however its initial tests
unfortunately didn't have this engine
within it simply because the engine
wasn't ready it hadn't gone through
enough trials to be deemed safe or
reliable and although the Rafale had gone
through multiple testing, it wasn't until
1990 that they replaced the left engine
of this jet with the new 88 engine and
it managed to get to speeds of Mach 1.4
and therefore from that point on they
just decided yeah it's good enough
engine we're gonna throw
this in the fighter now the other thing
are you may be wondering why did it take
so long to introduce this aircraft I
mean it's been in production since 1986
but 2001 yeah it took a while a long one
long while well originally France had a
deal of thirty billion dollars to have
at least 330 fighters for 1996 but
because of the collapse of the Berlin
Wall and the Soviet Union it changed
where money was going within the country
to add to that with these delays that
made the fighter more expensive and
France decided instead it would upgrade
on some of its older planes instead of
replaced them.
However, by 1991, this is
where they brought in the B and the C
prototypes the B was the two-seater and
the C was a more stealthy version than
the a there was also the M which was
made for the Navy the funny part is with
the M is that they wanted it to be
tested to be able to handle the catapult
launch system the downside is was France
didn't have a testing facility for this
so it had to be done at Lakehurst max
Field in New Jersey.
Now by 1995 things
were getting a little bit better for
this fighter this is because France had
many of its divisions planning to
purchase this fighter but because of
economic issues around that time it put
the fighter on hold again this didn't
pick up until 1997 when France was like
yeah okay we'll purchase about 48 of
these for the Navy and with that in mind
the very first version to be delivered
to France was the Navy variant which was
delivered somewhere in 2001
As a matter
of fact, the Air Force itself didn't get
their versions until years later roughly
around 2006 and a side note the first
r-fl to ever have its engine replaced by
a foreign navy at sea was on the
American USS Truman and this happened in
2010 besides France
you may be wondering who operates these
aircraft well Egypt became the first
international Buyer Qatar also jumped in
buying these aircraft in 2015 now as
for India, there's been a lot of back and
forth with this country as a matter of
fact there's a lot of controversy over
the purchasing of this fighter but
however, in 2019 they recently stated
that they wanted them to be part of the
against Pakistan's f-16s there's also
been many bids from multiple other
countries that weren't successful and
some interests from other places around
the world.
Although this
aircraft has only been around since 2001
it has proved very effective in the
field, for example, it's been a part of
many modern operations such as Enduring
Freedom which was in Afghanistan it's
also been seen in Iraq and operations in
the Arabian Sea even places like Libya,
Mali, Syria and a few more.
Variants And Operators:
In terms of
variants the Dassault rifle has 12 of
them now yes there are some versions
that are particularly made for certain
countries such as India and Egypt for
example in Egypt they have two major
versions which are the single and
two-seaters these are known as the e M
and DM.
India also has its single and
two seaters these are known as the D H
and E H.
the main ones that are used now
within France are the C version which is
the single-seat and the B single-seat
variant for the French Air Force on top
of that, there is the M which is for the
Navy.
There have been others which are
prototypes or cancelled or future
variants.

Specifications:
As for specifications, this is a single or two
seater aircraft the length of this
aircraft comes in at approximately
15.27 meters with a
wingspan of 10.8 meters
as for height, it's a little taller than
some other aircrafts coming in at 5.34 meters.
When it comes to
loaded weight however it can carry up to
33,000 pounds with a maximum takeoff
weight of 54,000 pounds for the B, C and D variant.
Maximum speed now of
course this changes depending on the
altitude for high altitude it can go
approximately Mach 1.8 which is roughly
about 1912 KM/Hr for low
altitudes it comes in at Mach 1.1 which
is roughly one thousand three hundred
ninety km/h.
For the combat radius, it's
obviously greater than 1852 kilometres
however, this is based off of one
penetration mission with two CTFs
three tanks for service ceiling however
it can go up to if not more than 50,000
feet nask for guns this is the best part
basically automatically on it it has a 1
x 30 millimetre Giat autocannon with
about 125 rounds for hardpoints though
unlike some other aircraft depending on
version it actually changes your
standard air force variants can have up
to 14 hardpoints whereas the Rafale AM navy version has 13.
These aircraft can
fire air-to-air missiles AAM, air-to-ground AGM, air to ship and nuclear
missiles and other things of that nature.
However when it comes to these fighters
there has been only about a 175 of these made as of 2019
with more being built on the way.
And as
for the whole thing when it comes to its
production cost it comes in at
approximately 45.9 billion euros or $92.7 billion dollars as of 2013 for your
individual price tag.
1 Comments
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