Dessault Rafale & Eurofighter Typhoon vs. F-15, F-16, F-

Agreed, it will never be a fair fight but how would the F-16 match up against the ... ?
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by WarEagleSE » 02 Dec 2005, 18:43

I have a friend who is partial toward European planes, and thinks they can outfly any plane the USAF and Navy has to offer. Although the Dessault Rafale is an amazing plane both visually and mechanically, i dont think itd stand a chance against the f-22's speed and ability..... I need some more facts to prove him wrong

What do ya think?


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by boff180 » 02 Dec 2005, 18:58

Well I can't speak about Rafale as I don't know much about it.

However in the A2A arena, NOTHING can be equal/better to the F-22 currently this is mainly down to its stealth really.

Against the F-15 and the F-16 the Typhoon in all honesty, wipes the floor with them in A2A. I don't know if it has "tango'd" with the F-16C yet but I do know its taken on the F-15 and defeated it every time, and the F-16AM (A's upgraded via the MLU programme). The F-18C also is no contest, however the F-18E/F its a bit blurred in the BVR due to the radars being pretty equal and same with the missiles... in WVR the Typhoon should still have the edge as it is more manouveurable and the ASRAAM's greater close range engagement envelope (instantaneous turn off the rail) compared to the 9X.

Just my 2 cents :)

Although saying all that... in the current technology arena, manouveurability is no longer so important.... new helmet mounted sights and the missiles such as ASRAAM, IRIS-T, Aim-9X its really whoever can get the opponent within its engagement envelope first is going to win.

Andy

EDIT: Did some reading, the Typhoon has faced the F-16C in WVR & BVR when competing against the F-15 and Rafale in Singapore... it was the ONLY one of the three to successfully complete all the A2A tests. The one the other two failed on where the Typhoon triumphed was a 3 F-16 vs 1 engagement.

The fact that Rafale didn't also triumph in that test also helps point to an answer to your question about the Rafale in relation to the F-16.


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by WarEagleSE » 02 Dec 2005, 23:44

Intresting stuff,

Im under the impression that the Rafale has some stealth capeablities as well.....
Im getting the idea that there are not very many of them.... does anyone know who makes them or where i can find some info? Im thinking about bying one for my girlfriend. :thumb: haha


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by boff180 » 02 Dec 2005, 23:54

Ah yes, the Rafale's "stealth" is of a alot of discussion...

Dassault claim they have the most stealthy aircraft other than the F-22/F-35 "1/10th the RCS of the Mirage 2000"
However, Eurofighter GMBH have said nothing else has a RCS lower than the Typhoon except the F-22/F-35.

Tbh I'd put more faith in what Eurofighter are saying....
As a very good "measurebater" Toan has calculated... using 1/10th RCS of the M2000... the Rafale's RCS is: 0.1~0.3 m2
However the Typhoons RCS is: 0.05~0.1 m2

Andy ;)
Andy Evans Aviation Photography
www.evansaviography.co.uk


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by The_Mastiff » 03 Dec 2005, 01:35

Against the F-15 and the F-16 the Typhoon in all honesty, wipes the floor with them in A2A. I don't know if it has "tango'd" with the F-16C yet but I do know its taken on the F-15 and defeated it every time,


Examples please Boff. If any official DACT has been conducted surely there is a record of it you could link to, though I'd bet a great deal of it would be classified. Please don't try to use the eurofighter vs. F15E story that was promoted by O. Fabbro" of the Eurofighter GmbH Market Analysis, and attributed to Archie Neill, test Pilot. I believe it went out as:The New Air Superiority Benchmark

That one is controversial to say the very least. Some links to back up your claims would be very appreciated. Thanks. JL raleigh NC


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by toan » 10 Jan 2006, 04:03

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:rDcB ... 5&hl=zh-TW

Rafale v.s F-15S and Tornado in the exercise of Red Shark..................


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by Twix101 » 05 Jun 2006, 21:02

WarEagleSE wrote:Intresting stuff,

Im under the impression that the Rafale has some stealth capeablities as well.....
Im getting the idea that there are not very many of them.... does anyone know who makes them or where i can find some info? Im thinking about bying one for my girlfriend. :thumb: haha


Infos here:



http://www.dassault-aviation.com/defense/publications/img/FoxThree1.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thales_Spectra

Journal of Electronic Defence wrote:The Rafale EW suite, known as Spectra, is one of the most powerful systems installed on a fighter aircraft and is intimately associated with the unique approach to stealth and survivability designed into the Rafale. Dassault executives describe the Rafale as discreet rather than being stealthy in the sense of a F-22. To avoid detection, it combines avionics, tactics, and reduced radar reflectivity with some techniques that have not been directly revealed and are apparently unique.

The first element of discretion is that Spectra's receiver system and the FSO help detect and track targets without using radar. Spectra incorporates a radio-frequency (RF) detection system, a missile-approach warning sensor, and a laser-warning system and provides full 360-degrees coverage. The RF detection subsystem uses prominent square-section antennas, mounted on the lower corners of the engine inlets and in the rear of the fin-top pod, covering 120 degrees each. The receiver antennas use interferometric techniques to measure a signal's angle of arrival within less than 1 degree and are designed so that they do not have a large radar-cross-section (RCS) contribution.

The Rafale is also designed to use terrain masking, particularly at night or in bad, weather when visually cued short-range surface-to-air weapons are less effective. With its maneuverability and a high degree of cockpit automation, the fighter is designed to fly a terrain-avoidance/threat- avoidance profile at 5.5 g and 100 feet in altitude. The RBE2 and a terrain-referenced navigation system, using stored terrain data, are used to provide redundant flight guidance.

Rafale makes extensive use of radar-absorbent material (RAM) in the form of paints and other materials, Dassault engineers have said. RAM forms a saw-toothed pattern on the wing and canard trailing edges, for instance. The aircraft is designed to so that its untreated radar signature is concentrated in a few strong "spikes," which are then suppressed by the selective use of RAM.

Spectra's active jamming subsystem uses phased-array antennas located at the roots of the canards. Dassault has stated that the EW transmit antennas can produce a pencil beam compatible with the accuracy of the receiver system, concentrating power on the threat while minimizing the chances of detection.

But there is more to Spectra than conventional jamming. Pierre-Yves Chaltiel, a Thales engineer on the Spectra program, remarked in a 1997 interview that Spectra uses "stealthy jamming modes that not only have a saturating effect, but make the aircraft invisible... There are some very specific techniques to obtain the signature of a real LO [low-observable] aircraft." When asked if he was talking about active cancellation, Chaltiel declined to answer.

Earlier this year, Thales and European missile-builder MBDA disclosed that they were working on active-cancellation technology for cruise missiles and had already tested it on a small unmanned aerial vehicle, using a combination of active and passive techniques to manage radar signature. This revelation makes it considerably more likely that active cancellation is already being developed for Rafale.

Active cancellation is a LO technique in which the aircraft, when painted by a radar, transmits a signal which mimics the echo that the radar will receive - but one half-wavelength out of phase, so that the radar sees no return at all. The advantage of this technique is that it uses very low power, compared with conventional EW, and provides no clues to the aircraft's presence; the challenge is that it requires very fast processing and that poorly executed active cancellation could make the target more rather than less visible.

The complexity of active cancellation could account for Spectra's high price tag, estimated in 1997 as "several billion francs" (equivalent to the high hundreds of millions of US dollars) for research and development. One of four Rafale prototypes was dedicated to Spectra tests, along with a Falcon 20 flying testbed. Four new large anechoic chambers were built to support the Spectra project, including one which is large and well equipped enough to operate the complete system in a fully detailed electromagnetic environment.

Spectra's RF systems are backed up by a laser-warning system, an optical missile-launch-warning system, and a full range of expendable countermeasures. There is no towed decoy system.


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by pafpilot » 07 Jun 2006, 17:40

F-22 versus any fighter : NO ARGUMENT
A MiG at you SIX, is better than no MiG at all!!


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by dalius » 18 Dec 2009, 11:09

pafpilot wrote:F-22 versus any fighter : NO ARGUMENT


LOL, it's not soo simply

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-d ... fra-2.html


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by bhimtu » 26 Sep 2010, 22:45

The Eurofighter is a solid performing gen 4+ fighter. To say it is in the same league as the F-22 is non-sense.

In terms of where to position the Typhoon in the current menagerie of fighter aircraft, it can be best described as an F/A-18C sized fighter with BVR systems and agility performance better than older F-15 models, similar to growth F-15 models with same generation systems and engines, but inferior to the F-15 in useful operating radius. The Typhoon is not a stealth aircraft, despite various assertions to this effect, nor is it a genuine supercruiser like the F-22. Its design incorporates none of the features seen in very low observable types, nor does the EJ200 incorporate the unique design features of the F119 and F120 powerplants.

The core avionic architecture is based upon the federated model, using multiple Mil-Std-1553B busses, making it comparable technologically to late build teen series systems. Eurofighter claim the use of sensor fusion techniques in the system software, to combine the data produced by the radar, IRS&T and ESM to provide a very high confidence of early BVR target identification and engagement. Given the significantly lower available computing power in the Typhoon, against the F-22A's Cray class CIPs, assertions that this capability is competitive against the sensor fusion software in the F-22A are somewhat peculiar, given that real time sensor fusion is a computationally intensive task.

Here are the specs on the F-16 APG-68(v)9
Role Multi-mode radar
Band X-band (6.2 to 10.9 GHz)
MTBF 400 hours
Entered Service 1979 (AN/APG-66)
Dimensions
Volume 1.3 m³ 4.6 ft³
Weights
Basic weight 164 kg 362 lb
Performance
Search range (air-to-air, fighter target) 265 km 160 nm
Main air-to-air modes Range-while-scan, track-while-scan, velocity search, gun director

Specs look pretty good compared to the current Eurofighter radar.
Also, the price for a Eurofighter is north of $100 million, much more than the F-16 desert falcon.


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by bhimtu » 27 Sep 2010, 00:46

Intresting stuff,

Im under the impression that the Rafale has some stealth capeablities as well.....
Im getting the idea that there are not very many of them.... does anyone know who makes them or where i can find some info? Im thinking about bying one for my girlfriend.

The Rafale, because of the French need to keep the aircraft small for carrier ops, is relegated to carry external stores, has a RCS of 20-100 times greater than what you would see on a F-117 for example. Of course, the French must have invented new laws for radar scattering so it doesn't apply to any French aircraft.


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by Scorpion82 » 27 Sep 2010, 07:17

bhimtu wrote:The Eurofighter is a solid performing gen 4+ fighter. To say it is in the same league as the F-22 is non-sense.

In terms of where to position the Typhoon in the current menagerie of fighter aircraft, it can be best described as an F/A-18C sized fighter with BVR systems and agility performance better than older F-15 models, similar to growth F-15 models with same generation systems and engines, but inferior to the F-15 in useful operating radius. The Typhoon is not a stealth aircraft, despite various assertions to this effect, nor is it a genuine supercruiser like the F-22. Its design incorporates none of the features seen in very low observable types, nor does the EJ200 incorporate the unique design features of the F119 and F120 powerplants.

The core avionic architecture is based upon the federated model, using multiple Mil-Std-1553B busses, making it comparable technologically to late build teen series systems. Eurofighter claim the use of sensor fusion techniques in the system software, to combine the data produced by the radar, IRS&T and ESM to provide a very high confidence of early BVR target identification and engagement. Given the significantly lower available computing power in the Typhoon, against the F-22A's Cray class CIPs, assertions that this capability is competitive against the sensor fusion software in the F-22A are somewhat peculiar, given that real time sensor fusion is a computationally intensive task.


Nice copy paste job :roll: Next time you may just link to Kopp's brabbling instead of presenting it as yours!

Search range (air-to-air, fighter target) 265 km 160 nm
Main air-to-air modes Range-while-scan, track-while-scan, velocity search, gun director


Lol


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by fiskerwad » 27 Sep 2010, 15:51

For the full read:
http://www.ausairpower.net/Analysis-Typhoon.html
fisk
PS I can't get the km to nm thing to work either?


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by exec » 28 Sep 2010, 09:10

Scorpion82 wrote:
Search range (air-to-air, fighter target) 265 km 160 nm
Main air-to-air modes Range-while-scan, track-while-scan, velocity search, gun director


Lol

Hey Scorp! Remember to say LOL when you hear ‘Irbis-E 400km detection range against a small fighter’. ;)


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by Scorpion82 » 28 Sep 2010, 12:56

exec wrote:Hey Scorp! Remember to say LOL when you hear ‘Irbis-E 400km detection range against a small fighter’. ;)


This is still more viable given the power and aperture size of the Irbis, which is a newer and more advanced radar. Albeit I'm sceptical of this figure it's at least made clear that it is only in optimal conditions. The km to nm conversion (or other way round) doesn't work out in that example either. 160 nm is the max range scale on the APG-68. Typical detection range is stated with ~80 km (41 nm) vs a fighter sized target, though newer variants of that radar are likely to exceed this figure.


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