The Rafale on the Fighter Pilot podcast

And this is given as a time stamped series of events? At 6:33 they take off with 6 MICA and a fuel tank, at 6:35 they are level at 40,000ft at which point they accelerate to 1.3M and then pull back to Mil power?

And this is given as a time stamped series of events? At 6:33 they take off with 6 MICA and a fuel tank, at 6:35 they are level at 40,000ft at which point they accelerate to 1.3M and then pull back to Mil power?

Yes you are right. They talk about a theoretical event in this booklet. It starts when the alert goes in at the base, up to, when the Rafale shoots down the enemy aircraft.

Seven Rafale M fighters divert to Aceh, Indonesia due to weather

https://alert5.com/2019/05/19/seven-raf ... o-weather/

Does this incident mean that the CDG air wing is not blue water certified? AFAIK, you do not see deployed USN CVWs divert to land bases as they are all blue water certified, which means they do not need to operate with any land base divert options available, and therefore will have ways to recover their aircraft or hold them up with tankers in the event of bad weather regardless the circumstances.

Don't the Rafale and 'Phoon have supercritical airfoils? That and their low-ish bypass engines might be what gives them the gumption to supercruise (with very modest weapon loads).

Seven Rafale M fighters divert to Aceh, Indonesia due to weather

https://alert5.com/2019/05/19/seven-raf ... o-weather/

Does this incident mean that the CDG air wing is not blue water certified? AFAIK, you do not see deployed USN CVWs divert to land bases as they are all blue water certified, which means they do not need to operate with any land base divert options available, and therefore will have ways to recover their aircraft or hold them up with tankers in the event of bad weather regardless the circumstances.

What if you can't launch tankers, or that weather forecast cannot guarantee safe recovery of all aircraft past the tankers' endurance?

Blue water qual won't change that. Furthermore, I doubt that all pilots in a blue water CAW are all-weather/time qualified, that was maybe the case here.

Beautiful ... but deadly