The Dassault Rafale: The Plane that Beat the F-16

if a Modern Nation can't defend itself in the air it can't offend itself at all and when there are no aircrafts suitable for a nation to buy then it'll have to make the perfect aircraft by itself in the late 1970s the nation of France found itself in this very situation frustrated and ready to give up on an international effort to build a fighter aircraft that would undoubtedly bear the high quality but simply wouldn't suit France's needs in such a predicament France could grit its teeth and endure its European Partners it could seek a different aircraft from the United States or accused to go It Alone betting on itself to produce a fighter that would either plunge France into an embarrassing financial disaster or pay off in a spectacular fashion in the face of those odds France chose to go to loan and the results well that's the dessert Raphael a highly capable omnirole fighter that has since proven itself among the best fourth generation aircraft in the world so in today's episode we're going to explore just how the rafale came to be and just how it set itself apart from all the competition around the globe [Music] [Music] now the last few Decades of the Cold War were a tricky time to be developing a fighter aircraft across the Iron Curtain the Soviet Union was almost certainly building newer better a more formidable fighter aircraft but with few conflicts that required direct Soviet intervention there was no real way for the West to see those fighters in action or to know exactly how much of a problem they could eventually be this strategic and tactical discomfort made it difficult to justify large-scale expenditures on a wide range of fighter aircraft certainly not if they were meant to be a direct response to Soviet air power I mean after all How could a nation know how to respond if they didn't know or understand the threat that they were even responding to this lack of specificity about Soviet capabilities led Europe and the United States to focus on the so-called multi-role aircrafts on the American side this included the F-16 Fighting Falcon and the F-15 Eagle especially its dedicated multi-role successor the F50 knee Strike Eagle in Europe though the need for a multi-role aircraft wasn't going to be met exclusively by one nation instead it was going to be met by Committee in a union between NATO countries to produce what would basically be a NATO aircraft by the late 1970s France understood that for its own part a new fighter aircraft was going to be necessary sooner rather than later prior Fighters included the Desert Mirage series and the sepakat Jaguar strike aircraft but these were quickly becoming obsolete and though the desal Mirage 2000 which was new at the time certainly wasn't a bad successor aircraft it was sure to be surpassed by the next generation of Soviet aircraft within a decade or so the French navy situation was even worse the naval athlete was badly in need of an upgrade from its prior strike aircraft which were all but guaranteed to underperform in a modern large-scale war in 975 the French Ministry of Aviation decided to address the Air Force and Navy's problems all at once and issued a call for a new generation of fighter aircraft that would complement the Mirage 2000 to replace just about everything else in French service at that time around the same time period OS German and British aerospace companies have been working toward a potential joint effort to produce a collaborative fighter aircraft and the French Aviation company De so Brigade today known as so Aviation took its opportunity to get in on that action to sobrigay proposed a general layout for what it wanted in a fight aircraft including a twin-engine single-seat design and the partner Nations all agreed with that arrangement in principle but the participants had trouble coming to any further agreements by 1981 the project collapsed leaving to so on its own to figure out what on Earth to do next before long though a new international collaboration Rose to fill the Gap that the last attempt had left in its wake dubbed the future European fighter aircraft program the initiative brought together Spain Britain Italy France and West Germany in 1983 with the goal of developing a shared jet fighter but yet again the participating Nations had a hard time deciding what they would build France wanted a multi-role aircraft that could serve both in Air Force and Navy roles and could be sold as an export product whereas Britain wanted a long-range Interceptor perhaps most problematic for the other countries though France demanded that it would take the lead in the project causing somewhat foul impression among the other countries who were more than happy to just share the project without worrying too much about who got credit for what within two years France walked away from the program for good in order to preserve its own technological Independence as a leader in Aerospace development the other four nations proceeded with their program anyway and eventually they'd build the Euro Fighter typhoon a capable multi-role fighter in its own right now on their own desso set to work making what France really wanted a fighter aircraft that could complete air-to-air and air-to-ground missions day and night in all weather both with the Air Force and the Navy the plane would weigh about 10 tons carry at least six air-to-air missiles or 3 500 kilograms of other payload and fly at a range of 650 kilometers if you could do all of that the new aircraft would replace no fewer than six types of fighter and attack gents in the French Arsenal unlike aircraft development programs in other countries desso didn't have to worry much about competition from French aeronautical companies and they had the capacity to produce their fighter almost entirely indigenously using a digital design system all the way back in the early 1980s debate the process desso favored a delta wing design for the aircraft integrating a set of closed-coupled canards little winglets placed near the cockpit and ahead of the lodge Wings in order to make a highly maneuverable plane by 1985 they were able to provide the French government with a technology demonstrator featuring a single sea cockpit and two after burning turbofan engines similar to the American fa-18 which were placeholders for a so design that oh are well on their way by that time it took its first flight on 4th of July 1986 immediately exceeding Mach 1.3 and hit Mach 1.8 a little while after two hours later it appeared in public for the first time between a series of successful test flights and its positive early signs that it could be modified for carrier service the deceo plane received its first production order by 1988. by that time its name was widely known the rafale the burst of Fire [Music] now in the rafale first emerged from the production line it came in three versions the prototype in written referred to as the rafale a so the first production line variant was termed the rafale b a two-seater Air Force design built to take off and land on runways the rafale sea o was a single-c version also built to operate from land and the rafale M for marine always built for the Naval Air arm by the mid-1990s all of the variant designs have completed their required testing and the M variant had even taken a quick working vacation to the United States to be launched from a catapulting carrier op simulations although the three variants each chapter owned specs run down the numbers on the single-seater C variant as a baseline at an overall length of 15 meters 50 feet and a wingspan of about 11 meters or 36 feet the rafale is a sleek and efficient design it due to its delta wing design the planes wings of a surface area that would put a Manhattan studio apartment to shame at just under 500 square feet or 46 square meters when it hit empty there are far aways a pair under 10 000 kilograms that it can take off at 24 500 Kilograms nearly two and a half times its empty weight it does this with the help of two turbo fans with over eleven thousand pound force of thrust each pushing it to a maximum speed of 1912 kilometers or a 1188 miles per hour at high altitude which is 1.8 times the speed of sound the raval reaches super cruise at Mach 1.4 with afterburners Switched Off and with a combat range of 1 850 kilometers 1150 miles using drop tanks it's more than capable of providing coverage to France and its NATO allies in Western Europe the rafale flies at a service ceiling of about 16 kilometers from the ground or 52 000 feet and it's capable of making that climb in under a minute in terms of its Armament the rapper packs a 30 millimeter Auto cannon with 125 rounds and 14 external hardpoints although Naval models have only 13. with these the rafale is capable of carrying over 10 tons 9 500 kilograms of Ordnance including air-to-air air to ground air to ship and nuclear missiles as well as reconnaissance and targeting pods guided Munitions or up to five drops the plane is fitted out with Advanced radar the unique electronic warfare system and a long-range opto electronic system which allows a pilot to identify and track Targets in real time or with matching video input for the pilot at ranges of up to 100 kilometers in the air or six kilometers against surface targets the system can track and engage up to 40 targets and engage up to eight targets at once while continuously performing friend or fojex during dogfights the cockpit is Sleek and incorporates no unnecessary bells and whistles are using that space instead to provide touch input panels and a holographic heads-up display it features an on-board oxygen generation system eliminating the need for oxygen canisters and some of its capabilities can even be voice activated by the pilot without any physical input finally some versions of the rafale market in their early years as the Raphael DD standing for discrete in reference to its semi-stylethy design featuring a low radar cross-section in practice the rafale has proven itself safe and easy to fly and it's been of significant utility to both the French armed forces and the other nations that have acquired their own it's highly agile using a fly-by-wire system to begin check and is made intentionally to be somewhat unstable in Flight cutting down on the standard forces of inertia that would make banking climbing or diving into a somewhat slower process in other aircraft the carrier operations the planes Delta Wings give it an uncommonly low landing speed greatly reducing the risk of accidents it's proven to be reliable in flight and it's easily maintained even under difficult conditions its way to bombed missiles and other accoutrements many of which oh were designed specifically for the Rapha have been more than able to match the plane's high performance in combat zones and all the planes integrated technology is held up under scrutiny in the years after it was adopted the plane is capable of automatically navigating service terrain including in environment where an enemy is using electronic jamming and its defensive countermeasure system allows it to automatically take defensive actions even without pilot input although a handful of the Rails components were sourced internationally including its ejection seat the vast majority of the plane's hardware and Technology are produced and provided by French industry all things considered the plane was and is extremely impressive from a technological perspective active with technical capabilities to put it on par with the best fighter aircraft of its day despite the fact that the rafale was on paper a resounding success for the French Armed Forces it experienced rather difficult entry into the wider World initially conceived in the waning years of the Cold War the rafale had become production-ready significantly after the fall of the Soviet Union meaning that the major threat the rafale was meant to deter and defend against it no longer existed as Western defense budgets were arraigned back in and the global military-industrial complex took a much needed moment to breathe France began to reconsider just how vital the Rafa was or wasn't to various military roles that was meant to fill the rafale was most necessary in the French navy where it was desperately sought after as a replacement of the vork Crusader and esteemed but by then badly outdated warplane the first end there in rafales were delivered to the child Gaul aircraft carrier in late 2001 and a full Squadron was operational within a few months but these aircraft were pieced together hurriedly lacking many of the advanced features that the Rafa would allay to be known for and and they were upgraded to standard years after they first arrived in fact the rafale in general was introduced piecemeal with that rather low quality air-to-air optimized version of the early days known as the F1 replaced a few years later with a somewhat more well-rounded F2 version and then only in 2009 with the completed F3 version that finally delivered the Raphael's promised luckily for the French military or Rafael's in service were eventually upgraded to the F3 version since then the f3r or F3 plus upgraders further Optimizer a file to make it more enticing as an export fighter incorporating new radar technologies that were also added to French models the F3 plus also integrated newer avionics a data link that could merge it seamlessly into Coalition operations and a new targeting system the later F4 upgrade was announced in 2017 and the Prototype took its first flight in 2021. yet again the newest upgrade brings the plane's technology and software up to The Cutting Edge and there are further ongoing discussions about how to upgrade the rafale stealth capabilities in the future as of now the French air and space force flies 102 rafales and the French Navy use is another 42. Around the World Export versions of the rafale have been adopted by a range of customers Egypt flies 24 of the planes with another 30 on order placing them at the center of a diverse Fleet that includes hundreds of American-made f-16s dozens of French Mirage Jets and dozens more Soviet hero mig-29s the Greek Hellenic Air Force will fly a total of 24 rafales once they're all delivered also alongside American f-16s and in India 36 rafales Stand Out Among hundreds of Russian and Soviet era planes well over a hundred anticipated indian-made Asia Fighters and acerba cast Jaguars Qatar relied heavily on the Raphael as the main component of its air defense backed up by F-150 strike Eagles and two dozen anticipated eurofighter typhoon aircraft produced from the same European initiative that France left in order to build the Raphael the United Arab Emirates have 80 reptiles on order Indonesia is waiting for 42 and Croatia expects to receive 12 in the next two years most recently Iraq is looking to trade oil directly in exchange for at least 14 of the Jets which would provide significantly improved Interceptor capable compared to its current Fleet of American f-16s Columbia Saudi Arabia Serbia were all potentially customers and the Raphael has been discussed as a potential option to support Ukrainian troops in their ongoing war with Russia the Raphael was first deployed to a combat zone during mission Hercules France's mission to support operation enduring freedom in Afghanistan but due to the limited capabilities of the early rafales of that time they saw no direct combat their operational debut came several years later when in March of 2007 a handful of Raphael supported Dutch troops in southern Afghanistan in the following years rathaus would support NATO troops in Afghanistan and Carry Out strikes in Libya during the effort to bring down the Gaddafi regime which ironically had failed in its own bid to acquire Raphael's just a few years prior in Libya the Raphael got to show off its Advanced on-ball capabilities the whole Coalition aircraft involved in the operation the rafale was the only fighter that didn't require direct support from an electronic warfare system in Long standardized six-hour missions rafales kept a nearly consistent presence in the skies in an effort that intentionally or not had a clear effect in enticing for customers to consider the plane in later years rafales had been instrumental in French interventions against jihadists in Mali and against Islamic State Targets in Syria including indirect retaliation for the Paris attacks 2015. although details are unknown it's believed that the Raphael scored its first air-to-air kill against an unknown drone in 2019. [Music] so all things considered the Raphael is a spectacular piece of combat Innovation and although it doesn't incorporate the stealth technology that would put it on par with fifth generation Fighters like the American F-22 or the Chinese j-20 it is nonetheless the Leading Edge of the so-called 4.5 generation of fighter aircraft that being said the Raphael has also lost more export contracts than is one generally losing to competing American or european models so how does the Raphael stack up to other modern advanced multi-role Fighters so for example the American F-16 the Russian su-35 and the eurofighter typhoon well first of all this is the basics in terms of its size and weight the Raphael is similar to the F-16 the typhoon and significantly smaller than the su-35 its engines are relatively underpowered in comparison and it's got a slower maximum speed than any of those three competitors it's got a surface ceiling equal or lower than all three of them and its range is nothing to write home about in comparison it's got only one or two more hard points than each competitor aircraft and its rate of climb is solidly middle of the pack but these cameras don't only tell parts of this aircraft's story and leave out the advantages that are most important in a modern multi-role aircraft and it is these exact areas whether rafaa really shines first there's maneuverability where the Raphael takes a clear advantage against each of the competitor aircraft the raval's delta wing shape is a significantly more useful design for close air engagements than the standard wings of the F-16 and su-35 and it's more agile than the typhoon meaning that if the Raphael were to ever have to face off in a dogfighter capacity with any of these three competitors it would be a significant Advantage the Rafael's avionics are better optimized to support these sorts of engagements especially in large chaotic battle environments and in the longer range air-to-air combat we would expect between advanced fighter aircraft the raphaels available armaments do well at medium range while it's partial automation of its defensive capabilities have proven effective in real life combat and perhaps even more important are the Raphael's electronic warfare capabilities in a direct air-to-air face off done by the Egyptian Air Force Which flies both rafales and su-35s the rafale was able to render the su-35's radar useless with its own electronic jamming Suite then a lock-on and demonstrate its ability to shoot down the su-35 with the su-35's own jamming device utterly unable to stop the Raphael from doing so those same electronic Jammers on the Raphael should in theory be able to do the same to at least older F-16 models if not the newer ones as well as the eurofight typhoon and more relevant in regard to their shared place as a multi-role aircraft the Raphael's ability to operate without electronic warfare support planes its Advanced Suite of avionics and its seamless integration of many autonomous support elements make it a far more advanced warplane that technology puts it clearly ahead not just in terms of direct air-toe battles but in its ability to do its work as a fighter aircraft and although top of the line warplanes of the 21st century will undoubtedly surpass those capabilities it still Bears emphasizing just how advanced the Rapha is compared to its direct competitor aircraft with the Raphael now firmly entrenched as a favorite of the French military and unlikely to be knocked off its perch by anything less than a future 6th generation fighter it shouldn't be a surprise that the plane's aerodynamic and technological capabilities are among the best out there in a direct competition with global Aviation powerhouses like the US the Soviet Union and some of the European Union's most advanced Nations the French Raphael doesn't just hold its own it stands out on its own merits as a firmly established leader among fourth generation aircraft the rafale isn't even at the halfway point of his expected service life and it's still in active production for French and Export customers around the world so whatever Raphael's future might be it's safe to say that it's really only just getting started [Music] [Music]

Channel: Megaprojects

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Keywords: when a french rafale shot down an f-22 raptor, rafale vs f-16 comparison, pakistani f-16, french rafale, indian rafale, f-16 vs rafale, india vs pakistani fighter jet, rafale, shot down, f-22 raptor, f16, f 16, aviation, f 16 viper, f 16 upgrade, military news

Id: -xmexdLVfNw

Length: 18min 50sec (1130 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 04 2023