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PARIS — France has a good chance of winning export sales for the Dassault Rafale fighter, which is needed to balance the defense budget books, French air chief Gen. Denis Mercier said on Dec. 11.
“I am fairly confident there will be a good story,” he told the defense journalists association, when asked about the export prospects for the twin-engine fighter. “This is a high-quality plane.”
The French government has written an assumed sale of the Rafale to foreign clients into the multiyear budget. The deals are needed to maintain annual production of 11 aircraft from the line near Bordeaux, southwest France.
India and France have agreed to speed up negotiations for a US $12 billion order for 126 Rafales for the south Asian nation, with plans to seal the deal by March 31.
A delegation of senior Egyptian Air Force and Navy officers landed here on Dec. 10 to negotiate buying 23 to 26 Rafales, worth €3.6 billion (US $4.4 billion), and two DCNS multimission frigates, worth €1.8 billion, La Tribune reported.
Qatar is in advanced talks for the Rafale, the business website reported.
Next year, the French Air Force expects to receive the fighter needed to form a second nuclear squadron, expected to be operational in 2018, Mercier said.
On the technology front, a future version of the Rafale is expected to show “a major evolution” with high datalink capacity and an active electronically scanned array radar fitted in the skin of the fighter, instead of the present front-facing radar. That new capability is expected in 2020 to 2025 and would allow an active electronic warfare and a very high data rate for communications, he said.
Thales builds the RBE2 radar for the Rafale.
The present Spectra EW pod gathers a wealth of data, which could be sent to other pilots and allies if the datalink were there, Mercier said. Thales and MBDA built the Spectra.
Another expected upgrade is a new-generation reconnaissance pod, intended to deliver detection at a higher altitude than the present system, which is not ineffective, but it is time to move on, Mercier said.
A high datalink is part of the move toward the big data and cloud applied to military aircraft. The service plans to receive a second standard of the A330 multirole tanker transport (MRTT) aircraft, which will be equipped as a network node with command-and-control systems, reflecting the interest in datalinks, an Air Force spokesman said.
Air Force planners are studying how a future combat system would not be limited to a combat aircraft but connect manned and unmanned aircraft with warships, submarines, tanks and other forces.
The service has asked the government to speed up an order for the last three of the 12 Airbus MRTTs, with procurement by 2019, Mercier said. “This is fairly simple,” he said.
Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian announced on Nov. 20 the €3 billion order for development and delivery of 12 Airbus MRTTs, dubbed Phoenix.
The Air Force has asked for France to speed up an order for a second batch of the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper surveillance drone, with a delivery next year rather than 2016 or 2017, Mercier said. That second batch of three unmanned aircraft would be at Block 1 standard, and could be later upgraded to Block 5, he said.
A third Reaper is expected in 2015, joining the first two units delivered last year and which began flying from Niger in January.
France received a swift delivery of the Reaper in under a year, reflecting close relations with the US Air Force, which ordered its drones to be rerouted directly to the French base in Niamey, Mercier said. An experienced French crew conducted a first flight, dubbed Dress Down Six, within a fortnight, he said.
The service expects a sixth Airbus A400M airlifter to be delivered this month, and four more units next year. Of the latter, the third is expected to be at the full operating standard, allowing parachute drops and tactical missions. Mercier said he has told Airbus: “That is not a milestone to be missed.”
The A400M is a good plane but “the level of availability is not enough,” Mercier said. That lack of availability reflects the teething problems of a new plane with new avionics and new engine, he said. The service has a clear plan and Airbus is working closely to improve availability, he said.
The service is studying the possibility of arming the Mirage 2000D fighter-bomber with the Sagem armement air-sol modulaire, a powered smart bomb, Mercier said. That would not involve a full integration, but could be linked with a touch pad. The Air Force is also looking for a bomb smaller than 250 kilograms and other weapons, but not the MBDA Brimstone, he said.
Source : French Air Chief Confident on Rafale Exports | Defense News | defensenews.com
