Dassault Rafale: France's Solo Fighter, CATIA Design and a 9.5-Hour Sortie

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In the summer of 2010 a French Rafale landed on the USS Harry S. Truman, and American crews swapped its engine at sea. The jet exists because France left the European fighter project with the UK, West Germany, Italy and Spain in 1985: the others wanted a heavy interceptor, while France needed a lighter jet that could fly from carriers. The others built the Eurofighter Typhoon; France relied on Dassault for the airframe, Thales for avionics and radar, and Safran for the M88 engines. The Rafale A demonstrator flew in July 1986, reaching Mach 1.3, and production jets were designed digitally in Dassault Systèmes' CATIA so parts made in Paris, Martignas and Biarritz fit at Mérignac.

The Rafale C, B and naval M use a delta wing with close-coupled canards and are deliberately unstable, controlled by a quadruple-redundant fly-by-wire system that allows 9g in combat and 11g in emergencies. The Rafale M is about 500 kilograms heavier, with a jump strut nose gear, and France built the carrier Charles de Gaulle for it. Data fusion combines the Thales RBE2 AESA radar, the passive OSF optronic sensor and the SPECTRA electronic warfare suite. After 14 years with France as its only buyer, Egypt ordered 24 in 2015, followed by India, Qatar, Greece, Croatia, Indonesia and the UAE.

• About 70 percent of the airframe is composite, and the canopy is gold-coated to cut radar reflections.
• In Operation Serval in January 2013, Rafales flew from Saint-Dizier to strike targets in Mali in a 9.5-hour sortie with five aerial refuelings, landing in N'Djamena, Chad.
• In April 2024 Rafales based in Jordan shot down Iranian drones headed for Israel.
• Dassault aims for four jets a month by 2028, and Tata Advanced Systems plans to build fuselages in Hyderabad.
• The F5 standard planned for the 2030s will control a 10-ton stealth drone wingman and carry new hypersonic nuclear-capable missiles.