French Fighter Heads For Combat
French air force and navy Rafale F3s are heading for the Indian Ocean region and Afghanistan this month as they prepare to field a full panoply of strike and reconnaissance gear for the first time.
Prior rotations of the Dassault combat aircraft were limited because key equipment was not yet in hand. Those limitations are now starting to be rectified, although some shortfalls remain.
Four air force Rafales, including two equipped with the new Reco NG reconnaissance pod, will take part in an Air Wafare Center exercise in the United Arab Emirates, scheduled for this month, senior officers said on Oct. 6 at the standup of the third Rafale squadron at St. Dizier in eastern France. And on Oct. 16, the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle will depart for the Horn of Africa, where its new fleet of 10 Rafale F3s, some also fitted with Reco NGs, will help support the European Union’s Atalanta anti-piracy mission.
The Reco NG, developed by Thales, can supply digital imagery for low-, medium- and high-altitude and strategic reconnaissance, permitting it to detect targets over a wide swath and identify them with centimetric resolution without pilot intervention. The two sorties will be the first outside France for the new pod, which is in the final stages of joint air force/navy qualification. Because the first naval Reco NGs will not arrive until next year, all the pods will be air force models, which lack the extra reinforcements needed for carrier duty. This means carrier-borne pods will operate somewhat below their maximum design capability, says Capt. Sebastien Fabre, the navy’s Rafale program officer.
In addition to the Reco NG, the air force Rafales will also carry new Damocles MP targeting pods, Rover ground-air data links, near-real-time ground situation displays and 30-mm. cannon fully qualified for the ground role. Naval aircraft will not be equipped with Damocles because of delays in training crews in its use, Fabre says. Targeting will instead be done by Dassault Super Etendards, using Damocles M pods that have been in use since 2004.
Once the Charles de Gaulle has completed its Horn of Africa stint, it will take up station in the Arabian Sea in support of U.S. missions on the Arabian peninsula and the NATO task force in Afghanistan. The French also will provide three air force Rafale F3s next spring, alongside a complement of three Dassault Mirage 2000 fighters, for its combat aircraft contingent at Kandahar, Afghanistan.
The heavy deployment schedule—which forced France to scrap its planned involvement with Rafale in NATO’s annual Tiger Meet now taking place in the Netherlands—underscores the country’s eagerness to demonstrate the new Rafale F3 capabilities. However, planners acknowledge that the aircraft is still not fully optimized to counter evolving threats, particularly in Afghanistan. NATO officials are now more interested in systems that can provide greater endurance rather than classic tactical reconnaissance, for example, a shift that prompted a German decision to withdraw recce-pod-equipped Panavia Tornados from Afghanistan next month.
The French armaments agency is studying the acquisition of new hardware to meet these changing field conditions. One requirement concerns a strike capability intermediate between 30-mm. cannon and 250-kg. (550-lb.) laser-guided bombs, for which a solution is expected to emerge early next year (AW&ST July 19, p. 76). Engineers are also still grappling with the Rafale’s inability to independently determine the precise geolocation of targets for suppression with the AASM standoff weapon, admits a senior French air force officer. A remedy—which would improve the acuity of the Specter electronic warfare system so it can detect a target and cue the pod—is underway. Fielding that feature, however, will take several years.
In addition to permitting coalition forces to benefit from the Rafale F3’s expanded mission role, the Middle East deployments will serve to highlight the aircraft’s capabilities to potential buyers in the region, beginning with the United Arab Emirates, which has long been courted by France as the first export customer for the Dassault product. To reinforce the message, the French will stand up a squadron of Rafales at their new base in Abu Dhabi in November. The squadron will be equipped initially with three Rafales and three Mirage 2000-5s. Next year, the Mirage 2000s will be replaced with Rafales.
The new squadron at St. Dizier, designated 2/92 Aquitaine, will serve to transform ab-initio pilots as well as navigators and crew flying older aircraft for service on Rafale. The unit will ramp up gradually as the number of Rafales grows. The fleet now comprises 38 two-seat and 39 single-seat aircraft, a figure that was due to grow to 39 twins and 44 singles by the end of 2013. However, with the recent decision to defer a planned Mirage 2000D upgrade and no export order yet in hand, ramp-up will be “a bit faster than initially foreseen,” says French Defense Minister Herve Morin.
The 2/92 Aquitaine will train 6-10 ab-initio pilots annually, along with 12-15 pilots transitioning from other types of aircraft and 4-6 navigator/weapon system officers. The squadron will draw on Rafales from two air force combat units already based at St. Dizier and up to four to be supplied by the navy.
A third French-based combat squadron will stand up at the Mont-de-Marsan base in southwestern France next year.
