Dassault Rafale : Indian Fetal Air Force Fighter Planes
Dassault Rafale
The fighter jets Dassault Rafale are built by French aviation company Dassault. The first batch of five Rafale jets flew from Merignac airbase in France’s Bordeaux and 12 Indian pilots brought them India. They left on 27th July and reached India on 29th July .The fighter jets will land in Ambala, Haryana at Indian Air Force base.
The 12 Indian pilots are fully trained by France and will cover a distance of around 7,000 km from France to India It will have air to air refueling and a single stop at a French airbase in UAE. The Indian high Commission in France in a stated “Delivery of 10 aircraft is completed. Five has been sent to India and 5 will remain France for training Indian Air Force pilots in various technical aspects of the flights.
France will deliver Remaining 26 Rafale by the end 2022. One of the prominent features of Rafale jets is that these can carry intense fetal weapons and missiles . Last month Defense Minister Rajnath Singh had a telephonic conversation with the French Defense Minister Florence Parly.
Florence Parly had as per the previously agreed upon schedule, the delivery of the first 5 jets would take place as scheduled despite the COVID pandemic.
Tucked away in the details of the deal, there are 3 aspects which make the Dassault Rafale the most destructive aircraft for the Indian Air force. Defense updates has analyzed them and bringing you particulars of each of these 3 aspects.
Here are some deadliest and fetal features of Rafale which are enough to call it deadly and dangerous .
- IAF’s (Indian Air Force ) Rafales will come equipped with the Meteor missile. It is arguably the most advance air to air missile in the world. The acquisition of this weapon is likely to be game changer in South Asia. Neither Pakistan nor China, India’s traditional military adversaries, possess a weapon of the same class. So what is special in meteor ? Here are the main points
- Meteor has a range of 100 KM. The only other air-to-air missile which has range similar to Meteor is the AIM-120D. AIM-120D the latest variant of the U.S Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile is also designed in a way so that it can hit targets more than 100 KM away.
- Meteor has Ramjet engine. A conventional solid-fuel booster accelerates the Meteor after launch, like most air-to-air missiles. But while booming through the air, the missile opens up a intake channel, allowing air to enter into the engine, which heats up the oxygen and propels the supersonic missile to Mach 4 (four times the speed of sound). The speed gives little or no chance to the target to escape.
- Technicians from the European firm MBDA, which builds the missile, have claimed that the Meteor has a “no escape zone”, 3 times larger than that of the AIM 120D AMRAAM missile. The “no-escape zone” is an aerial combat term for a cone-shaped area determined by the missile’s capabilities – from where a targeted aircraft cannot escape solely using its own maneuver ability.
Target engagement
- In the final phase of target engagement, anon-board data link gives a major advantage to Meteor. Using the data link means that ,target information updates while the missile is already streaking towards its target. Re-targeting data can even come from a third-party—i.e., from a platform other than the launch aircraft. The second most important aspect is the presence of SCALP. Scalp is an air-launched cruise missile, manufactured by MBDA.
Scalp has the following features which make sit extremely useful for IAF.
- The missile has a enormous range of approx 560 KM (300 nautical miles). The range allow the missile to take out high value ground aims from long distances.
- It carries a massive warhead, 450 KG BROACH(Bomb Royal Ordnance Augmented Charge). This enables the missile to destroy even fortified bunkers. June 2016 ,the R A F used 4 Scalp missiles against an ISIS Bunker in Iraq. Scalp missiles are helpful for ransacking huge built bunkers of enemy . Missiles can easily damage these bunkers .
- All 4 missiles scored direct hits, penetrating deep into the bunker, destroying them completely. Electronically-Scanned Array (AESA) radar is one of the prominent feature of Rafael which turn out to be its hidden ace.
Special features of the radar
- As per estimation, Radar has maximum range around 200 KM. The fabulous range gives it ability to detect aircraft from long distances.
- Maximum number aerial target it can track is 40.
- Maximum number aerial target it can engaged simultaneously is 8.
- Capabilities supporting low-observable target detection.
- Higher reliability for reduced maintenance and lower through-life support costs.
- Greater waveform agility resulting in improved resistance to jamming. With its strong capabilities, this radar gives the Rafale a great situational awareness in the battlefield and gives IAF an edge overits rivals
So here you have experienced some fetal features of Dassault Rafale . Hope You liked them.
