Another way to look at it is a Rafale buy in the early 2000s could have provided the purchasing nation with a state of the art combat aircraft delivering better performance and greater capability than any upgraded 4th generation aircraft while completely avoiding the issue of sustaining aging, hour limited airframes waiting for the F-35 to be delivered. For example had Australia opted for an early Rafale buy there would have been no need for the SH buy, or the legacy Bug HUG and the F-35 buy could have been pushed out to the early of mid 2020s.
Thats a very expensive option. Like
a lot of money.
In my opinion, nothing.
It just happens to be the "last" of the Gen4 fighter designs & was a bit too early for many of the fighter renewal acquisition programs. So, it lost out to the "first" of the Gen5 fighter designs (F-35 JSF).
Its not quite that simple.
Greg has pointed out that the Rafale is no longer much cheaper than the F-35 to buy. My feeling is that this is largely a matter of scale, there are so many countries buying the F-35 (& who have already invested so much in it that they can not afford for it to fail) that the ginormous development costs are able to be amortised across a vastly greater number of aircraft.
If the Rafale had been purchased in similar numbers & upgraded as required, I still think the cost per unit would have been much cheaper than the F-35.
indeed but thats not the scenario, Rafales won't be produced in the thousands with JSFs in the hundreds. That was the whole concept of the JSF pool resources, get a massive serial production to build a superior fighter while keeping the cost low, IE getting the most of your money. The problem with euro-canards is they are built in small numbers and sold piecemeal. the "ginormous" costs are also still less than the Rafale additional cost unless your country start with a "U" and ends with "SA" and we weren't going to buy anything french so its moot. Rafales are very expensive for what you get.
When was the last time a european built fighter sold in quadruple digits and what was it? serious question-- does anyone know?
Gripen under 360
Rafale 126 so far (India brings it to 252)
EF typhoon under 571
Tornado is damn close with 992.
Another interesting sub-question in Europe itself what is the break down of european vs american fighter aircraft? Norway, denmark, Romania, portugal, netherlands, Greece, Belgium, poland and Turkey all fly F-16s? Are there more american fighters flown in europe than european built?
In order to get big numbers for the eurocanards (and this is good what if territory) Euro aircraft manufacturers would have to band together, steal away some of the American fighter operators in europe, generate other international interest and then deliver on a low cost high production machine with sound industrial performance, it would also help if the cold war didn't end because that put a lot of the eurocanards on the back burner.
so France, stays in the Eurofighter in the 1980s, and it would help if you could get the Swedes on board too.
One of the problems with the Eurocanards has been them infighting and under cutting each other, so Typhie wins some, rafale some, Gripen others... If it was just one airplane from all of them you drive up the numbers and lower the cost. but its always just a few here, a few there. The only competition F-35 has had from the US is the Super Hornet, and only the USN was really unto it and that was predating JSF, people who signed JSF are staying JSF.
I, also, still think that the Rafale would be a better choice for many countries spending their dollars/yen/pesos/etc. on the F-35.
Countries spending on the F-35 are getting not only a better and more advanced plane, but better industrial participation over more units and a longer period of time. For Example Canada is looking to make their money back building JSF parts that will make up the cost of buying them. Uncle sugar is footing a large majority of the R&D cost as well. So if you are a foreign country you are getting a superior plane, superior offsets, upgrade tracks for decades, and all you have to do is pay the JSF program fees and wait to buy while your factories start employing people.
Even if the Rafale is better on paper, things like logisitics and sustainment must be looked at, and the French have screwed that up badly on several occasions and have earned a reputation that is not easily forgotten.
Rafale is not the 'last' of the Gen4/4.5 designs, it is 'older' than both Gripen and Typhoon.
Sales have been hampered by Dassault's disinclination to deal on price and lack of
coordination between Dassault and the French government, particularly on the foreign
trade side.
^this^
sorry I'm not trying to RW anyone to death, But there are a lot of issues with the Rafale not all of them a fault of the plane itself. If everything was equal, price, upgrades, sustainment, logistics, offsets, politics etc, Rafale would be doing better but that isn't the world we live in.
