Cinéma Francais: Music, heavy breathing and lots of French. Which either is, or is not, as cool as it sounds.
Depending upon your preferences.
Pretty cool machine, although I’ve never been a huge fan of delta wing designs. They typically bleed like a stuck pig with the Ebola virus in a turning fight, but according to Wikipedia, the Rafale has a wing loading of just a hair over 83 lb/ft2, more than the F-16 (40) but less than the Hornet (93).
Thirty-four thousand pounds of static thrust in full grunt – I’m not seeing much room in that airframe for fuel, so I’m thinking external tanks will be de riguer for any real dirty work. It will be interesting to see the effects of external stores on that planform.
Nice looking cockpit, clean lines. Canards should help for slow speed fight. Much will depend upon the weapons systems integration and flight control laws. The French are big on designing and integrating (and exporting) advanced electronic attack and protect features.
I wouldn’t turn my nose up, if someone offered me a ride.
And yes, I’m available to travel.
Why do they (Delta’s) bleed knots in a furball? If so, I say that’s a lot of thrust for such a small plane, in case they got a little short in the corner, or well, anytime.
I’m a novice in aero, have a test on Monday, so it’s on my mind.
v/r
Oh, and if anyone’s up for it, what do canards do to C-sub-LMAX?
Sadly, I’m no aero major. But I believe it has something to do with wetted surface areas at increasing angles of attack.
All I think I know is what I remember from my caps and lims lectures. Delta wings are great for going like a striped-ass baboon but they come with trade-offs once you start to swirl.
Lex/
That’s what made the “notched” delta of the English Electric Lightning P.1 so effective. Would go like your stripped-ass ape but also swap ends with you in a heart-beat. A helluva bird for it’s day–or any day. We used to tousle with them all the time in the early 70s when I was stationed in the UK (though STRICKLEY verboten by USAFE/3rdAF rules–just don’t get caught!) Update the electronics and it would STILL be competitive. Younger guys not familiar with it really ought to check it out on Wiki, which has a nice and fairly comprehensive write-up on it.
As an aero major (a while back) I’ll take a stab, but you might want to fact check me.
My guess is that as a low aspect ratio design the delta wing has a really low lift curve slope. So in order to pull a lot of g’s it has to pull to a higher AoA (alpha) than a higher aspect wing like the hornet has. Since the lift vector produced by the wing is normal to it (while drag is usually along the chord) and you’re pulling a higher alpha, a higher proportion of lift generated is perpendicular to the direction you want to accelerate in and is aligned with the drag vector and thus serves to slow you down. Also, like Lex says, your drag coefficient will be higher because of the higher wetted area.
As for C-sub-Lmax delta’s don’t tend to have ones too much lower than higher aspect ratio wings but they are a bit lower. Due to their lower lift curve slopes though, their alpha max has to be (and are) much higher, which means that even at very high AoA’s their wings tend to not stall. This is because deltas usually have very sharp leading edges which produce vortex lift. Vortices are produced off the sharp edge which will keep the airflow attached to the upper surface of the wing. The Rafale has a close coupled canard which means the wingtip and other vortices coming off the canard will effect the main wing, and likely keep the airflow attached to the main wing at even higher alphas, and thus increasing the C-sub-Lmax.
A picture is worth a thousand words. If you have a copy of Daniel Raymer’s “Aircraft Design: A Conceptual Approach” from the AIAA Series (third edition) there’s a diagram of how Cl and alpha vary for different aspect ratios on Fig 4.19, pg. 58, in the “Airfoil and Geometry Selection” chapter. “Aerodynamics, Aeronautics and Flight Mechanics” by Barnes W. McCormick is a classic many schools assign and has a good discussion of the delta wing in Chapter 3, starting pg 132 in the 2nd edition.
Hope that helps, but I’m not exactly a professor so more accurately I hope it doesn’t confuse you to hell.
On another note had the pleasure of seeing a couple Rafales onboard CVN 65 in the med. Beautiful, sportly little plane. Fastest launch off the cat I’ve ever seen. (Of course it was clean at the time.) On vulture’s row I got to talk to a french O-6 who was in charge of acquisition of the Rafale for their Navy. I offered a complement in the spirit of hospitality we were directed to display, to which he replied “yes, but it is way too expensive,” looked down shaking his head all the time, and then slowly walked away.
a little more info on the fuel situation there.
Internal, 1519 gallons so thats a little over 10k#s
330 or 528 gallon external tanks available (small is supersonic)
2 conformal 303 gal tanks can be mounted on top of the wing/fuselage IOT free up hard points. They are supersonic capable and “negligible” as far as handling. 2 hrs to put on/take off
cant find too much on range other than
“1093 km on a low level penetration mission with 12 250 kg bombs, 4 Mica AAMs and 4300 litre of fuel in three auxilliary tanks”
Wiki” Range: 3,700+ km (2,000+ nmi)
Combat radius: 1,852+ km (1,000+ nmi) on penetration mission
I vote the pr0n soundtrack heavy breathing is decidedly not cool. I can’t imagine the pilot needs to pant on the take-off roll, but after watching the repeated footage of the ritual dance in the ready-room…maybe he does.
Suppose we’ll know soon enough but looks like some Rafales will be sporting the colors of the Forca Aerea Brasileira. Package deal, incentives and technology transfer may have been too hard to resist.
He was a leftie and looks as though had his situation well in hand. Heavy breathing — ugh. Not the best aviation vid I’ve ever seen.
Really.
Nice plane.
RE: turning flights.
Haven’t American aviators traditionally avoided turning fights in favor of “slash in,” “slash out” maneuvers?
You mean blow through the merge (after firing missiles) and then turning to re-engage?
I’m just guessing here, but I would think it’s not just American aviators that would prefer NOT to have an engagement degrade into a close in, last ditch, “phone-booth” type dogfight. That scenario just represents a failure of all previous measures to kill your adversary.
Again…I’m just guessing here. I fly C-172′s, not Super Hornets.
I once had an instructor tell me that ACM (air combat maneuvering) was the product of a blown intercept. That said, it all depends: Type of mission, permissible risk, rules of engagement, perceived situational awareness, numbers, fuel/missiles remaining. You’d be much more likely to engage on a defensive mission such as a vital area defense than on a OCA sweep. Having to do a VID in a two-ship might force you into an engagement if your target group was heavy. Less likely to engage lead groups if there are follow on groups closing in. Sometimes you get jumped.
By modern standards the FA-18 has a relatively slow top end, and of course they exist to bring the fight to the foe over his turf, where – depending again on they type of adversary – there may be a fuel mismatch. With anything like an advantage at the merge, I had a decided preference to hang around and clean things up rather than watch my six for missile trails.
I hate to be a downer but the two BEST things that ever happened to the French (OR IN FRANCE)were:
1. WE, Canadiens & the Brits took Normandy back from the Germans
2. We liberated Paris – I am most envious of the GIs who were able to do this as they likely got some of the best French “hospitality” ever shown an Army anywhere, anytime.
I have respect for the citizen of Normandy, as they have shown grace & class in welcoming Americans to their piece of France as a sign of respect for what we did 65 years ago….The majority of French citizens could care less whether we live or die although Sarkozy seems (emphsis on seems) to be changing things for the better..we’ll wait & see where it goes.
I was on liberty in Bahrain in a hotel bar when 10 french Sailors came in to enjoy the evening….shortly after the Phillipino band started playing, the 10 MALE french sailors got up and started dancing enmasse….as a group on the dance floor….extremely close together……CHECK Please ! We left the establishment before we lost what little supper we could hold down..
The words the French most famously uttered are ” Je me rends ” which means,
“I SURRENDER”
One Polish pilot who went to France to fly after Poland fell recounts that when Paris was captured the French pilots broke open the Chmpaigne celebrating the end of their war just as he was starting to make his way to England to continue the fight in his third theater. Vive la difference!
I believe I read that the Poles contributed a larger force to the Allied military in WW2 than the French… I’m not sure if that subtracts out the French contribution to the Nazi’s or not.
In any case, Dassault makes pretty airplanes.
Yes they do. My son flies one of them and he and many of his fellow pilots prefer the Falcon to planes like the G Series. Hate to say it.
WAY over the top! The director was dreaming of his first Academy Award no doubt!
Speaking of liberating France, look at these amazing “then” and “now” pictures of Normandy.
http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&pid=gmail&attid=0.1.0.1&thid=124633e9d8eb0cac&mt=application/vnd.ms-powerpoint&url=http://mail.google.com/mail/%3Fui%3D2%26ik%3D2a65cee883%26
To all who answered:
Thanks! You all obliged my request well, esp. ProwlerAMDO.
From various dubious instructors I talked to this morning, the combo of a delta wing and canards allows for hi AOA control and all around super agility, as you said, but a reduced weapons/fuel load on the wing. So you all seem to know your stuff. Thanks for the study references, I’ll have to check them out.
Obviously the French use ‘em for naval aviation, so they’ve done the math.
Again thanks, I’ll get back to my stack of NASC pubs, and relish a UT victory.
FLY NAVY