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- 30 سبتمبر 2014
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المقال طويل للغااااية على ان اترجمه خاصة ان اغلبه اشياء لا تهمنا في الشرق الاوسط .. ولذلك ساكتفي بنقل اهم النقاط فيه:
- الامارات فضلت ان تتجه للتايفون بدلا من الرافال.
- مصر ابدت اهتمام بشراء 26 رافال لكنها تفاضل بينها وبين شراء عدد اكبر من الثاندر الباكستاني وبسعر ارخص.
- الصحافة الهندية تتسائل حول قدرة الرافال في مواجهة طائرات عدوهم الصين وخصوصا J-20
- فرنسا تعرض على كندا ليس فقط نقل تقنية تصنيع الرافال لكن ايضا توطين صناعتها وامكانية صناعة نسخة كندية خاصة يمكنها ان تحمل اسلحة غير فرنسية مثل الامرام (وهذا كان احد الاسباب الرئيسية في فشل الصفقة مع البرازيل كون تسليح الطائرة فرنسي فقط).
- بفرض نجاح الصفقات الهندية والكندية فانها لن تحقق فائدة كبيرة لشركة داسو .. فبخلاف العائد المادي للصفقة فان المصانع لن تكون منشغلة بتصنيع الرافال ولن توفر تلك الصفقات وظائف كون اغلبها سيصنع في الهند وكندا .
As India gets ever colder feet over going French where its future fighters are concerned, Fighter Jet News presents a timely analysis of how the Dassault Rafale, heir to France’s proud Mirage family, is managing to live up to the reputation of French aircraft sown around the world by its legendary predecessors.
It might be from pedigree stock but France’s Rafale has attracted no international buyers besides India and even they may be pulling out of the deal. Brazil decided to opt for the SAAB Gripen while many the Eurofighter Typhoon continues to attract interest amongst European and Middle Eastern buyers. Even the troubled F-35 Lightning II seems to be having an easier time adding to its multinational laurels, despite the numerous problems being reported in the press. So why isn’t the Rafale selling? Could it possibly be because it’s simply too French for its own good?
The name Marcel Bloch hardly seems inspired. More dull and plodding, like the bombers his company produced. Instead the wunderkind of French aviation in the Interwar years was Emile Dewoitine, whose planes seemed to encapsulate the romance and adventure forever associated with the fighter pilot. In the end though, Dewoitine’s aircraft were no more able to slow down the Luftwaffe’s conquest of French skies than were Bloch’s. The years that followed were as harrowing and painful for Marcel Bloch as they were for France. As a Jew he found Liberty, Egality and Fraternity had little meaning for Vichy, as he was rounded up to be sent to the concentration camps. Like his beloved France, Bloch would survive that horror and in 1946 he returned home.
What he found was a second rate country whose revived air forces were composed of a motley mixture of British, American, German and even Japanese aircraft. For Bloch mere revival was not enough; only resurrection would suffice. Taking back control of his company, he changed its name, along with his own, from Bloch to Dassault. The first success came in the 1950s with the Ouragan, France’s debut where jet fighters were concerned. At last French squadrons would fly French planes. Yet, it was only towards the end of that decade that the phoenix had truly risen from the flames, when the first of the Mirage family began to enter service.
These were the planes that would truly restore French pride, each one member of a long and illustrious family that would become as much a symbol of postwar France reclaiming its rightful place in the world as the Citroen CV or the events of May 1968. Countries around the world, from Belgium to Taiwan, but most famously the Israelis, would operate these iconic machines. Name any mission the Armee De L’air needed to perform, from air superiority to nuclear strike, and Dassault had created a variant of the Mirage to fulfil it.
Eventually of course, even this family, its greatness assured in the annals of aviation, had to come to an end. In the late 1980s that would have meant what eventually became the Eurofighter, with France too an initial partner alongside Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain. Creative differences however, including a demand for the lion’s share of the work and a belief the aircraft should be suitable for ground attack missions, led the French to leave and go their own way. This was to prove the first step on the road to the Rafale.
Like the Eurofighter and the Gripen, the Rafale follows what seem to be the hallmarks of a European convention on fighter design, being a delta-wing multirole fighter with a canard layout. Equally capable in both air and ground combat, the Rafale, in use with both the Armee De L’air and the French Navy’s Aeronavale, has much the same combat experience as the Eurofighter, being a veteran of Afghanistan, Libya and now the campaign against ISIS. Success in the field isn’t matched by commercial achievements and Dassault have lost several potentially lucrative orders to competitors. The UAE preferred to go with the Eurofighter (though not quickly enough for BAE) while Brazil opted for the Gripen. Plenty of other countries, including Switzerland, South Korea and Singapore. The latter two’s decision not to buy Rafales must have seemed especially galling given their final choices; upgraded versions of the much older F-15 Eagle. Egypt has expressed interest, with Cairo thought to be looking at buying 26 Rafales. Yet Egypt is also taking a good look at the much cheaper Chengu FC-1/JF-17 of Chinese-Pakistan origin; a fighter where a lot more than 26 can be bought without spending any extra money compared to the possible order for the Rafale.
So far only India had definitely chosen the Rafale, with Dassault being awarded a $15 billion contract for 126 Rafales, almost equivalent to the exact number (133) so far built by the French company. Even here the decision has not passed without controversy. Suman Sharma of the Indian paper, the Sunday Guardian, questioned whether the Rafale would be capable of standing up to China’s J-20 stealth fighter. The Hindustan Times even raised the issue with then French Defence Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, whose response that talk of ‘third, fourth or fifth-generation fighters should be taken with a pinch of salt’ was full of characteristic Gallic defiance. Such defiance has proven a poor choice for New Delhi, who wanted full oversight responsibility for all 126 Rafales to lie with Dassault. Dassault’s refusal compounded existing dissatisfaction with the company after a contract to overhaul India’s Mirage 2000 fleet was fulfilled three years late, according to the Calcutta Telegraph.
Even if India decides to buy the Rafales, it will not mask what must be deep unease, if not outright dread at Dassault. For one thing only 18 of the Rafales India is buying will be built in France. The rest are being put together in India. Which means that, besides money coming in, this isn’t that great a deal for Dassault, since it won’t gurantee jobs in the long term. Moreover as noted in a critical article in The New Indian Express, the Indian deal is vital to keeping the production lines going, especially as the French government has chosen to halve its own orders for the plane, in an attempt to alleviate some of France’s budget deficit. The article goes on to describe what lies at the core of the Rafale’s export problems. It’s too French. For example, Brazil wanted to buy 36 Rafales, but was told that a transfer of technology, as well as weapons compatible with the plane’s systems, both French, were to be included as costly, non-removable, extras to the package. Understandably the Brazilians baulked at such terms, bolting straight into the arms of SAAB and their much more cost-effective looking Gripen. With that same price tag for India mired by accusations of corruption on the part of the no longer ruling Congress party, it could very well be that the Rafale ends up being tossed away from India as part of Narendra Modi’s clean-up.
For at the moment, the only other prospective buyer would seem to be Canada. At present the Canadian government is backing away from the F-35 which the other big nations of the Anglosphere have enthusiastically jumped on and dogmatically held on to, despite the plane’s ever growing litany of problems. Ottawa however sees things differently and is not yet convinced that the F-35 offers value for money. While not going as far as cancelling the F-35 or formally reopening the selection process, Canadian reticence has thrown a few crumbs towards those previously left out in the cold. Dassault have lapped these up and started begging for more, offering the Canadians a lucrative transfer of not only technology, but also intellectual property rights, such that Canada could start building her own. If so, it would surely prove of little comfort to Dassault in the long run, since even if the Canadians paid a licence fee for every plane, it would be another example of landing a contract without it leading to French jobs being made any more secure.
In addition the Canadian versions would likely be far more compatible with standard NATO weaponry, such as the AIM-120 AMRAAM and AIM-132 ASRAAM missiles, than is the current French version, which can carry only French weaponry. The very thing that made it so unattractive to the Brazilians and has raised questions in India. Were this not the case, the Rafale, which is a proven multirole fighter, unlike the Eurofighter, would surely be more attractive to would-be international suitors. As things stand, even with the deal offered being almost one-sided in their favour, the Canadians have expressed concerns over the Rafale’s suitability that seem almost certain to dash Dassault’s hopes of achieving a commercial coup on America’s doorstep. If so, then Dassault is reliant entirely on India’s good will, otherwise its plane will achieve failure, no less damming for being unfair.
It’s like going in a Subway, ordering your dream six-inch Italian, and then expecting everyone else in the queue to order the exact same thing you want at the same price. It wouldn’t happen in Subway and, much as Dassault, and the French, might wish to the contrary, won’t happen in the rest of the world either. To conclude my argument, and to summarise the problems with Dassault’s entire approach, I leave you with the words of Dassault CEO Charles Edelstenne:
‘When one is in a country like India which is an open country and in which Americans do not have the same weight as countries that are their private hunting preserve, we have a chance. And this chance, we got it… The market for the Rafale, it is countries that do not want or can not buy or American countries who want to have a second source while buying American. Now all countries, except two, where we lost, were countries that did not fit this definition’.
المصدر
- الامارات فضلت ان تتجه للتايفون بدلا من الرافال.
- مصر ابدت اهتمام بشراء 26 رافال لكنها تفاضل بينها وبين شراء عدد اكبر من الثاندر الباكستاني وبسعر ارخص.
- الصحافة الهندية تتسائل حول قدرة الرافال في مواجهة طائرات عدوهم الصين وخصوصا J-20
- فرنسا تعرض على كندا ليس فقط نقل تقنية تصنيع الرافال لكن ايضا توطين صناعتها وامكانية صناعة نسخة كندية خاصة يمكنها ان تحمل اسلحة غير فرنسية مثل الامرام (وهذا كان احد الاسباب الرئيسية في فشل الصفقة مع البرازيل كون تسليح الطائرة فرنسي فقط).
- بفرض نجاح الصفقات الهندية والكندية فانها لن تحقق فائدة كبيرة لشركة داسو .. فبخلاف العائد المادي للصفقة فان المصانع لن تكون منشغلة بتصنيع الرافال ولن توفر تلك الصفقات وظائف كون اغلبها سيصنع في الهند وكندا .
As India gets ever colder feet over going French where its future fighters are concerned, Fighter Jet News presents a timely analysis of how the Dassault Rafale, heir to France’s proud Mirage family, is managing to live up to the reputation of French aircraft sown around the world by its legendary predecessors.
It might be from pedigree stock but France’s Rafale has attracted no international buyers besides India and even they may be pulling out of the deal. Brazil decided to opt for the SAAB Gripen while many the Eurofighter Typhoon continues to attract interest amongst European and Middle Eastern buyers. Even the troubled F-35 Lightning II seems to be having an easier time adding to its multinational laurels, despite the numerous problems being reported in the press. So why isn’t the Rafale selling? Could it possibly be because it’s simply too French for its own good?
The name Marcel Bloch hardly seems inspired. More dull and plodding, like the bombers his company produced. Instead the wunderkind of French aviation in the Interwar years was Emile Dewoitine, whose planes seemed to encapsulate the romance and adventure forever associated with the fighter pilot. In the end though, Dewoitine’s aircraft were no more able to slow down the Luftwaffe’s conquest of French skies than were Bloch’s. The years that followed were as harrowing and painful for Marcel Bloch as they were for France. As a Jew he found Liberty, Egality and Fraternity had little meaning for Vichy, as he was rounded up to be sent to the concentration camps. Like his beloved France, Bloch would survive that horror and in 1946 he returned home.
What he found was a second rate country whose revived air forces were composed of a motley mixture of British, American, German and even Japanese aircraft. For Bloch mere revival was not enough; only resurrection would suffice. Taking back control of his company, he changed its name, along with his own, from Bloch to Dassault. The first success came in the 1950s with the Ouragan, France’s debut where jet fighters were concerned. At last French squadrons would fly French planes. Yet, it was only towards the end of that decade that the phoenix had truly risen from the flames, when the first of the Mirage family began to enter service.
These were the planes that would truly restore French pride, each one member of a long and illustrious family that would become as much a symbol of postwar France reclaiming its rightful place in the world as the Citroen CV or the events of May 1968. Countries around the world, from Belgium to Taiwan, but most famously the Israelis, would operate these iconic machines. Name any mission the Armee De L’air needed to perform, from air superiority to nuclear strike, and Dassault had created a variant of the Mirage to fulfil it.
Eventually of course, even this family, its greatness assured in the annals of aviation, had to come to an end. In the late 1980s that would have meant what eventually became the Eurofighter, with France too an initial partner alongside Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain. Creative differences however, including a demand for the lion’s share of the work and a belief the aircraft should be suitable for ground attack missions, led the French to leave and go their own way. This was to prove the first step on the road to the Rafale.
Like the Eurofighter and the Gripen, the Rafale follows what seem to be the hallmarks of a European convention on fighter design, being a delta-wing multirole fighter with a canard layout. Equally capable in both air and ground combat, the Rafale, in use with both the Armee De L’air and the French Navy’s Aeronavale, has much the same combat experience as the Eurofighter, being a veteran of Afghanistan, Libya and now the campaign against ISIS. Success in the field isn’t matched by commercial achievements and Dassault have lost several potentially lucrative orders to competitors. The UAE preferred to go with the Eurofighter (though not quickly enough for BAE) while Brazil opted for the Gripen. Plenty of other countries, including Switzerland, South Korea and Singapore. The latter two’s decision not to buy Rafales must have seemed especially galling given their final choices; upgraded versions of the much older F-15 Eagle. Egypt has expressed interest, with Cairo thought to be looking at buying 26 Rafales. Yet Egypt is also taking a good look at the much cheaper Chengu FC-1/JF-17 of Chinese-Pakistan origin; a fighter where a lot more than 26 can be bought without spending any extra money compared to the possible order for the Rafale.
So far only India had definitely chosen the Rafale, with Dassault being awarded a $15 billion contract for 126 Rafales, almost equivalent to the exact number (133) so far built by the French company. Even here the decision has not passed without controversy. Suman Sharma of the Indian paper, the Sunday Guardian, questioned whether the Rafale would be capable of standing up to China’s J-20 stealth fighter. The Hindustan Times even raised the issue with then French Defence Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, whose response that talk of ‘third, fourth or fifth-generation fighters should be taken with a pinch of salt’ was full of characteristic Gallic defiance. Such defiance has proven a poor choice for New Delhi, who wanted full oversight responsibility for all 126 Rafales to lie with Dassault. Dassault’s refusal compounded existing dissatisfaction with the company after a contract to overhaul India’s Mirage 2000 fleet was fulfilled three years late, according to the Calcutta Telegraph.
Even if India decides to buy the Rafales, it will not mask what must be deep unease, if not outright dread at Dassault. For one thing only 18 of the Rafales India is buying will be built in France. The rest are being put together in India. Which means that, besides money coming in, this isn’t that great a deal for Dassault, since it won’t gurantee jobs in the long term. Moreover as noted in a critical article in The New Indian Express, the Indian deal is vital to keeping the production lines going, especially as the French government has chosen to halve its own orders for the plane, in an attempt to alleviate some of France’s budget deficit. The article goes on to describe what lies at the core of the Rafale’s export problems. It’s too French. For example, Brazil wanted to buy 36 Rafales, but was told that a transfer of technology, as well as weapons compatible with the plane’s systems, both French, were to be included as costly, non-removable, extras to the package. Understandably the Brazilians baulked at such terms, bolting straight into the arms of SAAB and their much more cost-effective looking Gripen. With that same price tag for India mired by accusations of corruption on the part of the no longer ruling Congress party, it could very well be that the Rafale ends up being tossed away from India as part of Narendra Modi’s clean-up.
For at the moment, the only other prospective buyer would seem to be Canada. At present the Canadian government is backing away from the F-35 which the other big nations of the Anglosphere have enthusiastically jumped on and dogmatically held on to, despite the plane’s ever growing litany of problems. Ottawa however sees things differently and is not yet convinced that the F-35 offers value for money. While not going as far as cancelling the F-35 or formally reopening the selection process, Canadian reticence has thrown a few crumbs towards those previously left out in the cold. Dassault have lapped these up and started begging for more, offering the Canadians a lucrative transfer of not only technology, but also intellectual property rights, such that Canada could start building her own. If so, it would surely prove of little comfort to Dassault in the long run, since even if the Canadians paid a licence fee for every plane, it would be another example of landing a contract without it leading to French jobs being made any more secure.
In addition the Canadian versions would likely be far more compatible with standard NATO weaponry, such as the AIM-120 AMRAAM and AIM-132 ASRAAM missiles, than is the current French version, which can carry only French weaponry. The very thing that made it so unattractive to the Brazilians and has raised questions in India. Were this not the case, the Rafale, which is a proven multirole fighter, unlike the Eurofighter, would surely be more attractive to would-be international suitors. As things stand, even with the deal offered being almost one-sided in their favour, the Canadians have expressed concerns over the Rafale’s suitability that seem almost certain to dash Dassault’s hopes of achieving a commercial coup on America’s doorstep. If so, then Dassault is reliant entirely on India’s good will, otherwise its plane will achieve failure, no less damming for being unfair.
It’s like going in a Subway, ordering your dream six-inch Italian, and then expecting everyone else in the queue to order the exact same thing you want at the same price. It wouldn’t happen in Subway and, much as Dassault, and the French, might wish to the contrary, won’t happen in the rest of the world either. To conclude my argument, and to summarise the problems with Dassault’s entire approach, I leave you with the words of Dassault CEO Charles Edelstenne:
‘When one is in a country like India which is an open country and in which Americans do not have the same weight as countries that are their private hunting preserve, we have a chance. And this chance, we got it… The market for the Rafale, it is countries that do not want or can not buy or American countries who want to have a second source while buying American. Now all countries, except two, where we lost, were countries that did not fit this definition’.
المصدر
