Serving armed forces
Dassault Aviation delivers what’s needed to meet current and future challenges. France, Egypt, Qatar and India have all chosen Rafale fighters for their armed forces. A total of 276 Rafales have now been ordered, including 96 in export markets. All of these initial customers also deploy Dassault’s Mirage 2000 fighters.
French Rafales: combat-proven
France has ordered a total of 180 Rafales, with 149 delivered as of the end of 2017. A fifth batch of 30 more aircraft is expected in the 2019-2025 military spending bill. Flown by both air force and navy pilots, these aircraft have been deployed in a wide range of demanding theaters of operation.
They have now logged 38,000 hours in operation and a total of 235,000 flight-hours, making the Rafale one of the most seasoned new-generation combat aircraft. It has demonstrated its outstanding versatility and combat effectiveness in Afghanistan from 2007 to 2012, in Libya in 2011, and in the Sahel, Iraq and Syria since 2013, 2014 and 2015, respectively.
The Rafale can handle a variety of missions that previously required seven different types of aircraft. The Rafale was designed from the ground up to incorporate new capabilities throughout its service life, based on operating feedback. The new F3-R standard will enter service in early 2019, with features including the new Meteor air-to-air missile, the Talios laser designation pod and a new version of the AASM Hammer guided missile.
Export Rafales: from success to success
Egypt, the first export customer for the Rafale, ordered 24 aircraft in 2015. By the end of 2017, 14 had been delivered.
India ordered 36 Rafales in 2016, to be delivered starting in 2019. The country is also in the process of modernizing its fleet of Mirage 2000 fighters, upgrading them to the 2000-5 standard. India’s Rafale order includes a commitment to industrial and technological offsets, within the scope of the Make in India policy. Furthermore, this latest contract extends a solid relationship between India and Dassault Aviation, reaching back to the 1950s.
Qatar placed its first order in 2015, for 24 Rafales, with deliveries to start in 2019. In 2017, Qatar signed an agreement with Dassault Aviation to convert an option for 12 more Rafale and signed a new agreement on future collaboration, including an option on another 36 aircraft.
With the converted option, a total of 96 Rafales have now been ordered in export markets.
More special-mission Falcons
Our Falcon jets are designed by the same department as for the Rafale fighter, and offer long endurance plus the ability to use short and challenging runways. In other words, they are ideally suited to a wide range of government missions.
The Falcon 2000 MRA maritime reconnaissance aircraft fulfills a broad spectrum of missions, including the fight against piracy, trafficking and pollution, fishery control, search & rescue, surveillance, etc. It offers the best combination of size, payload, speed, endurance and total cost of ownership, and features an active electrically scanned array radar (AESA) from Thales. In 2017, the Japan Coast Guard acquired a fourth plane of this type.
In early 2018, the French Armed Forces Ministry announced its choice of Dassault Aviation to integrate the universal electronic warfare capability (CUGE) function, developed by Thales through the Epicure program, into three Falcon jets.
Falcon 2000MRA © Dassault Aviation