Dassault Flight Tests Heavily Armed Rafale Fighter

Saint-Cloud, France © Dassault Aviation - V. Almansa Dassault Aviation successfully completed maiden flight tests of its Rafale omn...

Saint-Cloud, France

Dassault Aviation successfully completed maiden flight tests of its Rafale omni role fighter in a new heavily armed configuration with more weapons and larger fuel tanks.

The heavily armed configuration comprised six air-to-ground precision AASM Hammer missiles, four medium and long range air-to-air missiles from the MICA family, two very long range METEOR missiles, as well as three 2,000 liter fuel tanks mounded on its 14 hard points, including eight under the wings.

The Dassault funded flight envelope expansion is carried out in collaboration with the French Defense Procurement Agency DGA. This new configuration would allow versatile deep strike capabilities, inflicting considerable damage to enemy targets in a single sortie. Dassault says two Rafale fighters aircraft is equivalent to six Mirage 2000 fighters in capabilities.

The delta winged Rafale is the only fighter aircraft in the world capable of carrying 1.5 times its own weight. The Rafale entered service with the French Navy in 2004 and with the French Air Force in 2006, gradually replacing the seven types of previous-generation combat aircraft.

Dassault has delivered 126 of the 180 aircraft ordered by France. The Rafale fleet has clocked almost 120,000 flight hours, including 16,000 in operations. Since mid-2013, production Rafale aircraft are equipped with an Thales built active array RBE2 AESA radar. Dassault Aviation was recently awarded the contract for development of Rafale to F3R standard.