Two single seater Rafale C arrive in Eygpt on July 26 French Dassault Aviation has delivered 4 Dassault Rafale combat jets in first ha...
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| Two single seater Rafale C arrive in Eygpt on July 26 |
French Dassault Aviation has delivered 4 Dassault Rafale combat jets in first half of 2017, to French and Egyptian Air Forces. A further two Rafales was delivered to Egyptian Air Force on July 26, according to Egyptian Defense Ministry.
Five Rafale have been delivered to Egypt, bringing total delivered to 11 out of the 24 aircraft ordered in 2015. The fourth batch of 2 Single seat Rafale C fighters were delivered on July 26.
The remaining one Rafale was delivered to French Military, bringing the total delivered to 149, out of the 180 ordered by French Air Force and Navy. Dassault also delivered a naval carrier capable Rafale M retrofitted to the F3 standard to French Navy.
As of now, Rafale has an order backlog for 104 aircraft including 73 from export customers Egypt (13 remaining), Qatar (24) and India (36).
Dassault plans to deliver 9 Rafales in 2017, including 8 to Egypt and 1 to France. Production of Rafales for Indian and Qatar Air Forces are under way and delivery is slated to commence in 2019.
Dassault hopes to bag an follow-on additional order from Indian Air Force and also win the Indian Navy requirement for 57 naval multi-role fighters.
To discharge its offset liabilities for the Indian Contract, Dassault has formed a joint venture with Indian Reliance Industries, called the Dassault Reliance Aerospace Limited Joint Venture (DRAL JV) in February 2017, in which 51% of the capital is held by Reliance and 49% by Dassault.
The JV will produce sub-assemblies for the Rafale and the Dassault Falcon 2000 business jets. Production will be progressively ramped up over 5 years, from late 2017 in order to build the required infrastructure and local technical skill.
