Rafale comes battle hardened | Aviation International News

Rafale comes battle hardened

In the fighter aircraft business, there’s no substitute for combat experience, if you want to impress potential customers.

By Chris Pocock • Defense Correspondent

June 18, 2007

In the fighter aircraft business, there’s no substitute for combat experience, if you want to impress potential customers. The Dassault Rafale has now dropped bombs in anger as part of NATO’s stabilization effort in Afghanistan. Here at the show, the Rafale team (which also includes Snecma and Thales) and the French government are briefing several export delegations about this, as well as the aircraft’s steady progress toward full operational capability.

Rafales from the French air force and navy have flown 150 sorties and 640 hours over Afghanistan since March. Tasked with close air support (CAS), the air force has been flying two-ship sorties comprising one Rafale and one Mirage 2000D out of Dushanbe airbase in Tajikistan. The navy has similarly flown mixed sorties–Rafale plus Super Etendard–from the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, located in the Arabian Sea. It has been a 500-mile transit from each location to the area of interest and each sortie has required three air-to-air refuelings.

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