The Dassault Rafale is a French jet combat aircraft capable of carrying out a wide range of short and long range missions in day and night-time and in all weather conditions, previously carried out by a number of different aircraft. The missions include ground and sea attack, air defence and air superiority, reconnaissance and high accuracy strike or nuclear strike deterrence. The Rafale is produced in three variants, M, B and C. The Rafale M variant is a single seater carrier based version for the navy, B and C are a two seater and a single seater for the French Air Force. The Rafale can carry payloads of over nine tons on 14 hard points for the air force version and 13 for the naval version. The range of weapons includes Mica, Magic, Sidewinder, ASRAAM and AMRAAM air-to-air missiles, Apache, AS30L, ALARM, HARM, Maverick and PGM100 air-to-ground missiles and the Exocet/ AM39, Penguin 3, and Harpoon anti-ship missile. For a strategic mission the Rafale can deliver the Aerospatiale ASMP standoff nuclear missile. The Rafale has a twin
gun pod and a GIAT 30 mm DEFA 791B cannon The
Rafale is equipped with laser designation pods for laser guidance of air-to-ground missiles. The Rafale is powered by two SNECMA M88-2 turbofans providing a top speed of Mach 2 and a maximum range of 1850 km with four drop-tanks. Research Rafale
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Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Aircraft
Research Rafale
