BillHicks; I don't have any pre-conceptions about the French at all, I just happen to write about military aviation as a job, and experience/history is more than enough on which to base my dislike for the French. You don't need any pre-conceptions - just take a look at the history of our respective programmes and see for yourself what a bunch of two-timing, self-interested rats the French are. I agree that they are brilliant at maintaining their industry, and it's something that Britain has always failed to do, and the French do build some good (if not great) aircraft (they've also built more than a few "stinkers" too) but does that entitle the French to any respect? I think not.
Orca; try looking at it this way - the Rafale has been in service for some time, and the Typhoon is just starting its RAF career. Move forward to 2012 (or more likely 2015-plus) and while the Typhoon is not even approaching its MLU (wonder if the promised thrust-vectoring will be affordable?!) the Rafale will be obsolete, as you can bet that the French won't be spending much more money on it, once they've established that they can't actually flog any to anyone. That's not even taking into account that the Rafale was/is inferior to the Typhoon in the first place! Make no mistake, the only reason Rafale was developed was because the French failed to persuade the rest of Europe to build an aircraft that only France wanted and in typical tradition, they threw their proverbial rattle out of their proverbial pram and decided to go it alone yet again. They thought that Eurofighter would either fail or be too complex and expensive to be exported and that they'd be able to sell Rafale instead (I think the term is "doing a Mirage") but this time they got their fingers well and truly burned.
As for your Rafale-v-Typhoon fantasy match Orca, you could put your money on the winner there any day, and it sure wouldn't be the French. In fact, I'd be reluctant to take the bet off even if it was a Rafale-v-F3 scrap, as it really wouldn't pay to underestimate the skills of the RAF's fighter community, even if they're driving Tornado F3's. Bear in mind that France is the country that consistently assigns twin-seat Mirage 2000's for display routines because the forward fuselage is just a bit larger, and thus delivers a slightly better turning performance. Talk about smoke and mirrors...
I assume from the comments here that some Shar drivers prevailed over some F-15's yesterday, but that shouldn't come as much of a surprise - the RAF soundly embarrassed the F-15 community something like twenty years ago, when they went head-to-head with TWU Hunters!
