More Typhoon-bashing ammunition for Rafale fans....
 

The Hushkit site has an interview with Aéronavale pilot Pierre-Henri ‘Até’ Chuet

https://hushkit.net/2019/11/11/flyin...ombat-veteran/

Sample quotes:

Q: Which aircraft have you flown DACT against?

“Against F-16, against Typhoon, against Super Hornets. Against Harrier. Against Alpha Jet. Against Mirage 2000.”

Q: Which was the most challenging?

“The F-16 is pretty cool. Typhoon is a joke, very easy to shoot . F-16 actually was a good surprise actually, I found it to be a pretty good aircraft. I think the most challenging was the F-16, it’s a pretty small jet so it’s easy to lose sight of it. So I think that was the big one. The Harrier can really turn around pretty fast, so you have to play it very close so you have to be careful with that. And with the Alpha Jet don’t go into a slow fight with it. It can manoeuvre and do some rolls at pretty low speed, some barrel rolls at pretty low speeds so you really want to pay attention. You can easily be tricked at low speed by an Alpha Jet. So you want to keep your energy high.”


Q: The Rafale and Typhoon are often compared, how confident would you be fighting against a Typhoon? And why?

“I don’t know why they’re compared so often – it’s really not the same design, ideas or philosophy. We’re a truly omnirole platform. Typhoons are great, they like to use their big engines at 40,000 feet. I can’t count how many times I’ve shot down Typhoons at 45,000 feet in the contrails. And my radar off, everything off, I was coming from 100 feet below, supersonic in the climb from below. Absolutely undetected. So I have absolutely no fear of the Typhoons. Both the tactics used by the Typhoons, the agility and the cockpit of the aircraft make it easier for us to take the advantage — basically we have better fusion of the sensors — so we can be way more aggressive in terms of tactics. It’s a great aircraft at high level, but we’re not dumb enough to try to fight Typhoons at 50,000 feet or 45,000 feet. We’re going to put them outside their comfort zone. Against devious tactics. Now if you want to rate a Typhoon with AMRAAMs against a Rafale at 50,000 ft, then, yeah, Typhoon is going to have better performances for sure. But as a Rafale pilot, I’m stupid if I take him on like that, so I’m going to move the combat a bit. I”l fake a combat at 50,000 feet and I’m going to send a guy sneakily low level to surprise the Typhoon, it’s more easy than you think!”

Hmm...
 

Two things jump out at me from that.

Firstly, it appears that he had a specific anti Typhoon agenda to push (from a Frenchman, surely not).

Secondly he should become a politician. He very cleverly avoids answering the question. Everything he says is true about fighting any jet. You fight the human as much as the machine.

He acknowledges the Typhoons high level performance without saying anything about performance throughout the rest of the envelope.

After all, my wingman shot a Rafale on TLP. The human in that machine with all his sensor fusion had no idea there was a Jaguar in his 4 o clock. That doesn’t make a Jaguar better than a Rafale at air combat.

So, a large pinch of salt is required as far as I’m concerned.

BV

Large dose of scepticism about this article.

In a helicopter vs FJ fight, which I have conducted a lot of, the Typhoon was the toughest to beat.

I have fought against Tornado GR & F3, Harrier, Jag, Hawk and a few others that I forget right now. The Typhoon surprised me and made me work the hardest as it was bloody manoeuvrable, fast and the pilot knew his stuff.

What BV said.

I shot an F-18 down on Red Flag in a GR1 Tonka, so, meh, file that article along with all the other cr@p.

AESA ?
 

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AESA ?

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This is fantastic. Everyone knows the exact kind of guy this is. Would love to meet him in his Rafale at whatever height he chooses for a fight.

There is nothing humble about this guy, which also makes me question the credibility of his comments. Sounds like a typical underperforming flight lead Bully with a chip on his shoulder. Needs to eat some BFM Humble Pie.

Mr Vice

Every aircraft has its strong points and weaknesses.
No need to take offence when a pilot knowing some aircraft underlines the difference between them.

One of my fighter pilot buddies had the opportunity to fly the Typhoon. The most frequent question he had to answer to his colleagues was "is that true it thrusts but doesn't turn ?"

He is now an Air Force colonel and flew the Rafale at war. Having taught him aerobatics when he was a young private pilot, I have no reason to doubt his abilities and judgement.

There are a sufficient number or air exercices and manoeuvers to sort out the respective performance and abilities of the aircraft in question, no need for ad hominem here, even if the statement don't please some.
Just statistics and mock air combat results.


PS : no commercial or national agenda on my part.

"Speaking of the Eurofighter's close-in combat prowess, Major Marc Grüne, CO of 742 (Zapata), the second squadron of the wing, described to assembled aviation journalists how, on a recent visit to France to demo the aircraft, he had won two out of two battles against the Dassault Rafale in mock within visual range dogfights. Both fights were a standard set-up and merge at 21,000ft and 30,000ft he recounted, adding that the higher the fight the better the Eurofighter liked it. He singled out the Eurofighter's excess power as its trump card over the Rafale....."

"Rafale is a great, versatile, multi-role jet, and it does most things better than the aircraft it replaced. But in air to air its a slightly sh*t Hornet - dangerous if you get suckered into a low speed, high alpha fight, but lacking in 'grunt' and no match for a Typhoon....."

"Tubs (even with three bags) would have been adequate to beat Rafales if they hadn't been flown by Jagmates on a QWI course who had little ACM experience......"

Hey Mr Vice !
If I dared challenge your modesty, how many Rafale kills in what aircraft in recent maneuvers ?
Serious now, why attack this guy while he is stating the obvious concerning the aircraft he affronted ?
The Typhoon and Rafale are not the same aircraft, their capabilities are different, and like it or not, agility is not the strong point of the Tyhphoon.
As a fighter pilot he of course tells what he'll try to do to kill those different aircraft.

As to calling a Western Navy pilot "underperforming", I would be very careful. ;-)

No offence or uncivility meant,

Fly Airpt
 

I know you’re not from around here so I’ll be gentle. I will also try to avoid ad hominem insults since you seem a little delicate.

You are talking cr@p.

Oops. I fell at the first hurdle.

I am guessing you are not skilled in the arts of air combat.

I am a mere Hawk instructor and not a bona fide air defence God but I do teach it regularly. Twice today in fact.

Mr Vice actually operates Typhoon.

You genuinely believe that your ‘fat bloke down the pub’ story carries more credence?

Of course a Rafale bloke will say his jet is better. To be fair it is prettier and I believe the cockpit is more modern looking than Typhoon.

Let’s not fool ourselves though that even a Rafale pilot would genuinely believe that his is the better aircraft.

Which metric should we use? Worldwide sales? Range? Payload? Performance?

Now I realise that the article in question is being very partisan and a British authored article would do the same and interview a suitably gregarious RAF pilot.

Please though, can we avoid commenting if you have little or no first hand experience of the subject matter.

I do not view my self as expert enough to say for sure but since Mr Vice agrees with me I feel I am on pretty solid ground.

Otherwise, in my book a Jag once shot a Rafale and Rafale is allegedly better than Typhoon. Ergo we should have kept the Jag and not bothered with Typhoon. Jag is clearly better. Because fat bloke down the pub said so.

By the way, Jacko, excellent fishing trip!

BV

Not sure I agree BV, I think he answers everything... somewhere in his piece.

Of his own ability fighting a Rafale against a dumb training aircraft that he is very familiar with:

His opinion on the odds when facing Typhoon in a modern BVR fight, with the Typhoon constrained to AMRAAM only:

I guess we can take away that his relative performance will be further weakened by later-block AMRAAM, Meteor and the shot that everyone is surprised to absorb when still BVR - a nasty ASRAAM out-of-the-blue.

On where his Rafale could do well against the Typhoon, if it could only survive the BVR fight above:

So if the Typhoons have no real SA, no ESM, MIDS, no off-board radar picture, GCI, AWACS or providing any mutual radar support within the formation then his Rafale can get in undetected. Presumably his Rafale is not without picture though, otherwise a sensor-off and direct-to-visual fight against an unknown formation would be suicidal. Of course, his dreaded Alpha Jet could do that too.

On his understanding of weapons performance:

So with insufficient kinematics at high level he will compound the problem for the guy he sends in at low level. That guy will now have a vanishingly small weapons bubble but will be carrying an even bigger one from the adversary Typhoons.

All sounds about right really. Typhoons will seek a full picture without using his own active radar and will not see the need to push into the adversaries weapons envelope when he has the engagement range and aircraft performance to control the fight. Rafale will also seek a full picture without his own active radar but from there it is all uphill work as the aircraft performance and weapons envelope put him on the defensive.

So my take on his bravado and BS is that he does not really relish fighting Typhoon, unless the Typhoon is handicapped in some way or other. Otherwise he just gets to play BVR chess for a few moves before the kill is called and he awaits the debrief to find out when, where and how he took the hit.

Fly Airprt,

Comments like this:

Allow me to call the guy out. If you are going to publicly make comments like that then you have got to be expecting some spears in return.

In all honesty I think this is quite funny, I bet this guy has mastered the art of the dit. Also he is clearly the only person who knows about the 100' Low Level, Sensor Off Ingress in order to pitch up and into a DCA Cap undetected by either fighters or C2 and clean up. Maybe everyone else is wrong, he says it is easy after all.

Mr Vice

You're talking bollocks, Fly Aiprt.

No-one with an atom of sense would claim that Typhoon is anything other than agile.

Rafale may (may!) have slightly more agility in certain regimes, and it certainly has much less in others.

Rafale does enjoy very good agility at airshow speeds and heights (though any superiority over Typhoon even here is so marginal as to be a matter of debate, and not of incontravertible fact).

But even were we to accept that Rafale was a better air show aeroplane, that does not translate to any relevant operational edge.

Any more than its greater agility made the Gloster Gauntlet a better fighter than the Supermarine Spitfire.

"One of my fighter pilot buddies had the opportunity to fly the Typhoon. The most frequent question he had to answer to his colleagues was "is that true it thrusts but doesn't turn ?"

Had his colleagues never watched a Typhoon display? Have you?

Even laden with six 1,000-lb bombs Typhoon turns pretty impressively, as my old friend Parts demonstrated at Farnborough a few years ago.

Jacko

To widen the scope a bit, given your research and access, what is currently the most capable fighter in a visual arena?

Of course.
Understandably if ones judgement is how one has been impressed by an air display, no wonder one's advice differs from that of those who fly those airplanes professionally.
I'll privilege direct opinions by military pilots friends in Europe and the US on any current combat airplane.
No need to be uncivil, just plain verified first hand facts will suffice.

Fly Airpt
 

You really are priceless. I beg you to please keep giving us the benefit of your wisdom. I could read it all day.

BV

BV, what is that ?
Is my #7 message inaccurate or uncivil ? If so feel free to correct me or ask for clarification, but really no need for this derogatory tone.

Anyway courtesy is a quality in many countries, and if you are aware of different opinions from Rafale pilots, you are welcome to let us know, without questioning any poster's wisdom or place of origin.

Fly Airpt
 

You know about me. Please tell us a bit about yourself.

Currently you are questioning the knowledge of actual fast jet pilots and making out that you know more.

This could go one of two ways.

Maybe you are actually Europe’s finest fighter pilot and I’m about to get my ass handed to me.

Or maybe this is your attempt at trolling and it makes your evening more enjoyable.

Otherwise I’m not sure I understand your motivation.

BV