lose behind the Super Hornet is the Dassault Rafale, a French twinengine aircraft with a delta wing and multirole capability – designed by Dassault Aviation. The Rafale is intended to deliver air supremacy, in the area of interdiction, aerial reconnaissance, ground support, in-depth strike, anti-ship strike and if required nuclear deterrence missions. In the late 1970s, the French Air Force and Navy were seeking to replace and consolidate their current fleets of aircraft. In order to reduce development costs and boost prospective sales, France entered into an arrangement with UK, Germany, Italy and Spain to produce an agile multi-purpose fighter, which became known as the Eurofighter Typhoon. Subsequent disagreements over workshare and differing requirements led to France’s pursuit of its own development program. Dassault built a technology demonstrator which first flew in July 1986 as part of an eight-year flight-test programme, paving the way for the project. The Rafale is distinct from other European fighters of its era in that it is almost entirely built by one country, involving most of France’s major defence contractors, such as Dassault, Thales and Safran. As a result, and took part in wargames to test the Rafale’s avionics in simulated attacks with various foreign aircraft, as well as carrier take-offs and landings. After almost four years of training, the Rafale M was declared operational with the French Navy in June 2004.
