The Eurofighter will be shown to be stealthier than Rafale, and the Superhornet is stealthier than both of them.
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They may bear a simple resemblence, however there are nearly no systems in one that are in the other...
actually CAG to thier detriment Dassault has been putting quite a bit of the avionics into the Mirage series, I think it hurts the export chances on Rafale as customers see they can get SOME of Rafales tricks in a much cheaper package.
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Meanwhile, in late August, the Rafale's older stable mate, the Mirage 2000, remains in the running for an initial 24-aircraft order in Brazil, with another 36 aircraft likely to be sold in a follow-on deal. Since the early 1990s, the Mirage has been infused with much of the technology originally developed for Rafale - and even some more advanced features - and the Mirage and Sweden's Gripen (see "Lion of the Sky,"JED , April 2002) have been the most successful challengers to a US monopoly in the fighter business.
In the late 1980s, Dassault developed a modernized version of the Mirage 2000 (foreground, above) with some features of the Rafale (top), including the HLD and the MICA missile and an improved mechanically scanned radar. The Republic of China (Taiwan) ordered 60 aircraft in mid-1992, followed by orders from Qatar, the French Air Force, and Greece. The latest version of is the Mirage 2000-9, ordered by the United Arab Emirates. Meanwhile, the Rafale has failed to win a single export order to date.
The Thales RDY radar is a conventional but refined system that offers true multi-target tracking and permitted a Mirage armed with MICA to engage four targets simultaneously. Thales claims that the RDY has longer range than the F-16 radar and is, in some respects, easier to use.
The Mirage 2000-9 has the RDY-2 variant, which has a more sensitive receiver and greater range. While the original RDY was primarily an air-to-air radar, the RDY-2 introduces high-resolution air-to-ground modes: Doppler beam-sharpening (DBS) and synthetic-aperture radar (SAR). Combined with the Shehab infrared/laser navigation and targeting system, a UAE version of Damocles, and the Nahar navigation pod, this transforms the Mirage 2000-9 into a true multirole aircraft.
The 2000-9 has the same Modular Data Processing Unit (MDPU) mission computer as the Rafale. The Mirage 2000-9 EW system is the Integrated Multi-mission EW System (IMEWS), developed by Thales and Elettronica. The latest in a series of Thales/MBD suites that started with the Integrated Countermeasures Suite (ICMS) for the first Greek Mirage 2000s, the IMEWS incorporates radio-frequency and IR warning receivers and high-band and low-band jammers. The system on the Mirage 2000-9 Based on the largely digital, more automated ICMS Mk 3, the IMEWS adds a more powerful low-band jammer. The IMEWS is characterized by French engineers as a targeting-capable system, with more precise and faster range measurement capabilities than Spectra, allowing the Mirage 2000-9 to perform a defense-suppression mission.
The Mirage 2000-9 will be the first export fighter to carry the infra-red version of MICA. Another very important role for the Mirage 2000 in the UAE is that of a launch platform for the MBDA Black Shahine precision-guided standoff missile. A specialized development of the Apache, Storm Shadow, and Scalp EG family, Black Shahine was ordered by the UAE in late 1998. The US government has so far declined to integrate the weapon on the F-16, because it regards it as a cruise missile.
Greece ordered the Mirage 2000-5 Mk2, a very similar aircraft to the 2000-9, in August 2000. Greece will eventually have 25 aircraft: 15 new-build airframes and ten upgraded from in-service Mirage 2000s.
On offer for the Mirage 2000-and already selected as an upgrade for France's Mirage 2000-5Fs-is the Thales AIDA visual-identification pod. AIDA comprises the visual-identification hardware from the Rafale FSO, packaged in the Damocles pod structure.
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