Alright. I was wondering because after the 2025 Salon du Bourget where the F5 was presented, I saw some videos where people talked about this possibility since the Rafale was getting a new, more powerful engine.
Also is there any news on a possible new improved radar? Currently the RBE2 is kinda a microwave no?
Generally, the entirety of the engine was developed to be modular. They could replace the compressor stage, add more stages, change the injection and burn stage, the turbine, the post combustion stage.
Initial papers from the 90s about the 9T thrust m88 did say that this would also require changes to the inlet of the plane itself, with swaps to the compressor and post combustion stages. It’s likely that they use a newer method for the T Rex tho.
As for the precise point you asked about, it’s only about the engine itself. Safran doesn’t make the airframe, they do however probably give required air intake specs that dassault then has to achieve with the airframe design
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RBE2 appears to have 2 upgrades proposed. One with the same architecture but probably some form of GaN implementation starting with the later F4 standard, and one redesigned radar, the RBE2-XG, fully utilizing GaN and with multiple improvements such as detecting and jamming simultaneously, for F5 standard
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Tried to put a post on dev server discussion regarding the addition of exocet and stuff if anyone cares to add to it. Exocet could be provided to Rafale if it were added. Sea Eagle is being added on Hawk according to news, so the argument against exocet from the prior rafale thread no longer stands.
Also could be provided to Etendard IVM (french+argentinian), Super Etendard(french), Mirage 2000-5’s (through the greek one mount)
Yeah, been wanting Super Etendard to have it for a while.
@Mathll Would you believe they came up with a new argument to avoid exocet?
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Lore accurate Rafale F5
for now, yes.
F4.2 is currently undergoing it’s earliest trials.
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All ESAs got this radar change but this is a nice change for the Rafale since it really relies on HMD/ACM locks for firing off MICAs.
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Kifir crying in the corner.
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We don’t talk about that one.
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Those are some oddly specific numbers lmao
They are probably derived from other values + floating point errors I guess ?
What is cas20 pattern
One of the ACM patterns
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Combat Air Search 20, its one the ACM patterns from Blue Vixen, I think it was copied to a few radars;
The 20 is supposed to denote the max range in NM. So 20NM/37KM
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Does the Sea Harrier FA2 even get CAS20?
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There’s a report for the different ACM patterns of the rafale. Hopefully they’ll get implemented instead of copy pasting other modes as a generic stop gap.
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