Rafale before the F3R and F4 testing never actually carried MICA on those underwing pylons. All the pictures you are showing are F4, F3R (India), or F4 testbed (Dassault owned).
Pylons might have existed, but were definitely not used for carrying armement until then, and only arrived on in service rafales with the Indian F3R and French F4
Those diagrams are known and are not trustable
The rafale C does indeed have the super structure for one extra pylon in front of the main pylon used for fuel tanks or bombs. However, appart from the Rafale A which was a testbed and structurally different from the Rafales in service, there has never been plans for the Rafale to carry AAM on those middle pylons. Those are mainly for bombs, but the Rafale usually only carries one singular 1000kg bomb, a fuel tank, or the nuclear missile, taking the place of the second pylon
Btw, different subjects. While talking with a Safran guy about the AASM XLR, I also talked with a DGA guy on the CFT shown at the Paris Air Show for the rafale. To install those CFTs, the rafale needs structural retrofit to add the fuel lines, so it’s not plug and play at all. I don’t think there’s any chance we’ll see them before F5, if it even gets it
Other ahem * aircraft * of a similar configuration found it ruined the aerodynamics so severely it really wasn’t worth the installation costs, also no one was interested in them and the Rafale has some really rather impressive fuel and buddy refuelling capabilities.
I clicked into the Rafale thread, and it’s actually discussions of the Rafale, what is this miracle o.O
That aside, be there any other payload that can occupy the central pylon on the version we have? I am unthrilled with the current bomb, and I am curious if anything else could occupy the space. Is neither here nor there, but got grumpy at it so figured I would ask you lot.
Would be nice to have exocet and scalp but we won’t be getting those for a while I’d wager. At least now I know what to hope for in the event they bother to implement these things.
This is handy.
For clarity, GBU 24 is completely adequate as ordnance, I just personally am not thrilled by it and have not been with it on any of the aircraft I like that can carry it.
Gaijin seem really odd about adding anti-ship missiles. They added them as a gimmick on the German Tornado then refused to add them to anything else until randomly the F-2A got them.
They did add proper sea skimming to the AS.34 on the dev server though so maybe they’re preparing to add more anti-ship missiles.
I have considered pinging smin about that to try and interrogate them to find out if that is the case, because I very much want exocet. I seek to smite the boats.
Yeah further research led me to that conclusion. Still I’ve never seen the Rafale carry two separate things on its two belly hardpoints so I wonder what they’re for
Maybe just in case they ever need them for a future ordnance or smth
Well at least most of these people are indeed playing Rafale (or EFT to some extent) unlike yours. And good luck assuming all the Bug Reporter are French Nationalist, definitely unbiased opinion.
Saying the truth that the person who stonewalled the bug report is incompetent or illiterate is however, not biased towards france. Or the UK, for that matter.
Well I don’t say that fortunately, and for the records the guy that keeps coping about Rafale claims himself to have played it AND YET don’t have it on his account and instead only maining F-14, which is quite hypocritical for the sake of accountability of argument.
