Dassault has logged over 5,000 test flights of the Rafale fighter, with work continuing apace at Dassault’s Istres flight-test centre near Marseilles and from the French air force’s Cazaux airbase, the centre of weapons testing for the new aircraft.
Responsible for conducting around 100 test flights of Dassault’s military and business jet products each month, Istres has a staff of around 800 personnel including 22 pilots, and has a current complement of six prototype and early-production Rafales.
These are being used to support development of the type’s F2 software standard, which introduces ground attack capability for the first time, and for the early evaluation of the multirole F3 configuration to be delivered from 2008. Full-scale testing of the F3 configuration will start next year, with Dassault awaiting the delivery of avionics test benches for the new standard, says Pierre-Cyril Delanglade, the company’s Rafale director at Istres.
The Rafale’s “carefree” handling fly-by-wire system has been cleared from 100-750kt (185-1,390km/h), and the aircraft can be flown at a 29.5º angle of attack and perform manoeuvres up to 9g or 5.5g with a heavy load. Its ability to conduct networked operations with F2 software have also been proven following a demonstration of the type’s Link 16 datalink while operating with an air force Boeing E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System, navy Northrop Grumman E-2C Hawkeye airborne early warning aircraft and the French navy’s Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier. The Rafale distributed synthesised data from its on-board sensors during the trials.
In addition to proving such data fusion capabilities, Delanglade says a major objective of the flight-test campaign “is to master the complexity of the man-machine interface and to validate it”. The terrain-following capabilities of the Rafale’s Thales RBE2 radar are also poised to undergo further trials from later this month, with these expected to clear the aircraft for hands-free operations to 300ft (90m) – down from a current minimum of 500ft – and a maximum speed of 550kt in passive mode, which use a stored terrain data.
The system can also use live radar data for terrain following and terrain avoidance in active mode. The navy’s Rafale Ms can already operate in terrain-following mode down to 100ft over water.
Other aircraft now involved in flight-test activities from Istres include Mirage 2000 variants for France, Greece and the United Arab Emirates and Dassault’s new Falcon 7X business jet.
Source: Flight International
