A koros Rafale sikerét elemzi a WSJ:
The Rafale jet fighter is benefiting from rising military spending in Europe and Asia and sanctions that have curbed Russian competitors.
www.wsj.com
This 20-Year-Old French Jet Fighter Is Suddenly Outselling Rivals
The Rafale is boosting France in the global arms trade, rivaling U.S. jets in some markets
The multiuse Rafale is designed for dog fights and bombing missions and can fly from land and an aircraft carrier. THIBAUD MORITZ/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
By
Alistair MacDonald
May 12, 2023 9:00 am ET
Last year, U.S. officials announced that Indonesia had won permission to buy American-made F-15 jet fighters after a review. The same day, Indonesia had its own news: It was buying France’s Rafale jets.
The Rafale, a more than 20-year-old, multipurpose jet fighter prized for its ability to carry a large payload of weapons, is enjoying a new lease on life, benefiting from
rising military spending in Europe and Asia and sanctions that have curbed Russian competitors. Its popularity has also boosted France’s rising status in the international arms trade.
Globally over the past two years, it has outsold every other Western jet fighter except
Lockheed Martin’s F-35. The U.S. jet is widely credited as the most technologically advanced fighter around. It has been a bestseller since it
made its debut in 2011.
The Rafale, meanwhile, has long been “the slow burn” aircraft program, with no orders outside France for years, said Sash Tusa, an aerospace and defense analyst at research firm Agency Partners LLP. Now, it is “the most successful non F-35 fighter” in terms of exports, he said.
Sales of the French jet have jumped ahead of the multinational Typhoon and Sweden’s Gripen, made by Saab. It is also outselling U.S.-made models such as Lockheed’s F-16 and
Boeing’s F-15 and F/A-18.
The war in Ukraine has opened up new opportunities for the Rafale. Defense budgets have grown sharply across Europe.
Buying Russian fighters, like MiGs and Sukhoi jets, is also now harder because of Western sanctions on Russia and Moscow’s own wartime needs.
For
Dassault Aviation AM 0.41%increase; green up pointing triangle, which makes the Rafale, the jet’s new popularity has been a boon.
The company reported record orders last year, buoyed by demand for Rafale jets from the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia. It said it is in talks to sell more of the fighters to countries including India and Colombia.
_________
Itt van a cikk kozepen egy jo video arrol, hogy buknak az oroszok tizmilliardokat fegyvereladasban:
https://www.wsj.com/video/series/ne...aine-war/9AB5AA2C-230C-45CA-BC2C-B3023256928D
Russia is the world’s second-largest arms exporter, but the war in Ukraine could change that as Moscow’s share of the global weapons trade declines. Photo: Sergei Fadeichev/Zuma Press
_________
“The Rafale’s time has come,” said Éric Trappier, Dassault’s chief executive, at the company’s annual results in March.
Dassault, founded nearly a century ago by a famed aerospace engineer whose family still owns a majority stake in the company, delivered its first Rafale in 1999.
Since then, the Rafale has been deployed by France in Afghanistan, Libya, Mali and Syria. As a so-called multiuse jet, it is designed for dog fights and bombing missions and can fly from land and an aircraft carrier. It is also capable of carrying 1.5 times its weight in weapons and fuel.
While it lacks the stealth and advanced sensor technology of the newer F-35, “the Rafale is a very capable combat aircraft,” said Gareth Jennings, an aviation expert at Janes, the defense intelligence firm.
Dassault has delivered or has on order 453 Rafales over its lifetime. Around a third of those have come in the past two years. About 60% of those have been exports. That is a far larger proportion than other Western jet fighters, including the F-35.
Lockheed, meanwhile, has delivered 920 F-35s, with an additional 444 on order. The majority of those have gone to the U.S. military.
French government officials typically play a more active role in promoting sales of the country’s military hardware, according to Philip Dunne, a former British government minister in charge of defense procurement and exports.
Lockheed Martin’s F-35, in flight at a February air show in India, is the only Western jet fighter to outsell the Rafale over the past two years. PHOTO: PRAKASH SINGH/BLOOMBERG NEWS
“They can be both more persistent and consistent in utilizing the full panoply of the state to win defense contracts,” he said.
The U.S., meanwhile, is more selective about where it sells high-tech weaponry, analysts say, partly out of concerns that its technology could find its way into the hands of rivals.
Dassault says all export applications undergo proper scrutiny by the government. A spokesman for the French government didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The U.A.E. pulled out of a deal to buy as many as 50 F-35 fighters in 2021, saying U.S. stipulations to
safeguard the technology from China were too onerous.
The U.A.E. separately
ordered 80 Rafale jets around the same time. The deal was announced during a visit by President Emmanuel Macron as part of a regional tour that also made him
the first major Western leader to visit Saudi Arabia after the 2018 killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. In recent years, France has become Saudi Arabia’s second-biggest arms supplier behind the U.S., displacing the U.K.
In February last year, the Indonesian defense minister, sitting beside his French counterpart, signed a contract for 42 Rafales to replace some of the country’s aging Russian aircraft. Indonesia had separately requested U.S. approval to buy F-15s, and the country has said it is still negotiating to buy the jets. Indonesia’s defense ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Dassault typically takes about three years to build a Rafale. A Dassault Aviation factory in Seclin, northern France. PHOTO: SYLVAIN LEFEVRE/HANS LUCAS/REUTERS
France’s share of global arms exports increased to 11% in the five-year period that ended in 2022, up from 7.1% in the five years ending in 2017, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, or Sipri, a think tank. France is now the third-biggest arms exporter behind the U.S. and Russia, Sipri data shows.
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
Should the U.S. loosen stipulations around its military technology to boost sales? Why or why not? Join the conversation below.
Sipri and other analysts say they expect French hardware to be among the biggest beneficiaries of a forecasted drop in Russian arms exports in the wake of the war in Ukraine. Serbia, a longtime Kremlin ally, said in February that it was in talks to buy Rafale jets because sanctions had made it harder to get parts for its existing Russian-made fleet.
Elsewhere, the U.S. and France are competing to sell jet fighters to India, which has previously bought Russian aircraft. Dassault says that it is in talks to provide 26 Rafales to the Indian navy, putting it in competition with
Boeing, which is offering its F/A-18 jet.
The higher demand could test Dassault’s ability to increase production amid capacity and supply-chain constraints, analysts say. It typically takes about three years to build a Rafale.
Mr. Trappier, at Dassault’s annual results, said that while its supply chain was in “great difficulty,” the company was agile enough to capitalize on rising demand.
“The orders are there, everywhere,” he said.
Jon Emont and Noemie Bisserbe contributed to this article.
Write to Alistair MacDonald at
Alistair.Macdonald@wsj.com
www.scramble.nl
