EDITORIAL:
Sale "Rafale" for Dassault!
After 24 aircraft purchased by Egypt in the month of February to 3.5 billion euros, we learn at the time of going to press Dassault Rafale has sold 36 "turnkey" in India. We will have two to three years before these devices will start to be delivered due to production rates and the need to adapt to the needs of the Rafale New Delhi; the contract is expected to exceed 4 billion euros.
First of all, it will be appreciated that after years of failure - even humiliation - our rulers who are the first of the famous manufacturer VRP are now able to negotiate as discreetly as effective ... We then noted that this double success probably called in others, the Rafale fighter aircraft being "ultrapolyvalent" well proven and well controlled development (40 billion euros over forty years, or 4.7% drift from the original estimate). Compared for example with the program of his rival Eurofighter, which climbed 75% since its launch, or with that of the US F-35 square-ment has exploded since now reached nearly 1,000 billion !
The agreement on the sale of 36 Rafales separated exclusive negotiations started three years for the delivery of 126 aircraft, including 108 to manufacture locally by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. Note here that the good relations between aeronautical Paris and New Delhi does not new since India was the first foreign customer with Dassault MD-450 Hurricane in 1953. Other na-tions, the first of which Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia are also interested in the Rafale. Finally, remember that in terms of combat aircraft, the Dassault firm incredible experience under the original name of its founder, Marcel Bloch, she was already a major supplier of the Air Force at the beginning the Second World War ...
Christophe Cony
In Summary:
- Letters to the Editor
- Naval Aviation 1940. The circus of AC5 (full story). By Matthieu Comas, in collaboration with Lucien Morareau and Alain Coste
- 1945: the glory days of the "Normandie-Niemen" (full story). For Many Souffan
- 1914: the birth of the bombing in France. War positions (end). By Claude Thollon-Pommerol
- The last fighter pilots of the ML-KNIL. Nos 120 and 122 Squadron during the decolonization of Indonesia (end). By Rene Francillon
- June 6, 1944, the longest day. Part 3: an afternoon of [fighting] ... dogs. By Christophe Cony
- The forgotten history: Columbia XJL-1. A victim of rotary wing (full story). By Rene Francillon
On the cover:
In late June 1940, a Morane-Saulnier M.S.406 of AC5 fighter squadron of Naval Aviation intercepts a Heinkel He 111 near the Gironde estuary.
(Paint Lionel Labeyrie)
