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By: 23rd June 2007 at 18:21 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-quite a big modernisation program...could it be that they are preparing for rafales in the future?
AASM, MICA, Damocles...
anyway this gives the Moroccan air force a great advantage over their old capabilities.
By: 23rd June 2007 at 19:06 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-quite a big modernisation program...could it be that they are preparing for rafales in the future?AASM, MICA, Damocles...
anyway this gives the Moroccan air force a great advantage over their old capabilities.
If anything I would say that it means that they are not going to procure the Rafale in the near future, this is a very deep modernisation that likely cost alot and is aimed at a significant life extension. The one thing that surprises me is that they have not included the Thales R400 radar.
By: 23rd June 2007 at 19:08 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-hey thanks for sharing!!!
By: 23rd June 2007 at 19:17 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-wow ! quite a comprehensive upgrade for the F1s..I'm a little surprised that the F1's nose can fit a RDY-3 size antenna..whats the diameter of the F1s nose and the size of the RDY-3 antenna ?
By: 23rd June 2007 at 19:28 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-Lol!
I had a special acces to this stand (sagem) today. I could play with IR/TV camera turet zooming on the GIGN or raid 's snipers on the roof of a building in order to protect french president when he came on dassault's stand!:D
I could also see the new AASM family, 125, 250, 500 and 1000kg on this stand and the sperwer operator system.
By: 23rd June 2007 at 20:29 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-If anything I would say that it means that they are not going to procure the Rafale in the near future, this is a very deep modernisation that likely cost alot and is aimed at a significant life extension. The one thing that surprises me is that they have not included the Thales R400 radar.
When this was first announced, in 2005, it was said it included RC400, & Flight is still saying so -
BTW, what is RDY-3? Thales website has RC400 & RDY-2. No RDY-3. RC400 is derived from RDY - is this just a relabelling?
By: 23rd June 2007 at 21:11 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-Swerve, a link to RDY-3 brochure from Thales website.
Thanks to Sumeet at BRF.
By: 23rd June 2007 at 21:11 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-When this was first announced, in 2005, it was said it included RC400, & Flight is still saying so -BTW, what is RDY-3? Thales website has RC400 & RDY-2. No RDY-3. RC400 is derived from RDY - is this just a relabelling?
It could certainly be possible.:confused:
By: 24th June 2007 at 05:21 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-OT - more concerned with the RDY-3
Crazy how they are marketing it for more than Mirage 2000. Its also being pimped for MiG-29, Mirage F.1, Mirage V, and India's LCA. Mirage V wasn't really supposed to be the type to use an air to air radar, it was supposed to be a third generation ground attack warplane. I wonder if the integration of the RDY-3 suddenly makes these third gen specialized aircraft more or less into fourth gen multipurpose warplanes.
By: 24th June 2007 at 13:32 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-Swerve, a link to RDY-3 brochure from Thales website.Thanks to Sumeet at BRF.
Thanks.
Interesting. The description reads very much like that of the RC400. Ah - a dead giveaway. Compare with this RC400 brochure, & you see that they have exactly the same picture of the various elements.
http://www.thalesgroup.com/all/pdf/rc400.pdf
I conclude that RDY-3 is just another name for RC400. :D
By: 24th June 2007 at 14:22 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-Thanks.Interesting. The description reads very much like that of the RC400. Ah - a dead giveaway. Compare with this RC400 brochure, & you see that they have exactly the same picture of the various elements.
http://www.thalesgroup.com/all/pdf/rc400.pdfI conclude that RDY-3 is just another name for RC400. :D
So just a bit of pointless re-naming then. The only thing this is missing is the Klimov SM-95 (RD-93 derivative) engine as flown on the South African Mirage F1 (single prototype), although if they did that they would only be an airframe away from a new plane. It would however be interesting to compare such a bird to the FC-1.:diablo:
By: 24th June 2007 at 14:23 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-Swerve
Correct! Last week I had the opportunity to talk with the Thales guy responsible for this programme (ASTRAC is a Thales/Sagem jv) and he constantly referred to the radar as the RC400.
By: 24th June 2007 at 15:31 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-Nice to finally see the F-1 get an upgrade of this magnitude.
The MiG-21 and F-4 have both gotten their fair share of good upgrade treatment.
The F-1 now seems to be getting some of the same.
By: 24th June 2007 at 16:00 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-Nice to finally see the F-1 get an upgrade of this magnitude.The MiG-21 and F-4 have both gotten their fair share of good upgrade treatment.
The F-1 now seems to be getting some of the same.
The contract was signed 2005, work began 2006. Should be in service soon. Looks like a relatively (stress the relatively! A deep upgrade like this costs a fair bit) cheap way to get a very effective aircraft. IIRC there are are some stored Mirage F.1 with enough airframe hours left to make such an upgrade worthwhile, so there's a potential supply of more airframes for existing users or even for new users.
By: 24th June 2007 at 17:32 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-I agree that using AASM / Mica / Damoclès really paves the way for the future use of the Rafale by the moroccan (sp?) air force.
Nic
By: 24th June 2007 at 18:05 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-There seems to be some sort of fairing underneath the forward fuselage forward of the nose wheel, is this some sort of optical device? FLIR maybe- like on the pakistani Rose-3 Mirages?
By: 24th June 2007 at 18:19 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-The contract was signed 2005, work began 2006. Should be in service soon.
Work began end of 2006. Thales said the first would be delivered in three years.
By: 25th June 2007 at 01:54 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-It takes three years to upgrade a Mirage F-1?
By: 25th June 2007 at 11:53 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-There seems to be some sort of fairing underneath the forward fuselage forward of the nose wheel, is this some sort of optical device? FLIR maybe- like on the pakistani Rose-3 Mirages?
Sealord, There was always the Mirage F1-C versions that had the air-intercept Cyrano IV Radar. South Africa ordered and eventually assembled a version concentrating on ground attack called the F1-AZ. Although the nose profile looked the same, a close examination reveals not a glassfibre radome, but a metal nose tipped at the end by an AIDA ranging radar. As this is vastly smaller than the Cyrano, space was there to fit a retractable refueling probe simialr to the Super Etendards, and a laser rangefinder.
Once the Mirage 2000 entered service, surplus Air defence F1-C airframes in France were recycled to make them into the F1-CT tactical ground attack aircraft. It has the best of both worlds in that it features the undernose laser rangefinder, as well as the full Cyrano radar system, albeit updated from IV to IVM-R. There was obviously no space left for a retractable fuel probe, but the original F1-C in French service had a small fuselage extension plug in front of windsacreen that enabled the addition of a fixed refueling probe. It is this version that is used in the illustration you mention above.
There was also the recce F1CR with Thomson TRT-33 or TRT-40 cameras under the nose, but this fairing is different and more symmetrical looking.
By: 25th June 2007 at 16:12 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-It takes three years to upgrade a Mirage F-1?It takes three years to complete system integration and to perform the actual upgrade. I suspect that at the time contract was signed the integration was far from complete. Justr like they are offering Rafale F3s, Typhoon Tranche whatever, MiG-35s, Super Hornets with AESA or F-35s.
Posts: 84
By: bnaf - 23rd June 2007 at 17:50
http://www.question-defense.info/worlddefencenews/astracmiragef1.html