Rafale, SCAF, UCAV, Albatros… tour d’horizon avec Éric Trappier, patron de Dassault Aviation
Rafale, SCAF, UCAV, Albatros... overview with Éric Trappier, CEO of Dassault Aviation
Éric Trappier, Chairman and CEO of Dassault Aviation, met the Association of Defence Journalists (AJD) in Paris in early December. In the course of a lengthy discussion, which you can watch in full on Mer et Marine, he discussed current programmes, topical issues and the company's outlook.
For years, the Rafale was presented as an overly sophisticated and unsellable aircraft. Since 2015, orders have been coming one after another... For the moment, Dassault Aviation has sold 453 aircraft, i.e. 192 for France and 261 for export.
ÉRIC TRAPPIER: First of all, I hope that this will continue for at least 20/30 years! We continue to deliver aircraft for France and for export and we will continue to take orders in France and for export for quite some time to come. At the same time, we are committed to preparing for the future, based above all on the Rafale with its successive standards, on feedback from the operations of our armed forces and also on initial feedback from our customers. export which makes it possible to constantly have this evolution of the aircraft.
What we can learn from the history of the Rafale is that combat aviation business takes a long time. We must know how to anticipate the needs of the armed forces over a 20 or 30 year horizon, which is difficult in a completely uncertain world. I would like to pay tribute to all the veterans of Dassault Aviation who, with the French armed forces and the DGA, designed the Rafale to be a multi-purpose aircraft. A little larger than the Mirage 2000, it had grown to gain in range and carrying capacity.
An aircraft capable of operating for the Air Force but also for the Navy, which was new since before our aircraft were designed for the Air Force or the Navy. It also had to be capable of being air-to-air and air-to-ground while preserving the mission of the airborne nuclear component. In short, it’s a challenge to do all this in such a small plane, compared to others, for example the Americans which are much larger. It initially took time to develop it, for budgetary reasons.
Each time it was very easy to cut budgets to develop the Rafale when there was the Mirage 2000, a plane well appreciated by the French Air Force. The Navy was pushing because its planes were starting to become very old, remember the Crusader and then the Super Etendard. So it took a good ten years between the moment the demonstrator flew, in 1986, and the fact that in 1996 we were starting to be much more mature. And we still had to wait since there were budgetary holes, before the Navy was delivered first in 2000 and the Air Force in 2006 to make the first operational squadron.
In reality, given this long time, a certain number of surveys around the world had been started. We came up against prospecting more on the side of “American control”, let’s put it like that, since in Asia, in Korea, in Singapore, it was complicated. But this allowed us to take the plane out and test ourselves against evaluations where, honestly, the Rafale performed very well each time. Then political considerations arrived but it is clear that the Rafale was very noticed during these evaluations.
During this time, we continued to sell the Mirage 2000, the Mirage 2000-9 in the United Arab Emirates. As the Rafale was not yet completely put into mass production by the State, the Emiratis chose a version of the Mirage 2000 which allowed them to wait. This was also the case for India and in 2014 we arrived at a first draft export contract for the Rafale after our armed forces had fully integrated it. After Egypt came Qatar very quickly, almost simultaneously, and then the Indian contract.
These first contracts were carried out with “loyal customers” since Egypt, Qatar and India have air forces which have always used Dassault aircraft, in particular Mirage 2000s. From there, we we had a second salvo with additional planes for Egypt and then the big United Arab Emirates contract for 80 Rafale, we weren't hoping for that much since we were banking on around sixty planes. We also had Greece, a NATO country and European country which took 24 Rafales, 12 used and 12 new. And at the same time Croatia, another European country which bought 12 used Rafales and the first country which had never had Dassault aircraft.
We also managed to establish ourselves in Indonesia, which is no small victory since it is a distant country and a country which there too had never operated Dassault aircraft. Indonesia therefore purchased 42 aircraft with the contract being implemented in installments. A first of 6 planes, then a tranche of 18 and there we await the tranche for 18 additional planes which will close the entry into force of the contract for 42 planes for Indonesia.
This is great progress for the Rafale and it’s not over yet. We are today in negotiations with India on 26 aircraft for the navy, which is original and another way of highlighting the success of the Rafale. The conclusion is that you have to be tenacious when you think you're right and it's complicated to be right before everyone else. I think the Rafale was ahead of its time. Marcel Dassault said it when he saw the plane in Saint-Cloud in 1986, a few months before his death, a few months before the flight of the first Rafale, that this plane would be international. He was right, he anticipated and Serge Dassault fought like a lion to convince people that this plane was a good plane and that it would be sold almost everywhere. We must pay tribute to them because, ultimately, they and all the engineers who worked on the Rafale, with our armed forces and with the DGA, were right.
Orders for 42 Rafales for the French Air Force, under tranche 5 of the program, expected very soon.
The objective of tranche 5 of the Rafale is an order by the end of the year so the negotiations are in a short final as they say. We are hopeful that this contract will be notified before the end of the year. As it is in progress I will not make any further comments, in any case it is short term. I remind you that it is 42 planes, the 30 planes which were planned under tranche 5, including 12 to compensate for the 12 sold second-hand to the Greeks plus 12 others to compensate for those which were sold second-hand to the Croats.
Do the war in Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East have a positive impact on sales?
In general, when things get very hot, or even when there is war, it is not very favorable for us. You see the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the Rafale is deployed with the French armed forces in border countries to help our partners and allies but we are not selling Rafales because suddenly there is a war somewhere. It's the same for the Middle East. These are two very tough and very sad crises but there is no favorable impact on sales. On the contrary, I would rather say that it slows down discussions a little when there are any.
Where are the negotiations with Saudi Arabia?
On Saudi Arabia, the discussions that we began with them over the past few months are independent of the Middle East crisis. They are linked to local geopolitics that I would not comment on. They are also linked to the fact that they have traditionally purchased British planes, Tornado and Eurofighter Typhoon and that, it seems, today there are export problems posed by the Germans. Which means that, somewhere, the Rafale which has been sold in neighboring countries, in the Emirates, in Qatar, but also in India, is starting to have attractiveness, including in Saudi Arabia. I remind you that although we have sold Falcons there, we have never sold combat aircraft to Saudi Arabia. It would therefore obviously be a great additional success for us if we could establish ourselves in Arabia.
An order book that extends until the early 2030s.
I think the Indians will go for these 26 for their navy, I think the Indonesians will implement the last tranche and I think the French will buy the 42. This gives me a fairly safe potential for complementary aircraft in the order book within a few weeks. We have work on the Rafale in production until deliveries 2032-2033, that is to say an order book which gives us roughly 10 years of work. It's quite remarkable. I don't think there are many companies that can compare with that. And we are able to take on new contracts.
Production rate: 1 to 3 aircraft per month.
In 2020, the rate was almost less than 1 plane per month, it became really critical. Today, we are at rate 2 and we are going to increase to rate 3, for 33 aircraft produced over 11 months. The normal cycle between order and delivery is 36 months, with the difficulties in the supply chain that we are experiencing at the moment in the aeronautics sector, it climbs a little, it is around three years and it takes approximately a good year to gain a pace point. We are increasing this rate to be compatible with the signed contracts and perhaps have a few additional contracts, the 42 French being taken into account. The Mérignac factory is large enough and we could still increase it to rate 4. The increase in rate upstream, when you manufacture the primary parts, it is already done, and then you have the final assembly at the end. and before we have three planes per month, another year will pass. We should be there at the end of 2024.
Assembly lines abroad?
For the moment no, for all signed contracts the answer is no. We can consider it and we have already done it if the quantities are sufficient. Either manufacturing subject to having French authorizations, or final assembly in all countries which would order significant quantities.
Not concerned by the “war economy” desired by the French government.
The Rafale is not part of the war economy. If France wants twice as many Rafales, I am ready to increase power but they are not asking me. She asks me about the 42 planes that have been planned for a little over 10 years. I think the war economy is mainly focused on cannons and shells.
The new Rafale standards with three versions for the F4 and the preparation of the future F5
Today we are in the F4 standard with three deliveries in this standard: F4.1, F4.2 and F4.3. The F4 will bring collaborative combat: F4.3 is the accomplished version of connectivity with the ability to manage a certain number of things with digital radios. The F4.2 will be the Mica NG and with the F4.1 there are many modifications to the sensors and radar. The F4.1 is delivered, the F4.2 should be delivered at the end of 2024 and F4.3 at the end of 2026.
We are starting to work with the State, the armed forces and the DGA on a future F5 standard which would arrive a little later 2030. Studies on the F5 are underway and in a way they are quite confidential but the problem today is to operate in very well defended spaces. It means working in spaces where planes should be prohibited by a ground-to-air defense powerful enough to deter them from entering. The goal is to penetrate these ground-to-air defenses.
We work on it in two ways: the intrinsic capacity, the discretion of the aircraft, the countermeasures also which are part of the integrated system on the basis of mission preparation, therefore information so that an aircraft takes an optimal trajectory , flies at an optimal altitude, is able to avoid a certain number of air defenses or even deal with them by shooting at these defenses. This is where, it seems to me, the combat aircraft/combat drone pair could be more effective than the combat aircraft alone. The second way to go is more stealth to get a little closer and shoot enemy defenses.
This is also true above because if you have threats below you also potentially have people in front of you who have combat planes. So you have to continue to have aircraft that can defend control of the skies. In this respect, the Rafale/Meteor coupe is still extraordinary. You have a relatively agile combat aircraft, called the Rafale, which can carry the Meteor, a long-range air-to-air missile for which we have few competitors in the world today.
This is a big advantage in air-to-air. In air-to-ground, again in the strategic, the integration of the Scalp cruise missile makes it possible to have with the Rafale and in-flight refueling a capacity to fire from a distance. Then there is the traditional range of conventional weapons and other more advanced ones, it is the whole AASM family of which we are in the process of qualifying the 1000 kilo version.
What could be the great future? it is stealth, it is the more intensive use of drones with the combat aircraft at the center and there a whole bunch of tactics could be used to be able to enter these ultra-defended spaces so that it does not There is no ban. It is essential and I still remind you that in France we have a particular mission which is the airborne nuclear component. It is also a very demanding mission in terms of operational capabilities and which raises the standards of the Rafale.
Can we imagine a bigger Rafale?
Every design office is there to have ideas and we had the idea of having a slightly larger Rafale. It's cardboard, for now. It's about adding a slice, as we did when we developed the Falcon 8X compared to the Falcon 7X, we added a slice. It is a heavy modification of course but there is no major difficulty. Most certainly, the engines would have to be pushed a little more, as Safran had already considered, that too is in the cards.
But for the moment, it has not caught the attention of our authorities, firstly because we are in the process of placing an order and delivering Rafales in an F4 standard. Secondly, we are thinking about the future and rather about making a new plane, which obviously interests us.
So there you have it: it is an option which can be put on the table to gain in range of action and carrying capacity but which has not yet been retained. It could be a project, it is not today.
Laser weapons on planes, science fiction?
It's certainly not science fiction, it's science in quotes, but for the moment we're not there. This requires extraordinary energy and therefore the problem of energy management. Everything is complicated on a plane. We make small planes where the volumes are reduced, the engine produces energy so that the plane can evolve but then if additional energy is needed... On a combat plane, today we do not have the necessary energy.
