4 arguments in favor of the development of a new French Mirage fighter

A pillar of the success of French military exports for more than 60 years after the war, the single-engine Mirage family ended with the Mirage 2000 fighter at the beginning of the 2010s. However, observation of the needs of the armies and the expectations of the market international, shows that there are several arguments to bring France, and Dassault Aviation, to generate a new member to this glorious family, beyond the Rafale and FCAS.

Whether or not it comes to an end, the FCAS next-generation combat aircraft program bringing together Germany, Spain and France will not see the light of day before the end of the 2040s, and probably even at the beginning. of the 2050s, by the admission of Eric Trappier, CEO of Dassault Aviation. It must be said that for the French aircraft manufacturer, but also for its German counterpart Airbus DS, this new date is far from lacking in meaning.

It is in fact in 2050 that the replacement of a majority of Rafale et Typhoon, but also recently sold F-35As, will begin to be considered. However, the Next Generation Fighter of the FCAS will evolve in a range adapted to the replacement of these aircraft, initially the Rafale French and the Typhoon German and Spanish during the first decade, then the devices exported beyond.

Obviously, for Dassault as for Airbus DS, it is of little interest to arrive on the market too early, at the risk of repeating the phenomenon which gave preference to the F-35A in numerous competitions, with the argument that Rafale et Typhoon were aircraft designed in the 80s, where the F-35 was designed 20 years later.

However, if such a schedule probably satisfies the aircraft manufacturers and their shareholders, especially since they will have sufficient industrial activity until 2040 by producing the last aircraft ordered, and by ensuring the modernization of the fleet, this is much more problematic for the air forces, in particular for the Air and Space Force.

Indeed, whatever Dassault Aviation says, the Rafale, even in its future iterative versions, will not be able to maintain a marked technological ascendancy on the devices which will enter service by the end of the present decade, unless it develops a new evolutionary branch of the device, without even talk about export opportunities which will probably be significantly lower between 2030 and 2050.

In this context, it could be relevant, for the French air forces, but also for the entire national aeronautical industry, to develop an aircraft complementary to the Rafale, but also at the NGF/FCAS, positioned in a traditional segment of excellence in the French aeronautical defense industry, a high-performance single-engine fighter heir to the famous Mirage family. In this article, we will study this hypothesis through four complementary arguments in favor of such an approach.

1- The arrival of a new generation of combat aircraft from 2030

To date, there are no less than 6 programs in the world aimed at developing, for 2030, new generation combat aircraft offering performances at least as high as those that can be expected from future versions of the Rafale. In the United States, this is US Air Force NGAD program which concerns the development of an air superiority fighter intended to replace the F-22 Raptor, a device yet still considered today as the best combat aircraft of the moment.

Equipped with very advanced technologies and an equally high price, it is likely that like the F-22, the NGAD is not intended to be offered on the international scene, except possibly to certain very privileged allies such as Israel or Japan . He will therefore probably not represent a competitor for the Rafale, neither from a commercial nor operational point of view, the chances that an NGAD will find itself facing a Rafale being very limited.

This will probably not be the case with the US Navy's F/A-XX, the program intended to replace the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet, and which will probably be offered for export as was the Super Hornet and the Hornet before it. Finally, the F-35, and its evolutions can be motorized by then, will continue to impose itself on many markets.

The most important competitors, whether commercial or operational, of the Rafale and its developments beyond 2030 will however probably not be manufactured across the Atlantic. These include aircraft such as the South Korean KF-21 Boramae, a medium fighter with 5th generation attributes, which will enter service by the end of the decade, as well as the Russian Su-57e, the export version of the designated successor of the Flanker family.

Other programs are at different levels of development, such as the Turkish T-FX if it manages to solve certain critical technological aspects, or the Russian Su-75 Checkmate, if indeed the program is actually continued while the he Russian defense industry, like the rest of the country, is sinking into serious difficulties. China, for its part, is developing the J-35, a 5th generation twin-engine carrier-based fighter that is lighter and less expensive than the J-20, and which could serve as the basis for the replacement of the J-10 within the air forces of the 'APL, and will in fact be offered for export in the relatively near future.

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