Dassault Rafale

what is it?

The Dassault Rafale (French: [ʁafal], literally meaning "gust of wind", or "burst of fire" in a more military sense) is a French twin-engine, canard delta wing, multirole fighter aircraft designed and built by Dassault Aviation. Equipped with a wide range of weapons, the Rafale is intended to perform air supremacy, interdiction, aerial reconnaissance, ground support, in-depth strike, anti-ship strike and nuclear deterrence missions. Dassault markets the aircraft as an "omnirole" fighter due to its ability to perform multiple distinct mission roles during a single sortie.

🔎How to recognise it: 2 jet engines · 10.9 m wingspan

base stats

• speed 1,912 km/htop speed
• range 1,850 kmwithout refuelling
• size 24.5 tmax take-off weight
• built 313made in total

Bars compare against all aircraft: 3,500 km/h, 20,000 km, 850 seats; size and number built on a log scale up to 640 t (An-225) and 45,000 built (Cessna 172).

fun facts

• 🎂First flew 40 years ago, in 1986.
• 🏎️Top speed is 14.7× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
• 💥Faster than sound: up to Mach 1.5 (sea-level speed of sound ≈ 1,235 km/h).
• 🚗Wingspan of 10.9 m: about 2 cars parked nose to tail.
• 🐘Fully loaded it can weigh as much as 4 African elephants (~6 t each).
• 🌍Range of 1,850 km: 10× Amsterdam to Brussels.
• 🏔️Can fly 1.8× higher than Mount Everest (8,849 m).

jet: Gas turbine pushing air out the back (turbofan or turbojet): fast and high-flying.

spec sheet

first flight

1986-07-04

introduced

2002

status

still flying

number built

313

role

multirole fighter

origin

🇫🇷 France

makers

Dassault Aviation

engines

2× Snecma M88-4e / Snecma M88

crew

1

length

15.3 m

wingspan

10.9 m

height

5.3 m

max take-off weight

24.5 t

top speed

1,912 km/h

range

1,850 km

ceiling

15,835 m

Specs are for the version in the Wikipedia article's specification section. Blank means the sources don't say.