You might have heard about the crash of the mighty Rafale in recent days during the biggest BVR combat between two South Asian nuclear nations, India and Pakistan.
Rafale is a 4.5 generation French-made fighter jet. The word "Rafale" means "burst of fire" in the French language and seems to be a tool intended to keep air supremacy during conflicts because of its features.
Rafale is a product of a French company "Dassault Aviation". This fighter jet has 3 variants. "Rafale C" and "Rafale B" are to be flown from land bases while "Rafale M" is for carriers. "C" and "M" are singe seaters and "B" has capacity for 2 pilots. All three have same airframe and systems. Rafale has M88-2 engine, a powerful jet engine which can be toggled from idle to combat power in almost 3 seconds.
The effectiveness of Rafale is obvious as there are many countries have this jet in their fighter fleets. France has Rafale in its air force since 2005. After long negotiations, Egypt got its first three Rafales in 2015. Other countries having Rafales are Qatar, Greece, Croatia and some others.
India bought 36 Rafales worth $8.7 to $9.4 billion in 2020-22 and there is news that India has signed a deal with France to buy 26 Rafales worth $7.4 billion for its navy. Some other countries like Indonesia, Serbia and the UAE are trying to get Rafales.
But after the recent downing of at least two Rafales of India by Pakistan air force using a combination of Chinese made J-10 C and PL-15 BVR missiles may cause some serious concerns about effectiveness of Rafale against Chinese technology.
In these modern times, air power is very crucial. It can shift the whole game in favor of the player who has more air superiority in combat. It can end a conflict before armies get involved. Countries are spending too much on their air power and are in a race of buying more sophisticated air crafts.
Hence companies producing these machines are also in a tech race. These aircrafts undergo intense testing in long test flights. But their real fighting power reveals in actual combat . Perhaps the ability of pilots is also very important. In today's world you need these big and fast "birds" to win a war and also to prevent the war from starting.

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