The year after France withdrew from what would become the Eurofighter project, Dassault-Breguet's Rafale A fighter demonstrator began its flight-test program in July 1986. Powered by two General Electric F404s that would ultimately be replaced by Snecma M88s, the aircraft was designed to validate technologies that would be used in production of Rafale fighters that Dassault planned to build for the French Air Force and Navy as well as for export. Aviation Week's Jeffrey M. Lenorovitz reported that the demonstrator reached speeds of up to Mach 1.8 during an initial series of litest flights from Istres, France. "Details for production versions of the Rafale are in the final definition stages," he wrote, adding that the fighter could enter service as early as 1996. That proved to be overly optimistic by eight years. Today there are 216 Rafales in service, operated by France, Egypt, India and Qatar, with more on order by Croatia, Greece and potentially Indonesia, according to Aviation Week's Military Fleet Discovery database.
展开▼
机译：法国之后的一年退出将成为Euroforighter项目，Dassault-Broguet的Rafale一名战斗机演示者于1986年7月开始了飞行试验计划。由两种通用电气F404供电，最终由Snecma M88S取代，该飞机设计为验证用于生产掷骰子战士的技术，该技术计划为法国空军和海军以及出口而建立。航空周的Jeffrey M. Lenorovitz报道说明书在来自法国Istres，法国Istres的最初系列的最初系列航班中，示威者达到了Mach 1.8的速度。 “Rafale的生产版本的详细信息在最终的定义阶段，”他写道，增加了战斗机早在1996年就可以进入服务。这被证明是八年过度乐观的。根据航空公司的军队舰队发现数据库，由法国，埃及，印度和卡塔尔经营的，由法国，埃及，印度和卡塔尔经营的服务中有216张Racales。
展开▼
