The literal description of the Dassault Rafale, “Burst of Fire” and “Gust of Wind”, is an aircraft that has not so much achieved its fame on any one breakthrough as on a consistent series of being able to keep pace with the way air combat continues its own evolution. Image Credit to wikipedia.org Rafale occupies the overcrowding zone between fourth-generation and fully fifth-generation stealthplanes, which is commonly termed the “4.5 generation” since it integrates current sensors, electronic warfare, and precision weaponry with high performance and carrier capability. It is a multirole, twin-engine aircraft that is capable of flying air-to-air and strike missions and has already proven to be an export success among operators in Europe, Middle East and Asia. A lot of that attractiveness is due to a mere anticipation on the part of buyers of a combat plane that they will continue to operate over decades: the jet cannot remain the standard it was shipped at. The sensors are the most visible aspect of the modernization that the Rafale underwent. The radar lineage of the aircraft began with the RBE2 family and expanded into an AESA variant, the RBE2-AA active electronically scanned array which is a fundamental enabler in...