On April 19, in a statement French aviation giant Dassault said, the UAE had paid the first installment for the delivery of 80 Rafale F4, and that the UAE is now officially included in the company’s production planning.
The value of the contract is said to be around 16 billion euros and includes the cost of the aircraft, maintenance, and weapon systems. The delivery of the first Rafael aircraft to the UAE is expected to be sometime in 2027; deliveries should be completed by 2031.
The development of the Rafael F4 version began in January 2019 and is expected to be completed by 2022. The F4 version is based on the F3R version and includes significant improvements including RBE-2AA radar AESA technology, air MICA next generation (NG), air missile certification. Meteor missiles, which incidentally have a range of more than 100 km, target and tactical TALIOS, guided bombs AASM. The Rafale F3-R also includes an automatic ground collision avoidance system.
In addition to these improvements, the F4 will also have increased capabilities for missions and operations in a network-oriented environment, with improved collection, processing, and transmission of data in terms of computing power and storage; security aspects of transmission to and from other convenient platforms will also be included. The Rafale F4 will also include Thales’ new Scorpion headphones.
With the UAE upgrading its fighter fleet to the Rafale F4, it plans on offering a large number of Mirage-2000 9/EAD/RAD aircraft to Morocco completely free of charge.
This information was published in a Spanish newspaper, but was neither confirmed or denied by officially.
According to a “well-informed source”, the agreement between Morocco and the UAE was a fact and that Morocco will receive a large fleet of Mirage Mirage-2000 9/EAD/RAD aircraft from the UAE. Incidentally, the UAE has a total of 59 such aircraft in its fleet.
The report from the Spanish newspaper did not specify the number of planes that will be transferred to Morocco, but a source said, this number is 34.
