StandaloneWindows64_Vehicle-STL-Rafale

The Dassault Rafale was born from France's decision in the mid-1980s to leave the European fighter programme that would later produce the Eurofighter Typhoon, and to build an aircraft of its own that could fly from both air bases and the deck of an aircraft carrier. The Rafale A demonstrator first flew in 1986, and after a long development the type entered service with the French Navy in 2004 and with the French Air Force in 2006. Dassault called it an omnirole fighter: a single aircraft able to carry out air superiority, ground attack, reconnaissance and nuclear deterrence missions, sometimes all in the same sortie, a promise it has kept in combat over Afghanistan, Libya, Mali, Iraq and Syria. The Rafale C is the single-seat Air Force variant, and the F3-R standard, qualified in 2018, brought it the RBE2 active electronically scanned radar, the Meteor long-range missile and the Talios targeting pod, alongside the SPECTRA self-protection suite. Powered by two Safran M88 engines and reaching about Mach 1.8, its delta wing and close-coupled canards make it remarkably agile at low speed. In this version it carries its internal 30 mm Nexter 30M791 cannon with 125 rounds and eight MBDA MICA EM missiles, an active radar-guided Fox-3 weapon that tracks its target with its own seeker after launch, leaving the pilot free to break away, while its thrust-vector control lets it turn hard right off the rail, making the same missile as dangerous beyond visual range as in a close dogfight. Fittingly, rafale is the French word for a gust of wind, or a burst of fire. Mod by STL785. 'F-22 Raptor' camouflage by SpectreXXI.