French manufacturer Dassault, which is known for its production of private jets as well as military aircraft, produces one of the mainstays of the French Air Force. Since entering service around the turn of the millennium, the Dassault Rafale has been a key strategic asset for not just the French military, but for armed forces all across the globe.

Since the beginning of production in the 1980s, nearly 260 Dassault Rafale aircraft have been built, and the jet continues to roll off of the assembly lines today. The Rafale, a name which quite literally translates to ‘burst of fire,’ is a robust twin-engine fighter that serves a multirole purpose.

With such an impressive array of roles, including air supremacy, interception, reconnaissance, ground support, anti-ship, and nuclear deterrence, it is unsurprising that Dassault manufactured the jet in a number of different variants. In this article, we will take a deeper look at the different kinds of Dassault Rafale jets that remain in the skies and the unique purpose each variant serves.

Some background

Before taking a deeper dive into the different variants of the Dassault Rafale, it is important to take a look at the developmental history behind the plane. France has always aimed to develop its own independent fighter aircraft, which is one of the main reasons the Rafale was produced.

Photo: VanderWolf Images | Shutterstock

According to Robert Jackson’s 2006 Encyclopedia of Military Aircraft, France had originally been part of the coalition that would eventually develop the Eurofighter Typhoon. However, the country chose to withdraw in the early stages in favor of developing a smaller and more agile combat aircraft to meet the needs of both the French Air and Space Force and the French Navy.

The resulting aircraft was a twin-engine fighter that featured a distinct compound sweep delta wing, all-moving canards, and semi-vented intakes. There were three key dates in the timeline of the aircraft’s development:

1. The Rafale A, a technology demonstrator, first flew on 4 July 1986.
2. The production variant, the Rafale C, flew first on 19 May 1991.
3. The aircraft was introduced to service with the French Navy on 18 May 2001.

The Rafale remains among the most advanced fighter aircraft in the skies, incorporating fly-by-wire technology and including a fully electronic cockpit with voice-activated command. The plane’s ultra-light fuselage is made of composites and aluminum-lithium, which allowed the aircraft to achieve weight savings of around 7%.

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The impressive fighter is still in production today.

The plane is extremely versatile and can be armed for almost any kind of mission. It can carry everything from Aerospatiale ASMP standoff nuclear bombs, eight air-to-air missiles for interceptor roles, or up to 16 500-pound bombs when operating strike missions.

Numerous designations

There were three key production variants of the Rafale, which were designated as the Rafale B, the Rafale C, and the Rafale M, and we will discuss them at length shortly. However, there were a number of other designations and pre-production variants that are fascinating to discuss first.

Photo: Dassault

The Rafale A, as previously mentioned, was designed as a technology demonstrator and first took to the skies in 1986. The manufacturer would later use the designation Rafale D (which stood for the French word discrete) in order to advertise the semi-stealthy design features the aircraft could offer.

A proposed variant, named the Rafale N, was set to be developed as a missile-only two-seater jet. However, this concept quite really made it off the drawing board, much like a reconnaissance-specialized variant which was to be designated as the Rafale R.

A number of other designations are used for the aircraft, primarily to distinguish the operators of each individual set of planes. A good example of these are the Rafale EQ and DQ designations, which, according to Shephard Media, are used to describe the Rafales operated by the Qatar Emiri Air Force. The full list of designations is detailed in the table below:

Three main variants

There were three primary production variants of the Dassault Rafale, all of which have entered operational service with the French Air and Space Force and the French Navy. There are extremely minute differences between these three variants.

Photo: Dassault

The first variant, the Rafale B, is a two-seat variant of the aircraft designed for land-based operations by the French Air and Space Force. The Rafale C is identical to the Rafale B in nearly all capacities, with the unique exception of having a single-seat configuration instead of space for two crew members. Some slightly different specifications can be observed in the table below:

The Rafale M is the most distinct of the three main variants, with special modifications in order for the jet to perform landings on and takeoffs from aircraft carriers. The model features a radar-absorbant coating alongside an adjusted fin-fuselage junction.

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The variant also offers a strengthened airframe, longer nose landing gear, and a tailhook between the engines. All of these are essential for allowing catapult-assisted take-off barrier-arrested recovery operations (CATOBAR), which are performed on aircraft carriers.

The Rafale M is also allowed to operate to and from the US Navy’s aircraft carriers by using their catapults and arresting wires. Back in 2008, the Rafale demonstrated this specific capability when six aircraft were integrated into the Air Wing of the US aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt during a joint training exercise, according to Safran.