One of the Dassault Rafale’s party tricks is terrain avoidance – the use of a digital map, backed up by radar, to define a three-dimensional route that makes the best use of ridgelines and valleys to mask the aircraft from a known threat. Add this to the Rafale’s agility with a heavy load and the results are interesting, says Dassault pilot advisor Jean Camus: “When we fly at 300 feet and 90° of bank at 550 kts and the pilot has his hands off the controls, we get some interesting reactions from foreign evaluation pilots.”
