Rafale
ICAO RFALFrance's fighter, built alone after leaving the Eurofighter programme. Live Rafale positions.
Flying right now
Live · 30s
No Rafale is transmitting ADS-B at the moment.
Military aircraft are not obliged to broadcast, so this happens regularly. The count refreshes every thirty seconds.
Airframe
- Manufacturer
- Dassault
- Role
- Multirole fighter
- Class
- L2J — Landplane, 2 jet engines
- Crew
- 1, or 2 in the B and DM
- First flight
- 4 July 1986
- In service
- 2001
Operators airborne
Nothing of this type is up right now.
About the Rafale
The Rafale exists because France wanted a carrier-capable fighter and the other Eurofighter partners did not, so it walked away and built its own. That decision cost a great deal and produced an aircraft that does everything the French air arm needs from one airframe, including flying from the carrier Charles de Gaulle.
Export took twenty years to arrive and then arrived all at once: Egypt, Qatar, India, Greece, Croatia, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia have all ordered it, and the order book now stretches well into the 2030s.
French aircraft transmit for routine transits through civil airspace, so this page is not always empty — deployments to the Baltic and long-range Pacific missions with tanker support have both been widely tracked.
Callsign prefixes
- CTM
- Cotam — French Air and Space Force
- FAF
- French Air Force transits
- MARINE
- French Navy Rafale M
How to recognise it
- —A delta wing with canards mounted close alongside the cockpit, not out in front as on a Typhoon.
- —Two engines with a single fin, and semi-circular intakes at the fuselage sides.
- —Compact — noticeably smaller than a Typhoon or an F-15.
Common questions
+ Why did France build the Rafale instead of joining Eurofighter?
It needed a carrier-capable aircraft and wanted design leadership. The other partners did not need one, so France left the programme in 1985 and developed the Rafale on its own.
+ Which countries fly the Rafale?
France, Egypt, Qatar, India, Greece, Croatia, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia, with further orders outstanding.
+ How is the Rafale different from the Typhoon?
Both are canard deltas, but the Rafale places its canards close to the cockpit and is the smaller aircraft, optimised for versatility and carrier operations. The Typhoon is faster and climbs harder, with canards set further forward.