Dassault Rafale Rafale A

The Rafale A was the technology demonstrator with which Dassault shaped the ACX (Avion de Combat Expérimental) programme. On 13 April 1983 the French government awarded a contract for two demonstrators, later cut to one, on the condition that the first flight took place in 1986 and that state and industry split the development cost in half. Marcel Dassault himself chose the name Rafale, a nod to the Ouragan, the company's first jet. Design studies began in March 1983 and construction in 1984; the team brought the schedule forward twice and finished the aircraft in under eighteen months, nine months ahead of plan. It was Dassault's 92nd prototype in forty years.

The demonstrator was rolled out at Saint-Cloud on 13 December 1985 with Marcel Dassault present; when the press needled him about the aircraft not being European, he replied that it would be a world aircraft. Marcel Dassault died on 17 April 1986 and never got to ask his test pilot the ritual question about what he thought of the aircraft: the first flight took place on 4 July 1986 from the Istres test centre, with Guy Mitaux-Maurouard at the controls, reaching Mach 1.3 on that very sortie.

The Rafale A existed to reduce risk through incremental improvement and, above all, to test the aerodynamically unstable delta-canard configuration with fly-by-wire controls, a side-stick and HOTAS concept, canards set behind the cockpit and semi-ventral intakes without the moving cones of the Mirages. As a precaution it was powered by two General Electric F404s from the F/A-18 Hornet pending the Snecma M88 turbofan; an M88 was fitted in early 1990 and the aircraft flew with the updated powerplant in May 1990. In 1987 and 1988 it flew dozens of simulated deck landings on the carriers Clemenceau (on 30 April 1987) and Foch and at Istres and Nîmes-Garons, to win over a navy that preferred the F/A-18. The demonstrator remained in use until January 1994 and was retired after 867 sorties.