Dassault Rafale EM

The Rafale EM is the single-seat Rafale built for the Egyptian Air Force; its two-seat counterpart is the Rafale DM. According to the French Wikipedia, the letters follow the designation scheme used for export Rafales: E stands for export and M for Misr, the Arabic name of Egypt, just as Indian aircraft are designated EH and DH and Qatari aircraft EQ and DQ. The EM is therefore not a naval version: it has nothing to do with the carrier-based Rafale M of the French Navy.

Egypt's path to the Rafale began with an expression of interest for 12 to 20 aircraft sent in early summer 2011, which France did not follow up because of the geopolitical situation. Talks resumed in autumn 2014: in November 2014 Egypt was reported to be negotiating for 24 to 36 aircraft, subject to a financing and weapons package, and by February 2015 the two countries were negotiating a loan from the French export credit agency. On 16 February 2015 President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian signed a military equipment sale that included 24 Rafales with an option on 12 more, as part of a wider package with a FREMM multipurpose frigate and missiles worth US$5.9 billion (€5.2 billion). Egypt thus became the Rafale's first export customer. That first order comprised eight single-seat aircraft, the EMs, and 16 two-seaters, the DMs. The option on 12 further aircraft was never exercised; the English Wikipedia links it to Egypt's demand for SCALP-EG cruise missiles, whose sale was held back by US restrictions on their American-made components.

Cairo wanted the aircraft in time to show them at the inauguration of the Suez Canal expansion in August 2015. To meet that date, the first tranche was made up of aircraft taken from the assembly line out of the batch intended for the French Air Force. The Egyptian version was therefore based on the French F3 standard, with certain functions removed, notably nuclear capability and NATO-specific data links; the aircraft have since been brought up to the F3-R standard. They carry MICA air-to-air missiles and Black Shaheen, the export version of the SCALP cruise missile, and according to the French Wikipedia their data links would allow them to act as a gateway between aircraft of American and Russian origin and to relay data from surface, air and ground platforms to integrated command and control centres.

The first aircraft to reach Egypt were two-seaters. A ceremony at Dassault's flight test centre in Istres in July 2015 marked the acceptance of the first three Rafales, and three more followed in January 2016; all six were DMs diverted from French Air Force deliveries. The single-seat EM came later: the third batch of three aircraft, flown from France by Egyptian pilots in April 2017, included the first EM delivered to the Egyptian Air Force; the fourth batch, of two EMs, arrived in July 2017, and the fifth, with the last three EMs, in November 2017, bringing the number of Rafales in Egyptian service to 14. The 24 aircraft of the first contract were delivered between 2015 and 2019. In January 2019 the specialist blog Defens'Aero reported that the Rafale EM02 had crashed during a display training flight, killing its pilot, Major Mohtady al-Shazly; the Egyptian authorities denied it and neither the French authorities nor the manufacturer commented.

In June 2016 Egypt opened negotiations with Dassault for 12 more aircraft under the option of the first contract, and an Egyptian delegation visited France in November 2017. The second order came on 4 May 2021, when Dassault announced that Egypt had decided to buy 30 additional Rafales, raising the planned fleet to 54 and making the Egyptian Air Force the second-largest Rafale operator in the world after the French Air Force. The English Wikipedia ties it to France having made the SCALP EG missile free of ITAR restrictions by replacing its US-made parts with French components. The Aviationist puts the Dassault order at €3.75 billion, alongside separate contracts with MBDA and Safran, for aircraft to the F3R standard. The French Wikipedia adds that the order was later increased by one aircraft, to 31, possibly to replace a lost aircraft, and breaks it down into 19 single-seaters and 12 two-seaters, deliverable from 2024 to 2026.

According to The Aviationist, citing Military Africa, deliveries under the second contract began at the end of 2024 with EM09. In early October 2025 a batch of three F3R aircraft, the single-seat EM10 and EM11 and the two-seat DM21, flew to Gebel el Basur after test flights in France, and on 26 November 2025 three more single-seaters, EM12, EM13 and EM14, were photographed at Dassault's Mérignac facility being readied for the flight to Egypt. The same article attributes the slow pace of deliveries to production delays and to the loss of one airframe during testing, which led Dassault to build a replacement.

Egyptian Rafales serve with the 203rd Tactical Fighter Wing, in the 34th and 36th Tactical Fighter Squadrons at Gebel el Basur air base, northwest of Cairo. By March 2023, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Defence as cited by The Aviationist, the Egyptian fleet had passed 10,000 flight hours, a figure that covers single-seaters and two-seaters together. In June 2024 Indian Air Force Rafales returning from Exercise Red Flag Alaska flew air combat exercises in Egypt with Egyptian Air Force Rafales. The Egyptian Air Force has also shown interest in the F4 standard once Dassault prepares it for foreign customers.