Dassault Rafale Rafale M

The Rafale M (Marine) is the carrier-borne version for the French Navy's CATOBAR carriers. It is very similar to the Rafale C but modified for deck operations: a strengthened airframe, a longer nose gear leg to give a more nose-up attitude, a larger tailhook between the engines and a built-in boarding ladder, which together add about 500 kg to the weight of the land-based single-seater. It keeps thirteen hardpoints against the fourteen of the Air Force versions. The first of two prototypes, M01, made its maiden flight on 12 December 1991, followed by the second on 8 November 1993; on 19 April 1993 a prototype made the first take-offs from the deck of the Foch, after its catapult compatibility had been certified in the United States. The first production Rafale M flew on 7 July 1999.

The Navy was the first to receive the aircraft, urgently, to replace its worn-out F-8 Crusaders: the first ten aircraft (M1 to M10) were delivered from September 2000 at the air-to-air-only F1 standard and equipped Flottille 12F at Landivisiau from May 2001; the F1 standard was declared operational on 25 June 2004. Once enough F2-standard Rafale Ms with air-to-ground capability had arrived, M2 to M10 were placed in storage between 2008 and 2013 and then brought straight to the F3 standard in a major retrofit between 2013 and 2018, passing again through the Mérignac assembly line; M1 remained a flight-test aircraft and has been used to trial the automatic landing aid of the F4 standard, whose first deck landing on the Charles de Gaulle took place in late 2021.

It is the only non-US fighter type cleared to operate from the decks of US carriers using their catapults and arresting gear, as six Rafales from 12F showed in 2008 when they integrated into the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier air wing. The manufacturer credits it with Mach 1.4 supercruise carrying six MICA missiles. The cancelled two-seat naval Rafale N and the Rafale MH ordered by the Indian Navy for STOBAR carriers both build on this version.