National Defence Committee on Nov. 4th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Great. Thank you, Mister Robins.

Mr. Harris now has the floor.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Robins.

The Rafale aircraft.... You've heard the discussions about generations—fourth generation, fifth generation. I even saw an article here suggesting that Boeing was developing a sixth-generation aircraft, even though they tell us that's only a marketing tool.

Is that meaningful for your company, sir, this talk of fourth generation or fifth generation? If it is meaningful, where does the Rafale fit into that?

[Yves Robins]

Frankly, sir, no. We consider this discussion about the generations as a pure marketing tool. Ever since the end of World War II, the philosophy of our company has been to develop successive prototypes and improve them with the improvements in technology. Our experience comes from the development and the building of more than 100 prototypes since 1946. Each time, we have built step by step on progressive improvements from one aircraft to the other.

Regarding the Rafale, I explained to you that one of the founding principles of the Rafale design is a very open, very high-growth potential thanks to an open architecture. That means what? That means that Rafale entered service in 2004 with the French navy. Today, we are in 2010. We have already seen three different improved standards within the Rafale system: F-1, which was purely air-to-air; F-2, which was air-to-air and air-to-ground; F-3, which is an improvement on F-2 with the added capabilities in anti-shipping missiles, reconnaissance, nuclear strike, and so on.

Rafale is not a frozen aircraft. Rafale has an evolutionary concept in its systems that allows it to keep pace with the development of the technologies, and there will be successive standards and improvements throughout the 30 years of the operational life of Rafale.

Now, how does a generation fit into this concept? Is F-3 going to be 4.87 generation; and F-4, tomorrow I shall wake up and say that today I'm going to be 5.3 generation? No, not really. The philosophy for the development of Rafale is completely different and is out of this generation debate.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, sir.

The information I have suggests that the fly-away cost for a Rafale C, which I think is the air force model, was around $82 million U.S. in 2008. I realize we're talking about what's in the plane, what kind of configuration, etc. Is that range of cost meaningful to even discuss?

[Yves Robins]

It is obviously extremely difficult to discuss prices, because of what those prices include on a series of how many aircraft, with which options, and so on. Roughly speaking today, the fly-away price of a Rafale is around 70 million euros, which is more or less consistent with that.

Obviously, a lot of things depend on it. What is important to know is that the price of the Rafale has always been in the French budget, and a recent report of the general accounting office of the French government states that ever since the beginning of the program in the 1990s and something until today, the price of the aircraft has only slipped by 4%, which is extremely low when you compare it with all the other programs of combat aircraft you can see in the western world.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Sir, has your company had any discussions with the Canadian Forces or the Canadian Department of National Defence with respect to the possibility of your aircraft being considered as a replacement for the F-18?

[Yves Robins]

No, sir. The last contact we had with the Canadian government and air force was on February 22, 2006, when we received the delegation from the Canadian Armed Forces, a couple of officers, for a couple of hours in Saint Cloud. They had been briefed on the Rafale program, and I think as well on the nEUROn program, and that was it.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I take from the fact that you're here that your company would be interested if there were an open competition.

[Yves Robins]

We must see what happens. Obviously, I'm.... First of all, I am here to answer your invitation to provide you with information about the Rafale, and we are very grateful for this opportunity.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

You dealt with interoperability, but it's been suggested that the capabilities of the fifth-generation aircraft include sensors, data fusion, and survivability. Perhaps you could deal with survivability of your aircraft.

[Yves Robins]

Survivability comes mainly from the blending of the very low observability, the capability to operate with very strong electronic counter-measure equipment, capability to operate in a very passive way, in a very discreet way, and a very high level of sophistication within the systems, the redundancy of the systems, and so on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you, Mister Robins.

Ms. Gallant, you now have the floor.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

What would be the worldwide fleet size for the Rafale? You mentioned 180 for France, and then you mentioned 600. Worldwide at this point in time, what number of Rafale are on order?

[Yves Robins]

Today, the Rafale has been ordered by the French armed forces. There is a firm contract, a multi-year procurement contract for 180 aircraft out of a total requirement for the French armed forces of 284.

We are obviously in discussions with several countries for the possibility of exporting the aircraft. Some of the countries you may have heard of--for instance, Brazil, the Emirates, India with the MMRCA competition. We foresee in the future a potential market for at least 300 of the aircraft. The aircraft will remain in production until at least 2025, something like that.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Would there be greater economies of scale in costing if the worldwide fleet were 3,000 to 5,000 aircraft?

[Yves Robins]

It may be possible, yes. It depends, but I'm not a big authority.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

You mentioned that the cost of your aircraft, fully equipped to do the job, is 70 million euros. That's twice the price we've been quoted on the F-35s. Are those in today's dollars?

[Yves Robins]

They are not dollars, they are euros.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Are they today's euros, or euros from 2015?

[Yves Robins]

I told the honourable parliamentarians that this was a rough idea, that's about it.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

That wouldn't include any royalties for the buyers, or anything like that.

Would you agree that there are more economies of scale in buying spares for a worldwide fleet of 3,000 to 5,000 aircraft, most of which will be under a common MOU, than for a fleet of a few hundred aircraft?

[Yves Robins]

I'm not a big authority. It all depends on the competitiveness of the manufacturer of those spares.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

And you're certain that the Rafale production line would remain in place for 35 years.

[Yves Robins]

The production line will remain in place at least until 2025.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Until 2035.