PARIS \u2014 The United Arab Emirates has restarted talks on ordering the Dassault Rafale, with a planned major upgrade of the fighter jet in contrast to the off-the-shelf deals for Egypt and India, said an Arabian Gulf official source familiar with the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Yes, there are renewed discussions,” the gulf source said April March <\/span>14. The talks could take some time “to reach an understanding” that meets the needs of the UAE Air Force, the source said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n France has been in talks for more than five years on a sale of 60 Rafales, with the UAE requiring service holding specific requirements aimed at flying <\/span>a more capable fighter with and<\/span> extensive weapons suite. The Rafale would replace the fleet of Mirage 2000-9s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The fresh talks are looking at requirements rather than reviving discussions for 60 Rafales and it is too early to say how many aircraft would be purchased for how much, and the budget, <\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The UAE is seen a potential buyer after Egypt sealed a deal for 24 Rafales and India announced a plan to order 36 off the assembly line in France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “There are discussions going on with the Emirates, they are going in the right direction,” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told journalists at the April 16 <\/span>the Anglo-American Press Association on April 16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n France is pursuing pursues <\/span>an “economics diplomacy,” he said. “The president, prime minister, defense minister and myself \u2014 we work very closely together.” That approach was applied generally and to the Rafale specifically, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fabius said he met UAE Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed al-Nahyan during a trip to Saudi Arabia on the weekend of April 11-12, confirming a report by daily Le Monde. “There is a French saying \u2014 all things come in threes,” the French minister said, referring to the Rafale deals with Egypt and India, the report said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dassault Aviation Chairman Eric Trappier said on March 11 that the French company was back in talks with the UAE, but that these were not contract negotiations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The UAE is in talks with the US to order 30 of the <\/span>Block 61 version of the <\/span>Lockheed Martin F-16s, which would add to the 80-strong fleet of Block 60 fighters, Reuters has reported. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Executives at the International Defence Exhibition IDEX trade show <\/span>in Abu Dhabi in February noted the UAE crown prince spent an hour behind closed doors at the Dassault stand on the opening day. The UAE had helped fund Egypt’s purchase of the Rafale, but it was also likely that they spoke there was talk <\/span>about the fighters for the gulf state’s own Air Force, the executives said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The UAE Air Force has previously <\/span>focused on an upgrade of the systems and engine of the Rafale, including active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, frontal sector optronic and an electronic warfare suite, systems supplied by Thales, and a 9-ton-thrust M88 engine, uprated from the 7.5-ton engine that powers the French Air Force and Navy fighters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n French industry has said the 2011 Libya air campaign showed there was no need for a higher engine thrust on the Rafale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n News, the Rafale blog, ran in 2011 a story from weekly magazine Air & Cosmos which reported t<\/span>The potential UAE version, dubbed M88-9, could deliver nine tons of thrust by “increasing the entering airflow from 65 kg\/s to 72 kg\/s and the compression rate from 24.5 to 27,” according to News, the Rafale blog, which in 2011 ran a story from weekly magazine Air & Cosmos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That would require the air intake to be enlarged, a costly “structural modification” that which <\/span>had been a stumbling block in talks with the UAE, the 2011 report said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Dec. 30, France launched on Dec. 30 <\/span>a program worth some \u20ac1 billion billon <\/span>(US $1.06 billion) to upgrade the Rafale F3 to the F3R standard by 2018. The new version will fire the MBDA Meteor long-range air-to-air missile, a laser version of the Sagem Armement Air Sol Modulaire (AASM) <\/span>powered smart bomb, and carry a Thales new-generation laser targeting pod, dubbed Talios, to succeed the present Damocles. The AESA RBE2 radar and Spectra electronic warfare system will also be improved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Egypt will receive the F3R version, Trappier said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thales co-developed the Damocles pod under the name Shehab for the UAE Air Force’s Mirage 2000-9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The UAE had been putting pressure on France to fund a co-development of an upgraded targeting pod and considered buying the Lockheed Martin Sniper as an alternative, business daily Les Echos reported in November 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Abu Dhabi had agreed with then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy to consider the Rafale as a replacement to the fleet of Mirage 2000-9s bought in 1998.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fabius said there are also discussions on the Rafale with Qatar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “But sometimes these discussions are long, sometimes they speed up \u2014 which we saw in Egypt \u2014 sometimes they are brief,” Fabius said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It depends on the overall situation, depends on the country’s needs \u2013 the aircraft is the same but sometimes they ask for different specifications. There are discussions going on with Qatar and other countries,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n