A 44-second cockpit clip can’t rewrite air combat reality, but it can expose where assumptions get brittle. That is the actual lesson of the videos made available by Atlantic Trident 25 during the moment that a French Rafale attains a radar engagement on an American Air Force F-35A and is then ordered to shoot, which indicates a simulated missile firing.
It is a compelling video and seems definite: a fourth-and-a-half generation fighter seems to “death” a fifth-generation stealth jet. What it does provide, in fact, is a snapshot deprived of whatever it is that makes stealth and sensors prevail or the battle degenerate into a close-range game of geometry, timing and rules. That is, the video is not so much of an aircraft-versus-aircraft judgment, but a reminder that drills are crafted to develop specific abilities, not to recreate a winner-take-all battle.
In Finland, Atlantic Trident 25 was attended by France, United States, United Kingdom, and Finland with a mixed package consisting of Rafales, Typhoons, F-35As, F-15Es and Finnish F/A-18 Hornets. The exercise focused on Agile Combat Employment -dispersed basing, fast turnarounds and coalition interoperability- rather than the superiority of one platform over the other. That context is important since training goals tend to impose limitations: there are limited ranges, limited weaponry, a specified initial position, and required control of emissions. In the absence of such details, it is possible to conclude only the honesty of the engagement under the influence of circumstances that are beyond the gaze of the population.
Even the most elementary of variables have not been provided: initial separation, altitude, speed, aspect, and whether the F-35 was flying under emissions control or transmitting as part of a training mission. The headline capability of Stealth is associated with the ability to evade detection, particularly to those fighters that are conventional fire-control radar bands, as well as those fighters that are of an advantageous position, and to the ability to enter the “first-look, first-shot” sequence, which modern tactics are built around. When such a timeline gets squashed down it is no longer a contest of who is more stealthy and rather who is in a better position and better supported at that point.
The uncomfortable space to any stealth plane is the visual merge.
At visual range, visual observability has fewer leverage and other advantages increase rapidly: instantaneous situational awareness, electronic warfare and high-energy maneuvering. The Rafale also introduces plausible instruments to that game, such as its RBE2 AESA radar and the SPECTRA electronic warfare suite, as well as with tactics capable of taking advantage of offboard indications of other airplanes or sensors. The F-35, in its turn, is designed based on sensor fusion and battle space management, which is best encapsulated as the “quarterback” model most commonly applied to the jet, but only works when it is not restricted to act as a node in a broader network and control the fight before it becomes a turning match.
The fact that stealth-on-stealth encounters may reduce the distances to be detected and result in more merges than previously calculated is one reason why close-in encounters continue to reappear in popular consciousness. Just as RUSI analyst Justin Bronk stated, Although most state-to-state conflict presupposes that most of the air-to-air conflicts will be beyond visual range using missiles. Especially, on either side, as you pass a stealth plane, you hear one another later… so frequently you are getting merged… when the planes come into sight… at the entry of aircraft at visual range.
The clip also falls into a more expansive situation in which exercises are becoming all about coalition integration. Another doorway large-force training video filmed the same theme at a different angle, with one of the commanders underlining that The F-35A is the most advanced operational strike fighter in the world, but its capability is only realized when it becomes part of a larger network of systems as we can see at the Exercise Red Flag Nellis, integrated within a larger network of systems. Antecedent That is a silent refutation of viral death clips: the platform has its strongest footing at the levels of the campaign and not in a close-up.
Therefore the Rafale tape does not “dethrone” stealth. It does emphasize that there is something more enduring to perceive: no plane is indestructible when training requirements, goal of the missions and the geometry of the proximity reduce the distance between design philosophies. The worth of the clip, in that sense is not that of a score board, but of a stimulus to enquire what it is training and what must have been supposed away to train it.
