The Rafale Has Landed: The Second Candidate for the Partial Tiger Replacement

The second candidate for the Partial Tiger Replacement (PTR) landed in Emmen this morning. With the arrival of the French Rafale aircraft in Switzerland, the second series of flight and ground tests for the PTR is about to begin. In November, the third and last candidate, the EADS Eurofighter, will follow.

Today at 11.25 hours, two Rafale aircraft landed at the Emmen (LU) airbase. These two-seaters will be stationed in Switzerland for about a month from 9 October 2008. As part of the flight and ground tests from Emmen as main airbase, around 30 flights are planned, some of which will be carried out at night.

In addition, about 50 sorties will be made with F/A-18 and F-5 aircraft, which will serve as targets and for flight tests within the PTR - F/A-18 formation. The evaluation flights are part of current flying contingents and will not lead to additional flight movements at the respective airbases.

The next steps

The arrival of the European EADS Eurofighter is planned for 6 November 2008. The flight and ground test procedures will be identical for all three types of aircraft.

In parallel to evaluating the flight and ground tests, the tenders that were handed in on 2 July 2008 will also be examined. The collected data will serve as a basis for a second call for tenders in January 2009.

After evaluation of the second tender, optimised with respect to equipment and price, and the subsequent preparation of the evaluation report in May 2009, the selection of the aircraft type is planned for July 2009.