Are “light” fighters destined to disappear?

It is now official, the Rafale is preferred by the Colombian authorities to replace its fighter fleet currently armed with Israeli Kfir fighters. Although it is not, strictly speaking, an order for 16 new aircraft, Colombia is now in exclusive negotiations with Dassault Aviation and the French authorities to give substance to this, after having publicly estimated that the Rafale was “the best option for the country in terms of price, efficiency and operability”, while being 30% cheaper to use than the Kfir currently in service. With this probable success, the Rafale would exceed the number of aircraft exported for the Mirage 2000 with 300 aircraft against 286, in 8 countries for each aircraft. However, this emerging success is interesting well beyond the industrial, technological or even political aspects by allowing Dassault to regain a foothold in South America. Indeed, the French aircraft imposed itself, once again, against the two “light” single-engine fighters on the Western market, the Swedish JAS-39 Gripen E/F, and the American F-16 Block 70/72+ Viper .

This is not the first time that the Rafale defeats these two aircraft, although they are more economical to purchase and therefore supposedly more attractive for medium-sized air forces, as in the case of Colombia. In 2021, in fact, the Croatian authorities preferred Rafale F3R to these two aircraft, despite an offer based on used French aircraft, against the F-16V from Lockheed-Martin and the Swedish Gripen C/D, Saab having preferred to present this less advanced but also less expensive version to win the price argument. In the same area, the Indian Air Force lobbied to transform the MMCA 2 contract, which was initially to relate to single-engine fighters to replace the MiG-21 Bison, in order to open it to so-called “medium” fighters, such as THE Rafale but also the Typhoon, allowing even heavy fighters, such as the F-15 and Su-35, to take part. And this competition which was to be summed up as an opposition between the Gripen and the F-21, an F-16V renamed for questions of pre-existing industrial agreement, now pits very different aircraft against each other in terms of performance but also price.

In this context, we can wonder if the concept of light fighter like the F-16, the Mig-21 or the Mirage family, which precisely aimed to produce high-performance but economical combat aircraft, allowing a majority of air forces to equip themselves in sufficient numbers, is not expected to disappear, in favor of a new generation of heavier, more expensive but also more efficient and safer aircraft, and offering significantly greater operational capabilities such as can be the Rafale French?

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