Beauty & The Beast - Rafale

Rafale means Gust of Winds or Burst of Fire. Known by a 4th Generation or 4.5 Generation aircraft. On september 2016, India inked direct deal with French government to purchase 36 Rafale aircraft in a 58,000 crore deal from French company Dassault Aviation.

About the Beast

Rafale is a twin-engine medium multi-role combat aircraft. Dassault claim that Rafale has 'omnirole' capability to perform several actions at the same time.

Some of the specifications are :

Max take-off weight : 24.5 tonnes External load : 9.5 tonnes
Over all empty weight : 10 tonnes Wing span : 10.90 M
Height : 5.30 M Fuel (internal) : 4.7 tonnes
Length : 15.30 M Fuel (external) : up to 6.7 tonnes
Top Speed : 1.8 Mach at high altitude Landing Ground Run : 450 M (1,500 ft)

Equipped with Scalp Cruise missile.
Meteor beyond visual range air-to-air missiles.
MICA multi mission air-to-air missile (all weather, fire & forget short & medium range missile system).
Anti-ship attack, nuclear deterrence, buddy-buddy refueling etc.

Why India needs Rafale?

IAF has 32 squadrons & in 1sq = 16-18 fighter jets. Sanctioned 45 squadrons for a two front collusive threat.
India need about 200-250 medium fighter aircrafts. IAF Chief (2016 comment)
Most of the IAF aircrafts are in retirement phase and many been retired soo required new advance fighter aircraft to take up the place of old one.
Commendable performance of Mirage 2000 (Kargil Hero) of Dassault during operation Safed Sagar. This impressed India to go for the deal with Dassault.
MIG-21 also known as flying coffin made by Russia not been so beneficial for AIF so this was also one of the factor which made India deal with France rather then Russia.
Not so friendly neighboring countries.

First Batch : On 10 September, first 5 Rafale Jet were formally inducted in India into No. 17 'Golden Arrow squadron at the Ambala Air Force Station, Haryana. While flying from France it halted on UAE Airbase then brought to India. Newly inducted one are carrying out sorties in eastern Ladakh.
Second Batch : On 4 November at 08:14 pm, 3 Rafale aircraft arrived at Jamnagar Airbase, Gujarat in India flying non-stop from France. This batch will be based at Hasimara in West Bengal.
With the arrival of new batch, the number of Rafale aircraft has increased to eight.
COAS, Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria on October 5 said that the induction of all 36 Rafale Aircraft will be completed by 2023.