The Dassault Rafale C c/n 133, F-UHGL, coded 4-GL of the ETR 3/4 which is used as the demonstration aircraft of the Rafale Solo Display.

In the late 70s, the great military powers of Western Europe decided to join in order to conceive a new polyvalent jet aircraft but all weren't agree on how to conceive this new aircraft and on its capabilities, that's why France left the group coallition in 1985 as they were the only ones that required an aircraft able to serve on aircraft cariers. As they left the common project but still needed this new multi-roles aircraft, the French Armed forces requested, in 1988, to Dassault Aviation, who flew their latest prototype, the Rafale A, in 1986, to conceive and build this aeroplane. The latter took the bases of an earlier prototype conceived in 1976, the Mirage 4000, it basically took its configuration with some modifications such as the design of the fuselage in order to make it flatter and thus way more discreet than the former Mirage design.

The first prototype of the military Rafale, the C variant, fly for the first time in May 1991 and the navalised variant, the Rafale M, flies in December of the same year and the two-seater variant, the Rafale B, in April 1993. And the first Rafales enter in service in 2001 within the French Navy Flotille 12F which is charged to evaluate and to test the aircraft in order to train the future pilots and instructor for 3 years and only becames operational in June 2004, after it has participate to the Operation Enduring Freedom in the Pankisi Gorge. The 10 first exemples used by the Flotille 12F of the F1 standard are still use today in order to test the new equipements that can be added to the nowadays F3 variant. As for the French Air Force, the first unit to receive the Rafale was the Escadron de Chasse et d'Expérimentation 05/330 Côte d'Argent in 2005 and then it's the Escadron de Chasse 1/7 Provence, a fighter-bomber squadron, which became the first operational squadron on Rafale in 2006 and then the Strategical Bomber Squadron, the EC 1/91 Gascogne in 2009 and which flew them in exercise for the first time in 2010. It's only in June 2012 that the first fighters only squadron, the Escadron de Chasse 2/30 Normandie-Niémen received its first Rafales and became operational on it.

The nowadays standard for the Dassault Rafales of both the French Air Force and of the French Fleet Air Arm is the F.3, the Rafale M1 of the standard F1 is still being used for tests while the M2 to M10 of the same standard and the F.2 standards were mothballed and stocked. The F.3 standard is, today, the most advanced standard of the aircraft with almost all its flaws corrected, it has a better avionics as well as a better maintenance systems, in the two first standards of the Rafale, only an average of 35% of the aircrafts could be airworthy in the mean time due to a flaw within the maintenance follow-up systeme, it was corrupting quite often the latter, hugely increasing the maintenance time, though, with the new avionics of the F.3 standard, the average rate of airworthy aircrafts in the mean time passed to 94% according to a communiqué of the French Admiralty after the first operations lead by the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle after it was only equipped with Rafale fighters in 2017.

Concerning the avionics, the systems and the weaponry of the Rafale standard F.3, it's been thought in order to make it a capable equivalent to the 5th generations fighter (the Rafale is beign considered as a 4.5th generation aircraft) such as the F-22 and F-35 with a phased array radar Thales RBE2, a MAWS SPECTRA (Missile Approach Warning System SPECTRA [Système de Protection et d'Evitement des Conduites de Tir du RAfale]) which automatises the defense systems of the aircraft in case of an engagement, an improved variant of the M88 jet engine which reduces the maintenance costs and work and increase of 50% the lifespan of the engine, an electromagnetic radar jamming system improved, the capacity of carrying a Damocles nacelle which allows the same aircraft to designate and to fire a guided bomb, a laser designation TALIOS nacelle which increase its bombing range to 70km with a guided bomb GBU-24 Paveway III of 1 162kg, a SATCOM antenna and the ability to carry the 68mm rocket and the laser guided rocket carried by the Eurocopter Tiger as well as the new MBDA Meteor air to air missile.

As for its weaponry, the Rafale has been conceived to be able to succeed in its three roles in one mission, it means that it's able to do bombing, reconnaissance and interception in the same mission. It's air to air weapons are the fire-and-forget missiles MBDA Missile d'Interception, de Combat et d'Auto-defense (MICA) in all its configurations which as a range from 500m to between 50 and 80 km and of MBDA Meteor active radar missiles which has a range above of 100km.
For the air-to-ground missions, the Rafale can carry Mk.82 or BLU-111 or 126 unguided bombs, 6 guided bombs GBU-12, 49 or 24 and AASM or 6 cruise missile SCALP-EG of an average range of 400km, the anti-ships missile Exocet AM39 Block2 Mod2 and, for the strategic bombers, a ASMPA nuclear missile of 300kt with an effective range of more or less 500km, depending on the altitude of the aircraft when dropping it.
For the internal armament, it has a sole 30mm DEFA M791 canon placed in the right side of the fuselage

As for the radar, the Thales RBE2, it has a detection range of around 220 km and an angle of detecion of around 70° vertically and of between 120° and 140° horizontally and can follow around 40 aircrafts in the mean time, to activelly follow 24 of them and to lock 8 aircrafts in the mean time and would be able to follow a radar signature previously locked around 100km above its own detection range.