The Dassault Rafale is a multirole combat aircraft from Dassault Aviation, the makers of the Mirage series.

The aircraft is equipped with two Snecma M88-2 engines and is characterised by the canard wing arrangement similar to the Saab JAS39 Gripen and the Eurofighter Typhoon.

Development of this aircraft began in 1985 at the request of the French government, after France withdrew from the development of what would later become the Eurofighter Typhoon. France had held discussions with Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain in the early 1980s to jointly build a fighter aircraft that could take on the then new Soviet MiG-29 and Sukhoi Su-27 fighters. Designing and building an aircraft together would be cheaper for everyone, but after disagreements over division of labor and operational requirements, France decided to design the Rafale alone.