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China Goes Hunting for Rafale Lessons
Rahul Bedi
August 25 2026The message for India – and the IAF especially – is uncomfortable but clear: despite all the enduring diplomatic efforts to manage bilateral tensions and preserve peace, China continues to prepare not merely to fight better, but to fight farther from home.
PLAAF J-16. Photo: Ministry of National Defense, Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons.
The Indian Air Force (IAF) will, no doubt, be closely evaluating China’s J-16 fighters going up against the Egyptian Air Force (EAF) Dassault Rafales, in the ongoing Eagles of Civilisation 2026 air exercise across Egypt – the first time the two combat aircraft types have operated together.
For the IAF, the concern is that Chinese fighter pilots are gaining practical exposure to the advanced fighter it relies upon for high-end operations, learning its flight characteristics and how Rafale crews employ it in air-to-air engagements, in progressively more complex scenarios.
The aerial exercise, which began over the weekend and continues into early September, is the second iteration of the China-Egypt air drills, following the inaugural exercise in 2025, when the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) fielded J-10C and J-10S fighters alongside the EAF's Russian-origin MiG-29s.
Those earlier drills covered counter-air operations, suppression of enemy air defences (SEAD), combat search and rescue, mixed formations and aerial refuelling. This year’s exercise, however, represents a clear step up, with the PLAAF fielding its heavier J-16s against the EAF’s Rafales – the same type operated by the IAF. The significance for India is heightened by IAF plans to acquire another 114 Rafales under the Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft (MRFA) programme, giving the Chinese fighters a more sophisticated and operationally relevant opponent to train against.
According to China’s Ministry of National Defence, the PLAAF is using the aerial exercise to train in air-combat tactics, air-superiority operations, combat search and rescue and force employment alongside the EAF’s Rafales. It also aims to hone its capability to operate a combat force in an unfamiliar environment and gain practical familiarity with a sophisticated Western fighter.
Chinese media reports further indicated that the exercise was also progressing from “one-on-one and two-on-two” medium- and close-range fighter engagements, towards more systematic joint operations. Such manoeuvres marked a significant shift from testing individual tactics to practising how PLAAF fighters operated as part of a larger, coordinated force.
A 4.5-generation, twin-engine, twin-seat heavy multirole fighter, it is one of the PLAAF’s principal combat platforms, operating alongside its lighter J-10s and fifth-generation J-20s. Reverse-engineered from the Russian Sukhoi ‘Flanker’ family, its lineage runs through the Su-27 and Su-30, and it occupies broadly the same operational space as the IAF’s Su-30MKIs. The exercises with the EAF therefore allow PLAAF crews to put their heavyweight fighter through repeated engagements with the Rafale and gain insight into how the French aircraft is employed and performs in combat.
“The takeaway for the PLAAF from these exercises is not that it will somehow acquire the secrets of the IAF’s Rafales, as they differ considerably from those operated by the EAF, but that the French aircraft will fundamentally become less unfamiliar to Chinese pilots,” said a two-star veteran IAF fighter pilot.
The more the PLAAF flies against it, the better it will understand how to fight it, he stated, declining to be named. More importantly, for an air force that could eventually confront IAF Rafales over the Himalayas, even this limited exposure in Egypt to this French fighter would provide useful experience, particularly in understanding its flight characteristics and employment, he added.
Fortunately for India, the Rafales operated by the two air forces are not identically configured, differing subtly in mission-system architecture, software baselines, weapons integration, electronic-warfare libraries and other customer-specific systems.
While both countries operate Rafales based on the F3/F3-R standard, the IAF's 36-strong fleet incorporates 13-14 ‘India-specific enhancements’ whose design and development reportedly accounted for some Euro 1.3 billion of the overall Euro 7.8-billion fighter package in September 2016.
The EAF’s fleet, for its part, is mixed: its original 24 aircraft, ordered in 2015, were delivered to the F3 standard, while its subsequent 30-aircraft order, placed in May 2021, was for the upgraded F3-R version. Both these EAF lots are based on the standard Rafale specification rather than the specially enhanced Indian configuration.
The distinction matters because experience against Egyptian Rafales cannot be directly translated into a complete understanding of how India operates the type. The aircraft may be broadly similar, but the tactics, operating practices and combat system built around them are not necessarily the same.
That distinction matters in the context of the continuing exercise in Egypt, for while the PLAAF is gaining familiarity with the Rafale platform, experience against Egyptian aircraft cannot be directly translated into a complete understanding of how India operates the type.
The aircraft may be broadly similar, but the software and mission-system configuration, weapons integration, electronic-warfare libraries and other India-specific modifications can differ, as can the tactics, operating practices and wider combat system built around them.
That distinction matters in the context of the continuing exercise in Egypt, for while the PLAAF is gaining familiarity with the Rafale platform, it is not necessarily learning about the specific version operated by the IAF. The aircraft may be broadly similar, but the tactics, operating practices and combat system built around them can differ.
The French fighters’ fundamental characteristics, however, remain broadly common: both are twin-engine, delta-canard multirole fighters sharing the same basic airframe and flight-control architecture, and are equipped with the RBE2 AESA radar and SPECTRA electronic-warfare suite. Their broad flight envelope is therefore similar, but flying against the Egyptian aircraft cannot provide the PLAAF the full picture of how an IAF Rafale would fight, or how it would perform when integrated into its wider combat system, significantly impacting mission effectiveness and survivability.
According to open-source reporting, the IAF’s 36 Rafales – 28 single-seat and eight twin-seat – incorporate enhancements to SPECTRA and radar-warning functions, low-band jamming, missile-approach warning, sensors, communications, navigation and high-altitude operations, including requirements relevant to engine starting at high-altitude Himalayan bases.
They also incorporate specific weapons and associated systems, including the Meteor air-to-air missile, SCALP cruise missile and HAMMER precision-guided air-to-ground glide bomb system, with upgrades reported for some of these, though much of the precise composition remains classified.
The EAF Rafales, on the other hand, are configured around Egyptian operational requirements, weapons and communications architecture.
Its first batch of 24 Rafales, delivered to the F3 standard, faced restrictions on some of the weapons intended for them, most notably, a US objection under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) that blocked the supply of SCALP cruise missiles for a period as they contained American components.
The second batch of 30 Rafales, built to the upgraded F3-R standard- deliveries of which are to be completed by the year-end-are technically capable of employing the long-range Meteor air-to-air missiles, but the weapon system has reportedly still not been cleared for Egyptian service because of US and Israeli concerns.
And while these differences inevitably circumscribe what the PLAAF can operationally glean from the exercise in Egypt, it will nevertheless gain valuable familiarity with the Rafale’s overall handling, manoeuvrability, sensor employment and tactical behaviour.
“The PLAAF pilots are learning about the Rafale, but not the full Indian combat system built around it,” said the aforementioned IAF veteran. But there is little to prevent them from testing their tactics against it, identifying its operational weaknesses and, in turn, refining their responses, he added, sounding a note of caution.
But that is not the only advantage China is gaining from the exercise.
It is building on a far more consequential source of experience: the indirect combat lessons from Chinese fighters and weapons already used against the IAF by the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) during Operation Sindoor, in May 2025.
The PAF employed Chinese-origin J-10C fighters and PL-15 beyond-visual-range air-to-air missiles against Indian fighters dueing this four-day skirmish, giving Beijing a practical reference point for how its systems performed in actual combat against the IAF, including its Rafales.
The precise circumstances and number of IAF fighters lost, if any, including Rafales, remain disputed in India. But the PL-15 was a significant element of Pakistan’s air-combat effort during Operation Sindoor, according to independent assessments, underscoring its importance to Pakistan’s – and China’s – long-range air-combat capability.
More than a year later, the PLAAF is gaining unimpeded exposure to the EAF’s Rafales, building on the operational lessons derived from the PAFs use of Chinese fighters and missiles against the IAF’s principal combat assets.
The IAF, by contrast, has no comparable arrangement for training against PLAAF aircraft.
It has no access to J-16s, J-20s or other frontline PLAAF fighters with which to conduct recurring adversary exercises, nor does it have a partner air force operating Chinese combat aircraft that could provide a realistic surrogate for such training. The IAF’s regular air exercises with the US, UK, France and Russia are, without doubt, valuable for interoperability and tactical learning, but they cannot reproduce the radar signatures, electronic-warfare characteristics, missile employment, datalink behaviour and tactics of PLAAF combat platforms and systems it may ultimately have to fight, leaving India with a significant training asymmetry.
The IAF can, of course, study Chinese aircraft through intelligence, technical analysis, modelling and simulation, but these remain approximations. There is no substitute for repeatedly putting operational pilots in the air against the actual aircraft – or the closest possible surrogate. The result is an uncomfortable imbalance: one side – the PLAAF – is gaining repeated operational exposure to the other’s principal fighter, while the other has no comparable means of developing the same first-hand familiarity. For the IAF, that is not merely a training shortfall, but a burgeoning knowledge gap that could matter if the two air forces eventually clash in combat.
Additionally, there is another dimension to the EAF-PLAAF exercise that deserves attention, not only in India, but across the region and farther afield.
China has deployed its J-16s more than 6,000 kilometres to Egypt – the fighter’s first foray into Africa – with the nine-hour transit reportedly involving aerial refuelling en route, and has done so as part of a composite force rather than as a handful of aircraft flying independently. Besides the J-16s, the Chinese contingent is believed to include YY-20A tanker aircraft, KJ-500 airborne early-warning and control (AEW&C) platform, a Y-9 electronic-warfare variant, Y-20A transport aircraft and Z-20 tactical helicopters.
For the PLAAF, the Eagles of Civilisation exercise provides valuable training in long-range force projection, aerial refuelling, deployment logistics, command and coordination, and the rapid establishment of an operational presence far from Chinese territory. Chinese military reporting online has described this placement as demonstrating “long-range projection, agile deployment and cross-system operations.”
But, more significantly, this positioning is allowing the PLAAF to practise how quickly a composite force can be unloaded, organised and brought into coordinated operations with a foreign partner – an important test of expeditionary airpower well beyond China’s immediate operating environment. The implications of such a strategy extend beyond India: the ability to project and sustain such a force could eventually matter across the Indian Ocean region and farther afield, particularly as Beijing expands its military reach and seeks a larger strategic and military footprint overseas.
For India, the bigger lesson is that modern air warfare is no longer a contest between individual fighters, but between integrated systems – sensors, datalinks, missiles, electronic warfare, tankers and airborne command-and-control aircraft. The IAF possesses many of these capabilities, but in considerably smaller numbers than China, besides being handicapped by far fewer opportunities to train against a comparable force.
Ultimately, the significance of the 2026 Eagles of Civilisation exercise lies not in the outcome of any simulated dogfight, but in the experience China is accumulating – operating its sophisticated fighter against an advanced Western design, learning how it behaves in the air and testing its own tactics against it. At the same time, the PLAAF is practising how to deploy and sustain a composite combat force thousands of kilometres from home.
The message for India – and the IAF especially – is uncomfortable but clear: despite all the enduring diplomatic efforts to manage bilateral tensions and preserve peace, China continues to prepare not merely to fight better, but to fight farther from home: the question is whether India is preparing with the same urgency.
