I love aviation of course, and I’m also a bit of a Francophile, so I thought the movie Sky Fighters might be worth a shot on Netflix. Quick summary: good flying scenes, cheesy plot, basically a bad French remake of Top Gun. Not quite Iron Eagle bad, but I wouldn’t recommend it other than for the beautiful Mirage 2000 footage.
I’ve always had a fascination with Dassault aircraft because they’re sexy looking and they’re French (I know, that’s redundant).
Mirage III
I’ve always loved delta-winged aircraft and the Mirage III is no exception. It just looks right.
This little beauty was the product of a 1952 French proposal for a supersonic interceptor capable of reaching 60,000 feet in 6 minutes.
There is some controversy as to the development of the Mirage. Because of noise restrictions over the UK, the British tested their Fairey Delta 2 in France in 1956. This has led some to conclude that the Mirage III was a “copy” of the Delta 2. The Mirage III does bear more than a passing resemblance to the British aircraft.
If the French were copying the British, however, it was because both were copying the Germans. Most of this was based on late-war German research into delta winged aircraft.
At the same time, Dassault was testing their own Mystere-Delta, which later was renamed the Mirage I (the Mirage II was never built). This seems to me to be another case of parallel development. There was also a fair degree of cooperation between Fairey and Dassault at the time.
I’ll leave it to the reader to decide. If you’re a Brit then it’s a case of the French being copycats. If you’re a Frenchie then the Brits just confirmed what you already knew. If you’re German then you know Doctor Lippisch invented the Delta wing and who cares after that. If you’re American, he came to work for us after the war.
Ultimately Britain cancelled the Fairey Delta in the infamous 1957 Defense White Paper which decreed manned fighters to be obsolete.
Dassault went on to produce the Mirage III.
If it were not for the clumsy way in which you tackle things in Britain, you could have made the Mirage yourself.
Marcel Dassault
Power for the Mirage came from a SNECMA Atar turbojet, which the French based on a German WWII design, the BMW 018. No surprises there. Much of what the West and the Russians did in the early 50’s was based on German research.
An SEPR (Sociétéd'Études pour la Propulsion par Réaction) liquid-fuel rocket could be fitted for high altitude intercepts but this wasn’t used very much. The rocket motor took up a lot of space and required ground crews to wear protective suits to handle the chemicals it used. Plus it had a habit of going explody sometimes (Insert Wile E. Coyote reference here). For most missions, extra fuel was carried in place of the rocket.
The first production models rolled off the assembly line in 1960 and I’d say this was a pretty advanced jet for its day.
While it looks an awful lot like an F-106, it has very little in common. The “six” was a big, brutish interceptor. The Mirage was much smaller and more of a multi-role aircraft.
It’s greatest drawback would have been short range and no provision for air refueling. Since it was originally designed to be a point-defense interceptor, they didn’t feel it was necessary.
The Mirage III was a great success in the export market, ultimately being operated by 20 countries. I can understand the popularity. It was a lightweight, fairly simple fighter that didn’t come with the political strings of being a US or Soviet customer.
Most notably the Israelis had tremendous success with these in 1967 against both the MiG-17 and MiG-21. This probably had more to do with the skill of the IAF than anything else, however. On paper at least the MiG-21 should have been a close match for the Mirage.
Typical weapons load for one of these wa a 30mm cannon plus two heat-seeking missiles (Matra Magic or Sidewinder). Some versions could carry a single Matra R 530 radar missile, giving it a “face shot” capability. This was rare for the time. In the 1960s you normally only saw radar guided missiles on big planes like the F-4 or F-106.
Dassault successfully tested a VTOL version of the Mirage III but the lift engines took up so much space that it couldn’t carry anything else.
I have only met one person who flew the Mirage III. He was a Navy Hornet driver and got to fly one with the Australians. He wasn’t that impressed, but this was in the 1980s and the Mirage III would have been way past its prime by then.
I actually found a link to a Mirage III flight manual from the Royal Australian Air Force. You can read it for free but you have to pay to download it.
www.avialogs.com/...
During its twenty five years of RAAF service the Dassault Mirage 111O was known as the French Lady. This was a very apt description. She was certainly good looking with all the right curves in the right places and moved with a certain dignity and poise. The French Lady, however, also shared some less celebrated traits with her Gaelic counterparts, being occasionally unpredictable or illogical, sometimes moody, often spiteful and always expensive to maintain.
www.raafa.org.au/...
These had a pretty long run. Most were retired by the early 2000s but I think Pakistan still has a few operational.
Mirage IV
I covered the Mirage IV extensively here. This was the aircraft that gave France its independent nuclear deterrent. An impressive aircraft, it was barely capable to fulfill its role as a strategic bomber due its short range. These guys would have been on a one-way mission to Moscow, but then I think we all were. I still consider this one of the best looking aircraft ever built.
The French purchased their relatively small fleet of KC-135s originally to refuel the Mirage IVs.
French nuclear doctrine can be summed up with this one quote. Basically “we’re not worth what it would cost you to get us”.
Making the most pessimistic assumptions, the French nuclear bombers could destroy ten Russian cities; and France is not a prize worthy of ten Russian cities.
French Air Force General Pierre Marie Gallois
Mirage 5
The Mirage III was such a successful design that it spawned a number of offspring. The first of these was the Mirage 5.
The Mirage 5 was basically a dedicated ground-attack version of the Mirage III. It has a long slender nose, lacking the Cyrano air-to-air radar of the Mirage III. The Mirage 5 was originally meant to be for the Israelis, who wanted to trade the radar for extra fuel and weapons. I guess the thought was “Who needs a radar when you live in the desert?”
Pakistan still operates a large number of Mirage 5’s but most other countries have retired them.
Nesher and Kfir
When France stopped selling Mirages to Israel in 1967, the Israelis built their own copy of the Mirage 5 called the Nesher (Vulture). Some of these later ended up being sold to Argentina as the “Dagger”.
These were used by Argentina against British ships with some success in the Falklands War but suffered heavy losses to British Sea-Harriers. I credit this more to British tactics and training, plus the AIM-9L all-aspect Sidewinder, rather than the Harrier being a great air-superiority fighter (it wasn’t). However I’m not going to rehash the entire Falklands war here.
The Israelis then one-upped the French by stuffing an American J79 engine into a Nesher to make the Kfir, which means “fast as long as it’s in a straight line”. Actually it means “lion cub”.
The Kfir had a relatively short stretch as an air-superiority fighter before being supplanted by the F-15 and F-16. It went on to serve a number of years as a strike aircraft.
The US Navy actually operated the Kfir for a few years as an “aggressor” aircraft to simulate a MiG-23. You can probably win a bar bet by asking someone what an F-21 was.
These stood in for MiGs in Iron Eagle plus a couple of other cheesy Israeli-produced films back in the 1980s. But hey, they made at least two sequels to Iron Eagle so I guess somebody liked it!
Atlas Cheetah
Much the same as Israel, South Africa found themselves under a French arms embargo. They responded by building a much improved version of the Mirage III appropriately called the Cheetah.
There was some cooperation with the Israelis in the development of the Cheetah, which bears a more than a passing resemblance to the Kfir.
The Cheetah boasted an improved engine and vastly improved offensive and defensive systems over the fairly basic Mirage III. The wing was redesigned for greatly improved maneuverability, especially at low speeds (losing a little bit of top speed in the process).
In the car world we might call this a “resto-mod”, a classic design upgraded with modern technology.
Mirage F1
The Mirage F1 was designed in the mid 1960’s as a follow-on to the Mirage III. It lacks the distinctive delta wing, instead using a more conventional swept wing, mounted at the “shoulder” with a conventional tail.
It still used an improved version of the Atar turbojet which traces its lineage back to the BMW 018 engine. I guess in some ways this shows just how far ahead of its time the German engine was.
The swept wing allowed for the use of shorter runways plus better low speed handling. Delta wings get very “draggy” during low speed maneuvers. I was always told that the delta-winged F-106 could do one really awesome turn but then it was dead in the water.
Other features were of the F1 improved avionics and the ability to air refuel, which is a big deal.
It could carry two radar-guided “Super 530” missiles plus two heat-seekers (Matra Magic or Sidewinder) in addition to an internal 30mm gun. That’s pretty good for a little jet, especially in the mid 1970s. Our lightweight fighter, the F-16 didn’t get a radar guided missile until the AMRAAM was fitted to it in the 1990s.
In typical French fashion these were sold to just about everybody. These gave as good as they got in the Iran-Iraq war. The Iraqis lost 35 of these during the war but the Mirages also claimed 35 Iranian kills, including some F-14 Tomcats.
South African Mirage F1’s saw combat during the war with Cuba/Angola in the 1980s. Basically they traded one-for-one against the MiGs. One Mirage shot down a MiG-21. A MiG-23 damaged a Mirage so badly that it crashed on landing. On several occasions their Magic I missiles failed to hit the target.
The Magic I was roughly equivalent to an early Sidewinder. You had to be almost dead astern (60 degree cone) of the target for one to work. That’s why all-aspect heat-seekers like the AIM-9L were such a big deal when they showed up.
During the Gulf War these were flown by both Iraq and the Free Kuwaiti forces. I’m told that prior to the war, the French gave us detailed specs on the Mirage F1 but I can’t confirm this.
The Mirages were reportedly flown by the better Iraqi pilots, better being a relative term. The French instructors never thought very highly of them. One Iraqi Mirage ran themselves into the dirt trying to intercept a low-flying F-111 at night. A total of 9 were shot down by coalition forces. Most of the rest fled to Iran, who still has some in service. Even so I still didn’t want to meet up with one. Even if the guy flying it was mediocre at best, it still might have been his day and not ours.
I flew with a Jordanian exchange pilot a few times in the T-38. He had come out of Mirage F1s and thought it was a good jet.
These had a pretty long life. They were introduced in 1973 and the French retired their last ones in 2014. I can recall the reconnaissance versions flying Northern Watch with us in the 1990s. I never got to refuel one. They usually refueled from the RAF tankers.
Most of these have been retired but a handful are still in service around the world, mostly with Iran.
Mirage 2000
The closest I got to one of these was when we deployed to Istres France during Bosnia. I was detachment commander on one of the last tours over there in 2003 or 2004. I was given the opportunity to speak at the morning briefing for the Mirage 2000N (nuclear strike) unit that was based there.
Mostly they wanted a chance to practice their English. I told them my B-52 low-level story from Desert Storm which they seemed to enjoy (that one never gets old). I understandably had to leave the room when they talked about nuclear stuff. Then we stood around drinking coffee and eating croissants. Very civilized people those French.
I was allowed to crawl inside one of their jets. It’s small, roughly the size of an F-16. The cockpit seemed well laid out and about the same level of technology as an F-15/F-16/F-18. The rear cockpit was cramped, as you would expect. Visibility out the front was very good. Rear visibility was restricted, but better than an F-4 rear cockpit.
These come in several flavors, including the export models which are usually tailored to the buyer’s specifications. The main versions are the single-seat multi-role fighter 2000C and the two-seat strike versions (2000D and 2000N). An improved version of the 2000C is the 2000-5.
They went back to the Delta wing with the 2000 but added full length leading-edge slats. This may be the first time anyone thought to do this. This gives it very good low speed maneuverability, usually not a trait associated with delta wings. It can reportedly track its nose even as slow as 100 knots. Fighter guys like to say “nose position is everything”. I find this also works in mall parking lots.
Performance wise I’m told that these are pretty comparable to an F-16. They finally ditched the tried-and-true Atar engine and went with a SNECMA low-bypass turbofan with afterburner. This was around the same time we started putting turbofans in our fighters. Thrust-to-weight looks about the same as an F-16A.
Note when you hear these awesome statistics about “Thrust to weight greater than one-to-one!” and “It can accelerate going straight up!” you have to take those with a large grain of salt. That is usually for a “clean” aircraft with a light fuel load. The only time you’d be flying that configuration in the real world is on a functional-check-flight or just before landing.
India operates a large number of these, particularly as a counter to Pakistan’s F-16s. Note that in any fight between relatively comparable aircraft it comes down more to tactics and training than hardware. Flame wars on the aviation forums notwithstanding. You think political discussions get ugly? Wait until a couple of aviation geeks get into a fight over which jet fighter is better.
It can carry a lot of missiles for a little jet. It has hardpoints for up to six MICA missiles, which come in a fire-and-forget radar version or a heat-seeking version. It can also carry the MAGIC II which is comparable to a later model Sidewinder (capable of frontal aspect shots).
I never realized that “MAGIC” was actually an acronym: Missile Auto-Guidé Interception et Combat.
MICA is also an acronym: Missile d’interception, de combatet d’autodéfense.
The things I learn when I write these!
The MICA is an interesting missile. It features active radar homing, meaning it has its own radar transmitter similar to the AIM-54 Phoenix and AIM-120 AMRAAM. It can be fired without a lock on the target and later acquire the target once it gets closer. They even got one to turn 180 degrees and hit a target behind the launch aircraft.
They claim 60 kilometers range for the radar version of MICA. Those numbers can also be a little deceptive. At its maximum range the missile is pretty low on energy and more easily avoided by the target.
What’s more important is the ominous sounding “no escape zone”. That is a much closer range where the missile has a high probability of a kill, regardless of what the target does.
The MICA is slated to be replaced by the MBDA Meteor which will have much greater range. Today the emphasis seems to on beyond-visual-range combat and whoever can get the first shot in will have a big advantage. That’s how we thought air combat was going to be in the 1960s, missile technology just hadn’t caught up yet.
Other than sitting in one, I got to refuel some French Mirage 2000s during Bosnia. Nobody likes doing probe-and-drogue refueling from a KC-135 because the short hose and hard basket make it a real challenge.
These also supported us during Desert Storm and later in Afghanistan, so stuff that in your Freedom Fries! (starts whistling La Marseillaise)
The Rafale has succeeded the Mirage 2000 as the premier fighter in the Armée de l'air but there are still around 300 in French service. Since India is upgrading theirs I would expect to see these around for years to come.
Mirage 4000
If the French had built an F-15 it would have been the Super Mirage 4000. Big jet, two engines, big radar. This was meant to work as part of a “High-Low” mix with the Mirage 2000. Similar to the F-15/F-16 mix in the USAF. Dassault developed this on their own but couldn’t find a buyer. The French thought it would be cheaper just to buy more Mirage 2000s. The Saudis were interested for a while but ended up buying F-15s instead.
Reportedly it flew quite well and was very advanced for its time (first flight was in 1979). I suspect much of what they learned from this aircraft went into the smaller Rafale.
Only one prototype was built, joining the Avro Arrow and the TSR2 as great might-have-beens of aviation. I like to imagine that they’re all secretly off somewhere defending against an alien invasion, but I watched way too much TV when I was a kid.