Mirage F.2 was cancelled after getting through a mature development. It was dropped because the French conceded a split buy for the air force. If the French had opted for a single airframe the Mirage F.2 lives and Mirage F.1 never happened.

And to reject Su-24 is simply being obtuse. Su-24 developed from a fighter. Sukhoi was disappointed with Su-19. There was no requirement for it. They revived it as Su-24 in much the same way F-111 was restructured for tactical work. It’s a shame F-111 never made it on carrier decks, but A-6 was already adequate and the USN was cash starved.

MiG-25 actually had a dozen variants for quite a wide spectrum of roles. No doubt it could have been adapted to fighter-bomber or geared at least for both attack and strike roles. I always thought the RB variants looked the best. That long nose and the wing tanks were reminiscent of F-15A. The P variants always looked overly bulbous. The fuselage needed more space IMO. Regardless of my opines, it’s still literally the iconic Cold War fighter of the Soviet Union.

Viggen is an interesting option. Stick Pratt & Whitney J75-P-5A or a pair of late model J57’s in it and I think you’re better off. It would have been cool with all-moving canards, rather than trim-set, but actuator technology probably wasn’t quite ready for that task yet. I also wouldn’t have minded it less with square intakes. Performance-wise the Viggen was more myth than legend, but there is no denying it had utility.

Realize that construction typically aimed for 2,000 to 2,500 flight hours on multiple trips to the depot for major overhaul work. Nothing you choose is going to last two decades without resorting to reserve status.

They both definitely saw some production before 1955, but the actual competition wasn’t over until 1956. The British had a tendency to use what they had on hand. They definitely participated in action over the Suez in an early form.

I suggest F-101 like I did for the 1960’s. My second choice is the F-8 Crusader. Can the North American A-5 Vigilante get a radar and play fighter? Or how about a fly-off between Sea Vixen and Buccaneer? All of them seem pretty solid. I wouldn’t dismiss Mirage III, Lightning, Delta Dart, Hunter, or MiG-19 as solid choices.

No such thing as Mirage 111 nor Mirage iii.

How hard is it to type out Roman numeral III? Not very hard at all.

The F-104 and F-4 were a good high low mix using common engine families in the 1960’s. McDonnell learned lessons with common engine families previously, which greatly aided proliferation of the A-4. The F-101 didn’t enjoy a long run, but it helped scale support for J57s. It was a versatile engine family found on other supersonic fighters like the F-100 and F-8. Subsonic versions also were chosen, like when J57s were chose by Grumman for the A-6 and Douglas for the iconic A-3 and B-66. I wonder how well the F-101 would have performed if tasked over Vietnam. We know they lost one to a MiG-21, but otherwise they were too fast for older MiGs.

The F-101 needed some upgrading to immunize it from the F-4. Maybe a scaled down a2a warload settling for a pair of each Sidewinders and Sparrow would have been feasible, especially utilizing the radars in development for Douglas and McDonnel like for the Skylancer program. Something akin to a precursor of the F-4. Maybe not the making of the F-15, but certainly bold enough to demonstrate a little of everything.

Ultimately for third generation technology the two seaters were the way to go.