Talking about “le fana de l’aviation” :
in september 1997, in 336 there’s was an article about french He-162 Salamander.
3 flew in france from 1945 to july 1948. They were used to train pilots to jets aircrafts. Le Fana interviewed one of these pilots, who knew Marcel Dassault very well. Apparently this pilot meet Dassault in autumn 1948, some month before the first flight of the MD-450 Ouragan.
Dassault tell him that the Ouragan used some stuff of the old, piston-engined fighter Bloch-152 of 1940. (Bloch was Dassault former name, and the 152 was one of the best french fighters fighting against german invasion in May 1940)

So apparently there is a -weak- link between the piston-engined Bloch-152, the Ouragan, the Mystère IV and the Mirage III !!!

Hello Deino! I just found this thread (I was searching photos of the 4000).

You say “… and how does France reached this achievement – to develop two fighters in this class in a three years time frame ???”

More : They were three!

there was a third twin-engined Mirage before the ACF : the Mirage G8 had swing-wings!
What is impressive with Dassault is that in the 70’s , he manage to make three powerful, twin-engined prototypes, with three different kind of wings !!
(Swing-wings , swept-wings, delta-wings)

Between 1970 and 1978 Dassault made four twin-engined mirage prototypes.

First were the G8. They were “swing-wing” aircrafts.
The first was two-seater and flew on 8 may 1971. It was the Mirage G8-01, on display at Le Bourget museum.
The second aircraft was the G8-02 a single seater. It flew on 13th July 1972 One year later, it reach Mach 2.34, and this is still the European speed record for an aircraft!
It was partially scrapped; only the cockpit, undercarriage and wing subsists.

The ACF was a G8-02 derivative. Two big differencies : M53 engines (instead of
Atar-9K50 for the G8) and a swept-wing instead of variable geometry.
In december 1975 it was almost finished (80%) but the program was scrapped and the prototype, too 🙁
Mirage 2000 was choosen by the french president Giscard D’estaing on december 18th 1975. The 4000 was proposed by Dassault the same day, but rejected because it was too expensive… Nevertheless it flew as a private venture between 1979 and 1988 as you red in “le Fana”
The 4000 prototype is at “le bourget” museum since 1992 (but not visible)
The armée de l’air still wanted is twin-jet fighter, and that’s why the Rafale was launched in 1988…

The Mirage 2000D was never sold to foreign countries. It’s a very specialised version of Mirage 2000 with an air to ground radar, the Antilope V.
In french air force service there’s differents versions of Mirage 2000, some of them used for air to ground mission only (2000D and 2000N) other for air defence only (2000-5 C and B).
2000 for foreign countries (2000-5mk2 and 2000-9) have multimode radars.
It was exactly the same thing with the F1 (or even for the Mirage III) : some versions were dedicated to the french air force and never sold to foreign countries (F1CR).

Export versions were multirole (antiship, air to ground, recon) the best example was the F1EQ (it was equivalent to the F1CR, the Super Etendard, the Jaguar and the 2000C!!)

alas no Mogwai I like canada but they stay with their Hornets ad then , to the JSF… It would be nice to see Rafale in IAF markings… what about Rafale Vs JSF ? :p