I don’t think it is either.
I’m just going from what has been told to me….that the J-79 wasn’t the perfect match, and that the relatively marginal extra thrust (over the 9K50, not the original 09C admittedly) was eaten up by the heavier weight of the engine, and extensive modifications (wider intakes, cooling, shielding, wider rear fuselage etc) needed to install the engine.
It made perfect sense from an Israeli POV, as I’ve mentioned, due to the credits available from the US, and the fact that the Israeli airforce used the J-79 by the hundred.
But I wouldn’t assume it lead to a better performance per se, taking all things into consideration.

EDIT: My main, admittedly convoluted point about the Cheetah C vs Mirage III empty weight applies to the vanilla Kfir C2 and C7.
Official weight of the Mirage 5 is 7150kg.
The Kfir C7 is given as 7280kg.
Yet even a cursory examination will reveal the J-79 is 300kg heavier than the Mirage 5 ATAR 09C. And we haven’t even started to address the Kfir’s obviously different, beefed-up stronger undercarriage, additional heat shield requirements, cooling requirements, and additional structures such as canards and wing dog-tooth extensions.

Either way, the last/latest of the Mirage III design line were bigger, heavier, far more capable aircraft than the originals were….but that is to be expected with the march of time. 30 years down the line, give or take, a development thereof was a multirole fighter, capable of strike missions with PGM’s, and capable of using BVRAAM’s out to about 60km, and yet also having helmet guided short range AAMs for the merge. That capability was not to be sneezed at 20 years ago by anyone, and shows what can be squeezed or wrung out of a design.

hello mein kaiser,

could you tell me more about the cheetah vs kfir’s difference in terms of structure?
it seems that you are implying that the cheetah airframe is better suited for all the modern upgrades (canards, radar, etc)

sorry but «*The M3/5 was horribly unmaneuverable…*» compare to what ?
None of the supersonic fighters of that generation where super maneuvrable.
Take the F-104 for instance, and even tho that last make could make a good fighter if flown properly.
For what I know the Mirage IIICJ jokeys LOVED the plane. Yes it bleed speed in turns due to the delta, but all controls were perfectly balanced and it made the plane effortless to fly,

Ignore that guy, Arcbut totally forgot about this
[img]http://www.fighterpilotuniversity.com/files/3213/0618/3272/FUIIIYuvalLa…]

M3 totally pwned nearly everything in its prime

This whole thread is nothing but Y-20 trying to claim that the F-1 is obsolete as a modern fighter

WRONG cowboy. the title seems to say Mirage 2000 not F1. derp

Citing unsubstantiated kills by the F-14 the Iran/Iraq war as proof shows how childish and desperate Y-20 is to make his point.

ok, so f.1 kills on f-14s are legitimate, but f-14 kills on f.1 are unsubstantiated. talk about cherry picking and bias.
who do you really work for? Trump?

derby-er is noticeably longer. they went for simplest and fastest development, changing missile design as little as possible. they just elongated the body and inserted another rocket motor. i actually think derby-er might be the first dual pulse rocket motor missile to enter service. if it gets sold to someone. but who knows what sort of compromises the design suffers from such an approach.

sounds fair. so in summary, the kinematics of the MICA are probably better in the medium range