More efficient ?
Well, they only do half of the job. The other half has to be done by the USA, UK, Germany and France… :p

And yet Sweden has managed to put almost every plane they design into active service……

That is very efficient from anybody’s point of view. Very efficient indeed.

The only “real war” the Mirage III was involved in was the isreal/arab 67 and 73 wars. In both wars the best fighter it was faced with was the mig-21 which was underpowered and not an easy jet to handle. Also in 66 the Isrealis got their hands on a mig-21 from a defected pilot to test out its flying characteristics. In my opinion the Isrealis use of the Mirage III was a liability that could have been exploited by the arabs. I chalk it up to good training on the Isrealis part that they came out so well.

I forgot, they have 9 kfirs.

You certainly have an interesting take on things. Much of what you say is wrong.

The Mig 21 is underpowered and not an easy jet to handle???:rolleyes:

Let us take the Mig-21F13 and the Mirage IIICJ.

The Mig had a much better thrust-to-weight ratio than the Mirage III, yet still invariably came off worse. The Mig 21 was noted as being not a particularly difficult jet to fly well, hence, among other factores, it sold so well.

What constitutes a “real war” by the way?

The Mirage III has been used in the Falklands, Egyptian-Libyan war of 1977, Angola during the 70’s and 80’s to mention just a few. It has been used as a fighter, bomber/ground attack, reconnaissance and anti-ship platform. It has performed these roles successfully for the most part, and the few times it has struggled, such as in the Falklands, it was as a result of defective bomb fuses and obsolete AIM-9 Sidewinder models whilst operating at the very extreme edge of its range envelope.

The Mirage III has been a resounding success looking back from the vantage point of today.

here you go

Thanks for the link, arquebus, but that is not official.

There is a thread here on the Argentine airforce where it is explained that a Mirage F1 purchase is extremely doubtful, seeing as more capable second hand aircraft deals at low prices have been turned down already.

Certainly Argentina will have to act very soon on replacing their Mirage III’s, as they are at the end of their lives.

It was no forsight, just the lack of a viable AAM against a fighter-sized target at that time-scale. From the 70s the Israeli Mirage/Nesher scored with AAMs mainly. 😉

And yet many of the other designers seem to have had a brain-fart at the time by omitting internal guns.

Which countries are using the Mirage III/5/50/Kfir/Cheetah at present?

Any idea of numbers?

Looking at it now, the Mirage III was actually an exceptional design.

Used successfully in combat, it first flew in 1956, 55 years ago precisely in the next few days.

The first operational deliveries of the Mirage IIIC were made in mid 1961, more than 50 years ago. Versions of it may even make it’s 60th birthday as a frontline combat type.

That is a lasting testament that this design is still in operational front line service today. I’m aware that the Mig-21 has similar longetivity, but the fact is, that the Mirage III has been deemed worthy enough for many countries to comprehensively upgrade them, in many different ways. It has morphed into arguably a still very effective BVR interceptor with a glass cockpit, new radar, more powerful engine (ATAR9K50 or J79) as can be witnessed on probably the ultimate extrapolations of the basic design, the Cheetah C and Kfir C10.

Israel has offered a Kfir 60 to the Bulgarian(?) Airforce just in the last few weeks. Anybody know what this entails? Over the Kfir C10? How many Kfir airframes do they have left to upgrade?

And talking of that, how many Mirage III’s were built in the end? I’m talking inclusive of Mirage 5 and 50 models, as well as the Kfir, due to them being assembled from French kits. I seem to recall around 1300?

The current American engines have a dry thrust sfc somewhere between 0.68 and 0.75. The M53 P2 has a dry thrust sfc of 0.90 or in short the main shortcoming of the M53.
The dry thrust of the P2 is 6600 kp by a weight of 1515 kg or a TWR of ~4,4 and for the F100-220 ~4,5.
To install a higher military thrust engine into the M2k makes no sense, because the inlet-system limits max air-flow. Depending on the inlet installed some F-16s are limited in a similar way.

Completely agree with you Sens.

USSNovice, there is nothing wrong with the M53’s thrust to weight ratio at the time, and it would have been improved somewhat even further with the cancelled upgrades mentioned earlier.

Also agree with Sens on the sfc issue.

The M53 did however have certain advantages in certain flight regimes/profiles, as has been mentioned. And the Mirage 2000 was designed strongly around those.

The origin of the Su-33 goes all the way back to the su-7. This aircraft has sensible wing loading for its weight and size which is why it has been able to accept a succession of weight adding modifications over the years. This is not the case with the F-8 which although was a good fighter, was limited in its role by its high wing loading.

Are you saying that the Su-33, a carrier aircraft, design lies within a 1950’s strike aircraft?

A fighter with high enough wing loading that it has to rely on blown flaps to take off for use on a carrier? Dont think that is the best option. I think the Etendard is better in the role of light strike fighter also.

The F8E(FN) Crusader as used by the French also had to be fitted with blown flaps.;):D