Talk:Dassault Mirage III/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Dassault Mirage III. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Rumors

IAI Nesher - rumour has it that the US transported the 50 (?) by plane to Israel rather than Israel building them.

Erm ... so the USA built (or acquired on Israel's behalf) Mirage IIIs/Neshers??? Yeah, right ... I can just picture the USA building French aircraft. Elf-friend 21:16, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

South Africa and Cheetah : Apparently the airframe number, etc don't tie - highly likely to be Kfir's from Israel.

OF COURSE not all the airframe numbers "tie". Some of the airframes were either built in South Africa or imported. That doesn't imply ANYTHING about where the (rest of the) aircraft were actually built. Elf-friend 21:16, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

South Africa bought 38 Mirage III airframes from Israel, and converted these to Cheetah Cs itself. Of course, there was some construction done, as SA basically reconstructed 50% of the airframe on some of the aircraft in order to "zero-hour" it. As for Israel, it obtained the plans to the Mirage V through espionage, and built the Neshers that way. The Kfirs are just upgraded Neshers, and the Cheetahs are NOT Kfirs, even the canards are different shapes to those on the Kfir. Incidentally, it does not seem there was any US assistance in either the Nesher or the Kfir. In the case of the latter, it only used the J79 because Israel, as far as I recall, had free access to this engine and may even have been license-producing it. Impi 22:11, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

for more info look at htttp://www.acig.org/

Is there some kind of racist belief here that anybody outside Europe or the USA can't build fighter aircraft??? Elf-friend 21:16, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

IAI Kfir/Nesher The most probable version is that Marcel Dassault (for obvious reason) gave some help to the Israelian to copy his plane. I don't think the US played another role than providing engines. It's worth to notice that a country doesn't buy a fighter plane like you buy a car there is always some technology buyed with the plane, few countries wish to rely on foreign supply for maintaining plane during a war.

This can go as far as building the whole plane for instance there is Australian made Mirage like there is German, Netherland and Japanese made F-104 Starfighters.

Even if you don't acquire a full license, if you can manufacture enough replacement parts the step toward manufacturing the whole plane is not that huge.

Ericd 08:54, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Is there some kind of racist belief here that anybody outside Europe or the USA can't build fighter aircraft??? Elf-friend 21:16, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

No, it's just that these (UK/US, Germany and Europe) are the countries with the most aerial combat experience and the most advanced technical knowledge, so they tend to know what makes a good combat aeroplane and are also able to build them. The other countries have in some cases little-or-no combat experience, or else their experience is against second- or third-rate opponents.

For example, Sweden has designed and built a number of excellent aircraft post WW II, but none of them have had any actual combat record, since Sweden has been neutral in both World Wars, and has generally been content to mind its own business. Similarly, the Israelis (it may be argued) have only fought against what might be regarded as poorly-trained opponents. In the case of the former Soviet Union, their combat aircraft at the beginning of the so-called Great Patriotic War were for the most part completely outclassed by the German opposition (and the Soviets lost them in great numbers), and technically the Germans remained ahead of the USSR in aircraft design for the remainder of the war, where it was only by using aircraft in vastly greater numbers (and also losing them in similar numbers) that the former SU was able to resist and eventually prevail over the technically-superior Luftwaffe.

The ultimate test for a combat aeroplane is whether it can survive against the opposition, and a great many on-paper 'good' aeroplanes failed when it came to actually having to fight. Designing a fighting aeroplane is a compromise, favouring certain qualities at the expense of others, speed, range, maneuverability, etc., and getting the balance wrong can make the difference between an 'excellent' aircraft and one that is almost useless, becoming the aerial equivalent of cannon fodder.

Anyone can build a combat aircraft that looks good on paper and specifications, but the acid test is whether it is any good against top-notch opponents, and so far, only these countries (UK/US, Germany and Europe) have actually fought against first-rate technical powers, using state-of-the-art aircraft, and of these, The UK and Germany have by far the most experience of anyone.

Wow. The text above is full of not so good if you ask me. This quote particularly "The UK and Germany have by far the most experience of anyone." is either Hypocrital Fanboyism or lack of culture. By the way UK and Germany are part of Europe.

First Russia also had aces during WW2, some of them accumulating 50-100 aerial victories against Germans, much more than any British pilot. USSR against USA during coldwar built aircrafts that were often equivalent (better in some aspects, worse in others) to USA (the best at that time) and actually their are quite a bunch of Russian aces of cold war era. Until the fall of USSR, Russia built the most powerful jets in the world (after USA). Could a Harrier do anything against a Sukhoi Su27-Su35 (Russian F15)? My answer is probably nothing.

"The UK and Germany have by far the most experience of anyone."

Let's begin with Germany. What is Germany experience after WW2? Nearly none. Their army was forbidden and had no aerial forces during nearly ten years. Experience of propelled engines of WW2 (in which Germany was the best) have no use for the Jet era. As a fact Germany never built a plane until recently. All german planes after WW2 were purchased to other countries.

So Germany experience in building aircraft is far from being best of the world.

UK. What is UK experience? Since WW2 in spite of UK winning battle of Britain, 1V1 of Messerschmidt against Spitfires often ended badly for the British pilots that were young and inexperienced.

Spitfire were very good plane but after WW2 British jets cannot even be compared to the best fighters from USSR and USA. British aircrafts and armaments were either not so good,or bought from USA, or from a consortium with other countries. The Harrier for example is a consortium with USA.

No British Pilot/Aircraft has extensive/Impressive record of combat, to the contrary of USA (F15 has 104-0 kill ratio) or Mirages(Israelo-arab wars). The exception being the recent Eurofighter being a consortium between 5 countries anyways. No one knows how British jet before eurofighter would have performed against a powerful or even poor country.

So deducting that UK has the most experience in Aircraft building when what they have is made with/by other countries and not so good anyways, is well beyond my understanding'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.86.32.36 (talk) 06:59, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

The English Electric Lightning was designed in 1949-50 and was still good enough to wipe the floor with anything sent up against it as late as 1988.

No Russian-designed fighter aircraft had any record in WW I as the Russian Air Force used French aircraft, Russia having no fighter aircraft design capability of it's own. The same goes for the USA, their combat aircraft being either French Spads and Nieuports, or British Sopwiths or RAF SE5a's. Both the two best known US aircraft of the period, the Thomas Morse Scout, and Curtiss Jenny, were designed by the same Englishman, Benjamin Thomas, who had earlier worked for the Sopwith Aviation Company.

So neither the USSR nor the USA had any experience with the their own indigenous designs in WW I, whereas the British, French, and Germans had extensive experience, with manufacturers such as the above mentioned French and British ones, with Fokker and Albatross as the main Germans ones. So that's one World War's-worth of experience that neither the USSR nor the US has.

Then comes the Second World War, where the French capitulation in 1940 effectively halted their design teams until the war was over whereas the British and Germans were designing fighters, such as Me 109, Fw 190, Spitfire, Tempest, that remained as good-as or better than everyone else's for the remainder of the war. In addition both Britain and Germany were the first to develop the jet engine and put into service that war's only jet fighters, the Me 262, He 162, and the Gloster Meteor, with the DH Vampire just missing out.

Of the USSR and USA the only outstanding fighter from either country was the Mustang, and that was designed and produced for the RAF - if it had been designed for the USAAC it would have weighed a couple of tons more and had a radial engine. Of the other US designs such as the P-38, P-40, P-47, well lets just say that they were just about adequate if nothing better were available. The RAF didn't want any where they might come up against the best of the Luftwaffe in Europe. Of the USSR, well perhaps the Yak 9 was about the best.

The Soviet Union fielded no indigenous jet fighter until after WW II and the only reason the USA had a couple of jet aircraft designs by 1945 was because the British gave them the engine designs for them. Post war initially the Soviets then had to illegally copy German or British engine designs, with the US at least properly licensing production of the British ones. The only outstanding US fighter designs of the post war period were the F-86 and F-4 Phantom II, which were so good the RAF and RN used them. Both aircraft however have no combat record against anything other than third-world countries and air forces. For the USSR the MiG 15 and later MiG 21 were the only ones of note, at least during the post war years. Again, the MiG 15 going up against US F-86's in Korea, where the MiG fared adequately if not well, the MiG 21 in turn going up against a first rate opposition of US F-4 Phantom IIs in Vietnam again fared adequately if not well. Both of these wars, Korea and Vietnam, were third-world wars, and not in the least comparable to WW I and WW II.

You see, the two World Wars were fought with the greatest national efforts between the most powerful industrialised nations on Earth, and so the designs tended to be the best that was possible at the time, and such was their respective oppositions, also industrialised, that second-best was not good enough.

Judging any combat aeroplane when its only ever fought against a third-rate third-world opponent is not any way to judge the relative merits against one that has fought the best in the world and come out well.

BTW, Britain and Germany designed the best fighter aeroplanes of both World Wars, with everyone else coming either a close second - such as with the Mustang, or some way behind. A competent 1945 pilot in an Me 109G, FW 190D, Spitfire XIV or Tempest V, could walk-all-over any other pilot flying anything other than one of these types, with the possible exception of the Mustang. In addition, Hawker Aircraft, who designed the Hurricane, Typhoon, Tempest and Sea Fury, and the later Hunter and Harrier, was previously the Sopwith Aviation Company, who designed the Sopwith Camel. The latter shot down more enemy aircraft than any other of the Allied types during WW I. Designed in 1916 it will be 100 years old in 2016.

... oh, one more thing. The two most produced fighters in WW II were the Me 109 at around 33,000 built, followed by the Spitfire, at around 23,000 built.

... see what I mean by experience.

... I nearly forgot. The Eurofighter Typhoon was based on the EAP. It (the EAP) was designed at Warton, as was the English Electric Lightning. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.31.130.124 (talk) 15:16, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

FA

Hmm, nice and thorough article - wonder if it might not be a good idea to place it as a featured article candidate? Krupo 17:37, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)

Nice idea, but I don't think it's quite ready yet. Most of the article is based on info from Greg Goebel's Vectorsite, and of late I've come to suspect the accuracy of the Vectorsite, due to the fact that the Cheetah article was also based on info from it, and was so inaccurate that I basically had to rewrite the article. So I think we should first do a bit more checking before nominating it as a featured article candidate. Impi 22:42, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Cool. Krupo 20:39, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)

I think some more needs to be said about the performance of the aircraft in combat during the Falklands War. It failed in its first encounter with the Sea Harrier and never again tried to initiate a dogfight with the SH. It is true that the South Atlantic environment was harsh for a jet to operate in and that the Mirage was at the limit of its range, but those points hold equally true for the Harrier, which was after all operating off ships. Then again, the British pilots were no doubt better trained and they were using the Aim-9L sidewinder, superior to any weapon deployed by the Mirages JRJW 20 December 2005.

The very rare, if not only fight of 2 mirages vs 2 Harrier is biased in so much aspects that it has no worth saying imo.

First you cannot say anything about a plane because of one fight only. Even less when the kill is by a missile, when we know how much missiles were random in the 70's. Maybe ten next fights would have been different.

Harrier pilots did not leave the fleet! They were involved in a Red Flag type program with the French AF learning tactics to specifically to counter the Mirage 3. France being official "ALLIES" of British gave information on how to counter and beat their mirages, which were applied (the slow harriers waited defensively at low altitude for the Mirage to attack. 2) The Harrier had the Sidewinder 9L. Argentinians didn't have more than cannon. 3) The Harrier only had to defend against the low level penetrator. Fleet SAMs could deal medium and high altitude attackers. 4) Argentinians beig trained to the use of aircraft in France saw their training stopped when conflict begun. As such The Argentine AF hadn't tactics to deal with the Harrier.

If the fight had been with French or Israeli Pilots and aircraft, result would have been quite the opposite. For exemple Ouragans (ancester of mirage) flown by Israelis downed 5 British built Vampires with no loss suffered! (during suez crisis)

One fight only is not a reliable thing, even less in those conditions.

Indigestion

I'm thinking this would be much more digestible if (aside from some rewriting and editing here and there) it were broken up into separate articles, at least for the Kfir/Cheetah/Pantera versions and possibly also for the Mirage III and Mirage V. I realize that the distinction between Mirage III and Mirage V models (and particularly the Mirage 50) after the various upgrade programmes is troublesome, but this is awfully dense. ArgentLA 12:03, 15 Nov 2004 (PST)

You can cut down on the Kfir/Cheetah/Pantera a bit. All three variants have their own articles, though only the Cheetah article is comprehensive. Still, all the info from the Mirage article is duplicated in the articles of the three variants. I think the most pressing need with the page though, aside from that, is better ordering. Perhaps grouping all the variants as subheadings under a "Variants" heading, and rewriting some sections to make them more consise. I'm short on time at the moment, but I'll also try give it a shot in a couple of days. Impi 12:10, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

IAI Nesher/Atlas Cheetah/EMBRAER Pantera

Since these subheadings are exactly duplicated in those separate entities, I went ahead and deleted the text here. There doesn't seem to be any reason to have the exact same material twice.

ArgentLA 30 Nov 2004

IAI Nesher/Atlas Cheetah/EMBRAER Pantera are Mirage III derivatives. I agree there is no reason to have the exact same material twice. But there should be something in the article ! Ericd 13:52, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

In fact, Neshers and Panteras are Mirage 5 derivatives -- Jor70 17:29, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Error, the image is a Mirage 2000, no a M. III

Rectified the error ?

Reformat article proposal

The article is not very friendly, mainly there is a mess with all the variants mentioned through the text, perhaps making a table or something could make it better Jor70 01:48, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Mirage 5 has enough information to warrant a separate article. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 05:17, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree, we could move M5 to a new one and clear a bit the rest (due dup info, not ordered, etc ) Jor70 12:37, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

The fairey delta

i heard that the Mirarge idea initialy came from the fairey delta with the plans being bought by Dassault is this true?

also should the comment on lack of manuverability be removed? low wing loadings would result in hight turning rates which is goog manuveability and also delta wings allow high angles of attack due to vortex lift

I heard it stated in a recent documentary that the Mirage was a development of the Fairey FD2. I came here to ask about that, since it's not mentioned in the article, and saw that the question has been asked already, but not answered. The two aircraft certainly look extremely similar, so it must be plausible. If it can be confirmed, it would be an important addition to the article. 58.165.132.63 (talk) 13:50, 3 May 2011 (UTC).

Rubbish. It must be noted that delta aircraft were very new and interesting during the 1950s, and that every nation that had an aircraft industry explored some aspect of this type. The Mirage III is as likely a successor or follower of the Fairey Delta as the Convair F-106. Dassault devoted thousands of hours and experimented with a number of different design configurations before settling on the design of the Mirage III, a low wing variant of a delta aircraft platform. This fact, a low wing mount, is proof enough that Dassault did not try to imitate or follow the Fairey design mantra. Another significant difference is engine placement and engine inlet. These design differences would provide dramatically different aircraft performance. The big question is why British aircraft design establishment abandoned this interesting design direction only to proceed with the English Electric Lightning. An aircraft which, although fast, was incredibly short ranged. And it was crippled by a lack of air to air armament and sensors. Remarkably over time, it seems to have acquired some magical superpower, much like the unbuilt and untested TSR2. Could the Ligtning super cruise? Yes, but so could many others in its generation--while in the clean configuration.

--- I also agree on the manuverability issue. Delta winged aircrafts tend to have good manuverability due to the leading edge vortex creation that delays the stall at high AoA.

I also believe that the comment about the canards is false. An aircraft becomes unstable by moving the point of aerodynamic pressure in front of the center of gravity. On the other hand what canards do is to create additional vortices which are forced towards the main wing due to the canard induced downwash. These vortices reattache the flow of the main wing near the wing root and offer improved high alpha (high AoA) performance. A good citation of the issue is the book of Klaus Huenecke Modern combat aircraft design

In the Comparable Aircraft list I would also add the Saab 37 Viggen (also a canard plane) as well as the EF 2000 the wing of which is following a somehow similar configuration (although much more advanced)

Last but not least, I believe that the comment about the half cone shock diffusers is also somehow incorect. The purpose of the shock diffusers is not to create smooth flow for the engine but to create an obleaque shock wave that meets the lip of the air inlet. This shock is mainly responsible for the deceleration of the flow and the increase in static pressure before the 1st stage of the compressor. The displacement of the cone takes place in order to mach the shock cone to the air inlet lip at any speed (f course only at the speeds where air compresibility occurs). The book of K. Huenecke is also a sufficient refference as well as any other book on aviation gas turbines. A nice link with more info is the article about the inlet cone: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inlet_cone

georgepehli (talk) 09:37, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree with you about the canards. And the statement as it stands now doesn't even have a source. Maybe it should be changed? 130.234.187.171 (talk) 00:06, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Delta wing aircraft only have good manuverability initially: instantaneous turn rates can be quite high, but sustained turn rates will always be much lower. Training then determines whether you can beat an opponent with higher sustained turn rates, but lower initial turn rate (like a Mig-21). As already mentioned, for delta winged aircraft the center of pressure moves forward as the angle of attack increases; this may, or may not, cause stability and turn rate issues depending upon the design, but what certainly does hinder turn performance is the high drag that results from a delta at high alfa. A delta wing at high alfa immediately suffers from large area boundary layer separation reducing lift (requiring even more alfa to maintain lift) and increasing drag (which reduces speed, which reduces turn rate). The resulting lift-to-drag lose at high alfa is much higher with deltas then with tailed configurations of similar area. Modern deltas can/have addressed this in a few ways: canards and a good flight control system can limit alfa to deliver "best turn rate" despite the pilot asking for more pitch, higher thrust-to-weight ratios always increases sustained turn rates, and shorter chord delta wings like seen with the Rafael and Grippen have less center of pressure movement with alfa.

I would caution against calling the mice "shock cones": shock wave control may very well have been the motivation for using them, but in practicality the flow near the fuselage isn't that clean and symetrical (boundary layer gutter not withstanding). Mig-21, SR-71, sure, it's shock wave control and it acts as the first stage of the supersonic diffuser. However, the first stage supersonic diffuser for the inlet of a Mirage III (or F-104, F-111, etc.) is the shock from the aircraft's nose. What's the local speed at the inlet for a Mirage III with a forward speed of Mach 1.8? It's probably more like Mach 1.5. Does the anle of made from the tip of the cone to the lip of the inlet seem appropriate for Mach 1.5? It doesn't to me. Complex flows around multiple bodies is so much better understood now, I think there is a good reason why we don't see this style of inlet anymore. The cones improved engine performance, but not for the reasons initially believed, IMHO. Which is not to say that what the article says is true, only that changing the text to shock wave placement may also not be true. Nwilde (talk) 18:04, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

1970s French TV Series with Mirage IIIs?

Back in the early seventies the BBC in the UK used to show a French TV series about a French squadron of Mirages (Mirage IIIs - I think) in the children's afternoon-slot on BBC 1. If I remember correctly it was dubbed into English for the BBC version but I could be wrong. From memory it sounds similar to the comic story mentioned in the article, but the names of the characters don't ring a bell so it may be something compeletely different. I seem to remember they did a lot of flying around snow-covered mountains.

Does anyone remember what it was called and anything else about it? - as it may do for a 'Trivia' section in the article or as an article on the TV series itself.

UPDATE - forget it! - just found a mention of the TV series on a forum here: [1] - it was called The Aeronauts in English and it would seem it WAS based on the comic stories.

Les Chevaliers du Ciel - (France "The Aeronauts", tv series; ORTF 1967-69, 1014m) D: François Villiers. Jacques Santi = Lt Tanguy, Christian Marin = Lt Laverdure, Muriel Baptiste = Colette, Michèle Girardon = Nicole, Marlène Jobert = Irène, Victor Lanoux = Lantier. Screenplay: Jean-Michel Charlier. 39 episodes. Based on Charlier and Uderzo's comic strip Les aventures de Tanguy et Laverdure.

From here: [2]

The aircraft BTW were Mirage IIICs Ian Dunster 14:06, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Clip of original French version Les chevaliers du ciel on YouTube here: [3]

Article on the series here: The Aeronauts — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.31.130.124 (talk) 13:21, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Mirage 5

Splitting of the Mirage 5/50/3NG has been mentione a few times above, but it has never been done. I'm ready to give it a shot. I'm not sure what to do with the List of Dassault Mirage III operators page, but I'm OK with leaving it where it is, with links in both articles. Both articles will be short enough to handle the list of their respective operators, but it'd be quite a job to re-incorporate it. - BillCJ 22:18, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Go for it, and if you'd like a hand, let me know on my talk page when you've split them. I'd be happy to give both a look and make changes to improve their overall states. ericg ✈ 01:44, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Te easy part for me is the cut-and-paste, then chopping out the parts relevant to the other articles. The harder part for me is correcting the specs (too tedious), and fixing redirects. On redirects, User:Petri Krohn did alot of the work already, and keyed me in on the fact the Mirage 5 didn't have it's own article. Once we get a consensus here, I'll let you know when the new page is made. Sometimes I miss things in the splits, so watch for those. Also, check the Intros; I have a hard time with those. Again, thanks for the support and the offer! - BillCJ 02:03, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

The text in the existing article does not follow the basic WP:AIR page format, having a brief development section followed by all the variants. I'll do what I can to split out appropriate sections as I go along, but both articles will probably require a major restructuring. - BillCJ 02:18, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I have been editing a test article for the Mirage 5, and have run into a slight problem. The article text describes the Milan and Mirage 3NG under the "Mirage 5/50/Milan/3NG section", but my sources describe the Milan and 3NG as improvements of the IIIE. For the time being, I am going to leave them in the Mirage III article, but would certainly appreciate some input on the issue. - BillCJ 23:16, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Split completed! - BillCJ 23:44, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Operators

Now the article is splitted, I think we have countries that should not be here, e.g., Chile (mirage 50 and 5BR) and Peru (5P) Jor70 02:14, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Feel free to take them out if you're sure those countries never operated Mirage 3s at anytime. - BillCJ 02:20, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Im pretty sure, Peru uses M5Px and Chile M50(some 5F) and ex belgians 5BE, however, there is very thin line between the different designations, e.g. Mirage IIIR or 5R are basically the same plane and could go in any article. Also, Argentines Mirage IIIEA were pure interceptors just with Cyrano II and without doppler (first batch do not even had the wires for carrying AAM in their wings until 1981) whilst Peru's Mirage 5 were more sophisticated than the multirole brazilian Mirage IIIEBR. I think would be great to have a table explaining all this data instead of the mess of text we currenly have Jor70 12:14, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I feel the operators section should be updated or altered as many of these nations listed are former operators, ie. Australia, Belgium, Brazil, France, Gabon, Israel. (It Australia and Frances's respective cases, neither have been operators of Mirage IIIs for ten years or more.) (Bobbo9000 00:04, 4 September 2007 (UTC)Bobbo9000)

The Operators list is intended for all operators, past and present. Feel free to add the dates they were operated, or even split the list into former and current operators if you like. However, there is no reason to remove all the former operators completely. - BillCJ 00:29, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect mention of M2000 as a variant of MIII

Please note that is incorrect that the Mirage-2000 is a variant of the Mirage III. Both aircraft are different, even though the M2000 is inspired on the MIII. Please consider removing the mention of M2000 in the variants list on the "Infobox", and add it to a list of "Related Aircraft". DPdH 13:20, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Peru is listed incorrectly as operator of Mirage III

Greetings, the Peruvian Air Force never operate the Mirage III, is probably a confusion between Mirage III and Mirage 5P which remain in service in our air force until the 90s -Cloudaoc 00:27, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Mirage jets in Pakistan

From Pakistan and weapons of mass destruction: "(Pakistani Air Force aircraft include) the Mirage IIIOs, Mirage IIIODs and Mirage IIIEs. The Pakistani Air Force, currently, operates some 156 Mirage (III & V) aircraft." -- Can anyone straighten out those redlinks? (WP:REDLINK). Thanks. -- 201.37.229.117 (talk) 03:38, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Operational History

This article is missing the Operational History of the Mirage III, which is a very long and full operational history. From the IAF in the Arab-Israeli wars in the Middle East to the South Atlantic in the Falkland War with Argentina's Air Force. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.212.97.42 (talk) 17:54, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Rate of climb

"Rate of climb: 83.3 m/s (16,400 ft/min)" This is much too low, the real figure is about twice that high. This is possibly a rate of climb at high altitude or with external payload. Lastdingo (talk) 04:50, 24 September 2008 (UTC) I don't agree. Every source that I have seen puts the ROC at about 16,400 ft/min. The main article claims a ludicrous value of 46,000 ft/min. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.191.33.33 (talk) 21:07, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Rewrite

I am about to undertake a major revision and I could certainly use some help. One of the aspects that I find wanting is that there are very few references in the form of citations. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 14:13, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Swiss Mirage Versions

Sources are: Offical Hompage of the Swiss Air Force (some pages ther are only aviabel in German, some also in English) and the Book about the FFA P-16

http://www.lw.admin.ch/internet/luftwaffe/en/home/dokumentation/assets/aircraft.html http://www.lw.admin.ch/internet/luftwaffe/en/home/verbaende/einsatz_lw.html Hanspeter Strehler (2004): Das Schweizer Düsenflugzeug P-16. ISBN 3-03-300051-7 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.79.78.156 (talk) 12:13, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

This music video shows a lot of Mirage IIIS footage. :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn17qiva0gk

2001:56A:F414:D300:E99B:F88C:4362:3648 (talk) 00:43, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Operational history, again

This article would certainly benefit from and the aircraft certainly is worththy of an "Oprational history" section MoRsE (talk) 22:32, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Editing Needed

The section under the side-heading Mirage IIIC and Mirage IIIB opens with an incomplete sentence. Something has dropped off - my guess it is something to do with a visit by Fairey.Lexysexy (talk) 01:55, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

@Lexysexy: Fairey (disambiguation)??? --Jerzy•t 18:09, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Jerzy, see Fairey Delta 2.Lexysexy (talk) 02:44, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Dassault Mirage

Now that the 5 and 50 have their own articles, we need better disambiguation. I have repurposed Dassault Mirage from redirecting here to disambiguating all the Mirages and related types. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 11:58, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Current lead section too granular

The lead section includes too much excessive detail for the length of the article; for example, a list of all the individual marks of the Mirage III does not belong in the lead, and the paragraph on combat history covers too much detail for a brief summarization that would be more appropriate.

Four briefer paragraphs are recommended, or two paragraphs of the length of each of the ones currently in the lead. See General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon for an idea of what an appropriate lead should look like for a GA in this category of combat aircraft. --Katangais (talk) 15:29, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

I must admit, I don't seem to fully understand some of these objections, such as "a list of all the individual marks of the Mirage III does not belong in the lead" - there's no such list in the lead; the lead actually contains no references at all to over 80 per cent of the different Mirage III models: For example, there's not a mention of the Mirage IIID, let alone the different versions of that (Mirage IIIDA for Argentina, Mirage IIIDBR and Mirage IIIDBR-2 for Brazil, Mirage IIIBJ for Israel, Mirage IIIDL for Lebanon, Mirage IIIDP for Pakistan, Mirage IIIBZ and Mirage IIIDZ and Mirage IIID2Z for South Africa, Mirage IIIDE for Spain and Mirage IIIDV for Venezuela. Not a peep on them, or the vast majority of models. There is a brief sentence stating that there is a dedicated reconnaissance version (without bothering to go into the fact there's a whole family of those models, the differences between and so forth). I can't see it, you're saying there's a list of all the individual marks, and I do not see one there at all. Unless this was meant to be a hypothetical example, rather than a comment on what's actually there; it confuses things regardless though.

The lead of the article here is more or less the same length as Concorde (another GA); these lengths aren't unheard of. From refreshing myself on Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section#Length, I'd like to point out that I don't see the requirement for the four paragraphs to be brief, or any length requirement being expressed; it simply states that on articles containing 30,000 characters or more, 3-4 paragraphs be used. This article's lead consists of three long paragraphs and one short one at the top; the three of length cover different aspects of the article, namely, the first (of length) is for development and the initial fighter, the second touches on reception, export sales, adaptions to different roles and upgrades, while the third is the combat history - they're pretty distinct in their roles and cover different elements of the article below. As such, slamming the first and second together just to make the lead into 'fewer and longer' paragraphs doesn't seem to add clarity to the situation. I've taken a stab at shortening them a bit, but really, I feel there's a lot of stuff (like the licence production elements, the Swiss controversy, and upgrade programmes) that should be in there as it is now to properly cover the article and the key points about the aircraft. Kyteto (talk) 19:24, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

There is no valid comparison between an article about a major city in the US and a technical article on a military jet aircraft. Aircraft development and combat history are not usually covered in such detail in the lead. No more than three brief sentences on service history/reception are sufficient. One or two sentences on combat history is also acceptable. Likewise, development should be limited to two summarizing sentences.

General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon devotes one paragraph to introduction, which also includes two sentences on foreign service history, a second paragraph which focuses on basic features of the aircraft, and a third paragraph on current service. That is an appropriate lead. Likewise, Dassault Rafale, another GA aircraft article, has one paragraph devoted to role, one paragraph that covers development in four sentences, a paragraph for basic design features, and a three-sentence paragraph on current service.

By comparison, Dassault Mirage III devotes one six-sentence paragraph to development nuances - including the unnecessary description of all the early marks - and two bloated five and six-sentence paragraphs to combat performance and service history alone.

What I would propose is to can the last paragraph on combat history altogether and restrict details of service history, foreign reception, and combat performance to three sentences. The paragraph on development should be condensed to two sentences, and fleshed out instead with basic features of the aircraft, which would be more appropriate. --Katangais (talk) 16:28, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

The article linked was Concorde, the aircraft, not Concord, the city (spelt differently for a start) - therefore, there is a valid comparison, you just didn't bother clicking on it to find out. Could you actually bother to investigate the links? Just like when you claimed "a list of all the individual marks of the Mirage III" to be in the lead when at least 80 per cent of the marks do not appear whatsoever, taking the time to explore the issue might help you gain a greater degree of accuracy with some of the statements made. You've just stated in your response (after my initial response) that the second para of the lead includes "the unnecessary description of all the early marks" - this is factually wrong; do I need to make a list of all the marks, early or otherwise, along with their status on if they appear on the lead or not, before the point that all'' or as many as most or even half of the early marks aren't there is accepted?

Let's go with another example (that hopefully won't be misrecognised as a description of a lady or something and overlooked without even being clicked on): the Supermarine Spitfire. This article has a lead of the 'what is it' and 'two most major facts' about the aircraft in the first para, a whole para dedicated to its development, and two paragraphs covering its wartime development and history. It isn't uncommon amongst fighter aircraft to have a paragraph on 'where they fought' 'how they were used in combat' and 'how did they fare'.

The Rafale is a good aircraft for comparison as well, and you've confirmed you looked at that, so making some observations from that should be useful. The Rafale has two paragraphs, containing more info, on its development and features principally, that the Mirage III does. True, it has very little combat history in its lead; this is likely because it has had very little combat use as a relatively modern platform that's only just taken primacy in a single air force in the last five years - the Mirage III has had over half a century of service with a multitude of operations, its time has came and largely gone, in which it fought as the main fighter aircraft in a number of major wars. It isn't a fair comparison for combat, but seems to validate the level of content on the dev side of things, at least it does to me.

The F-16 is another good comparison, as there's a reason it doesn't have much of any mention of combat history in the lead - the F-16's combat history grew so big it was spun out into a whole article by itself, and the main F-16 article, to avoid repetition and get the benefit of shipping that content out, basically stripped out all but a cursory mention of its Operational History; that's for the dedicated sub-article to cover after all. The Mirage III is nowhere near ready for that kind of a split, it'll have to do a lot of growing in the body of the text and fix a lot of the citation issues; I have been doing my bit with that - I'd encourage others to add from core sources as well. Kyteto (talk) 23:45, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Incorrect mention of Rate of Climb

Currently is stated that Rate of Climb is 237 m/s (46,600 ft/min), which is in range of 4th generation, F-16, and is exaggerated for (30,000 ft/min)

The Real Figure, found in Literature is 83.3 m/s. And that is the real figure, literature from Authors like Yefim Gordon etc.

Here is some links which also prove that real figure is 83,3 m/s^[1] , also here ^[2]

In Talk page there is section where some members thinks that 83,3 m/s is too litle figure.

but let see some facts: simply comparing single fighter jet aircrafts from the same era

rivals, Mirage III with Mig-21

we will see why Mirage III have such rate of climb.

Facts: Mirage III empty weight is 7,050 kg vs Mig-21 bis empty weight of 5,846 kg

Mirage III - engine: SNECMA Atar 09C, have 41.97 kN (dry thrust), 60.8 kN with afterburner vs Mig-21 bis - engine: Tumansky R-25-300 have 55 kN (dry thrust), 69.62 kN with afterburner

SNECMA Atar 09C engine have thrust-to-weight ratio of 4.1:1 vs Tumansky R-25 of 5.8:1

This is another reason why heavier Mirage III ,equiped with weaker engine in general Thrust, also have engine with poorer thrust -to-weight ratio!

This current Rate of climb figure of 237 m/s (46,600 ft/min) is way exaggerated and should be changed to real figure 83,3 m/s. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TRUTH, JUSTICE & RIGHT WAY (talk • contribs) 16:25, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

The sources you are quoting can in no way be treated as reliable sources - one appears to be a personal website and the other is a forum. The source cited in the article is a reliable source - note that the Mirage III was originally an interceptor and so should be expected to climb quickly, especially if the optional rocket booster is used (both the IIIC and the IIIE can be fitted with the rocket), and that the rate of climb will be a maximum rate.Nigel Ish (talk) 18:14, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

However, on digging into the article history, it seems that an IP editor changed the climb rate from 83 m/s (which was in the cited source) to 237 m/s (without a source) several years ago and no-one noticed it at the time. Apologies are in order (although WP:Reliable Sources are needed to make changes).Nigel Ish (talk) 18:36, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

References

Photo for Aircraft is photoshopped

The photo at the head of the article has a seal near the cockpit with a kangaroo on it has (inexplicably) been photoshopped on. It should probably be replaced with an image that has not been modified. Here is the image in question.

EDIT: Looking at it more closely, this image is a modified version of this image, which also appears in the article. You can see, looking above the plane in the doctored image, that whoever photoshopped the image did not match the sky well enough to hide it. Specifically, looking above the tail makes this obvious.

Mirage IIIDP

Does anybody know the exact number of new builds delivered? 5 are stated on wiki pages but I can only find 3 mentioned everywhere else. 20 Dec 2018

As far as I know they where; 67-301, 67-302, 67-303, 70-304 and 70-305 which is five. MilborneOne (talk) 18:09, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, I had those last two as Mirage-5DPAs. Lots of confusing info about Pakistan's Mirages around :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bitter Legacy (talk • contribs) 16:33, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Mirage was not the first W. European aircraft to achieve Mach 2.

We have the Dassault website stating 1958 for the Mirage, BAE Systems stating 1957 for the EE Lightning.

Someone has taken umbrage at this. If they believe the manufacturers' own websites are not a reliable reference, can they please provide a reference from a reputable source (e.g. flightglobal, Janes, reputable newspaper article from 1958 that states "this is the first time Lightning has achieved Mach 2") that is actually available to others for verification?

If they believe that there is a genuine reason why the Lightning claim is invalid, can they explain here and not just remove perfectly good information and references from the article with a claim of "Lightning bias"?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.198.21.13 (talk • contribs)

BAE systems articles have errors in them. For example, their Vampire article [4] states that the mk.25 was an export variant for New Zealand. However no historical source mentions a mk.25. Neither does adf-serials.com.au [5], a website run by people doing actual archive research. Baesystems.com most likely just took the previously misleading information found on the Wikipedia EE lightning article for their article. Here is a brass plate that sat on XA847 for display following its mach 2 flight in 1958. [6]--Blockhaj (talk) 01:32, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Looks like this is a basic typo on the BAE Systems website. It should say 25 November 1958 instead of 1957. We have a couple of sources listed on the English_Electric_Lightning#Further_testing article confirming the year. --McSly (talk) 01:44, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Oooh yes it was. Nice try though. :D --FabBar (talk) 09:34, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

[1] ttps://www.fighter-planes.com/info/mir3.htm

[2] ttps://defence.pk/pdf/threads/capabilities-of-paf-dassault-mirage-iii-v.44991/

[1]

[2]