Swing Wing Mirage - Heresy

lazboy · September 3, 2007

During some research I came across the unbelievable revelation that Dassault had once ditched the slender delta before the F1 and actually built a swing wing Mirage. the Mirage G8, so far the only model of it I have come across is for FSX though.

"On 13 October 1965, Avions Marcel Dassault received a contract to design and build one prototype of a two-seat variable-geometry fighter, the Mirage G. Powered by a single SNECMA (Pratt & Whitney) TF-306E turbofan rated at 9300kg with afterburning and owing much to the design of the Mirage F2, the Mirage G was first flown on 18 November 1967. Wing sweepback could be varied between 23° and 70°, and a speed of M=2.1 was attained In late 1968, two further prototypes had been ordered, these each being powered by two 7200kg SNECMA Atar 9K-50 turbojets. After a succession of designation changes, these emerged as Mirage G8s, the two-seat first prototype flying on 8 May 1971, and the single-seat second prototype following on 13 July 1972. The Mirage G8 was envisaged as a multi-role fighter, capable of fulfilling intercept, patrol, attack and long-range reconnaissance missions, and was fitted with Cyrano IV multi-purpose radar, a low-altitude nav/ attack system, a laser rangefinder, Doppler radar and a bombing computer. The proposed production version was to have been powered by two SNECMA M53 turbofans. In the event, the Armee de l'Air concluded that the disadvantages of variable-geometry outweighed its advantages, and after study of a fixed-geometry version with 55° of sweepback (Mirage F8), further development was discontinued."

Edited September 3, 2007 by lazboy