Just discovered a plane I didn't know

[Emp_Palpatine]

Wandering on the Internet, I found this bird:

 

 

This silhouette does ring a bell, doesn't it?

It's actually not a Rafale, but as the markings do show, it's a Yugoslav "Novi Avion", a former SFRY 4th generation fighter project, heavily based on the Rafale (France and SFRY were very good friend indeed).

Hadn't the SFRY disintegrated in late 1991, the plane would have flown in 1992 and entered service in the mid-late 1990's. Without doubts, it would have been a quite good success in exports: Yugoslavia was good to make efficient and cheap military items (Galeb, Super Galeb, M-84...).

Might be interesting in Thirdwire sims, as a good or bad guy, whoever the customer is...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novi_Avion

Edited August 5, 2008 by Emp_Palpatine

[+76.IAP-Blackbird]

Looks like a smal rafal.... Mirage Rafal mix!

[Emp_Palpatine]

Yup.

Wiki article says it was a entirely Yugoslav project.

Well, in my humble opinion, the very shape of the plane obviously indicates that French help and inspiration in that case was more than a few tips on how to build modern radars...

[MAKO69]

Looks phony to me

[Wolf65]

It was an actuall aircraft (a desing actually), desing started in the '80, canceled do to financial problems in the '90. It was suppose to replace the aging mig-21.

 

What you see here is a model of the aircraft that was used to show what it looked like. Unfortunatly do the problems described above, there was never a working prototype built. It was to be built with some french help (mainly around the more modern radars and other systems the Yugoslav enginers haven't had a chance to work with)

Edited August 5, 2008 by Wolf65

[MAKO69]

I see the french influence. its still a phony it never made it past the drawing board.