Dassault Mirage IV
| Dassault Mirage IV | |
|---|---|
 Mirage IV of the French Air Force |
|
| Type: | Strategic bomber |
| Design country: | |
| Manufacturer: | |
| First flight: |
June 17, 1959 |
| Commissioning: |
October 1, 1964 |
| Production time: |
1963 to 1968 |
| Number of pieces: |
62 |
The Mirage IV was a strategic bomber for the use of atomic bombs by the French Strategic Air Force (FAS) and as a reconnaissance aircraft .
history
The prototype of the Mirage IV equipped with delta wings flew for the first time on June 17, 1959 with Dassault chief test pilot Roland Glavanny on board. Aileron , elevator and rudder were controlled electrically, and a mechanical backup system was also available.
The prototype reached Mach 2 for the first time on the 33rd flight. The machine was later used for pilot training and had an accident on February 13, 1963. The first of three pre-series Mirage IVA machines flew for the first time on October 12, 1961. Compared to the prototype, these had the more powerful Atar 9C engines and were 3.6 m longer; the wings had a span that was increased by 0.68 m. The third machine already corresponded to the standard state and was again equipped with the more powerful Atar 9K engines and with an air refueling probe instead of a pitot tube at the bow. This construction meant that the radar had to be housed in a semicircular hump under the central hull. The fuselage of the series machines was manufactured by Sud Aviation .
The Escadron de Bombardement 1/91 Gascogne was the first unit to put the first four Mirage IVA machines into service at the Mont-de-Marsan military airfield on October 1, 1964 . The French Air Force had initially ordered 50 units and later ordered a further twelve machines, which were manufactured in Bordeaux-Merignac by March 1968. The second construction lot of the aircraft could also carry CT-52 reconnaissance tanks instead of armament. The armed force, three squadrons strong (around 45 of 62 aircraft in total), was supplied by twelve KC-135 tankers . In an emergency, it was planned that two Mirage IVs would be accompanied by a tanker , with one Mirage carrying the bomb and the other fuel on board, so that if the tanker could not penetrate further into the target area, it could serve as a "second tanker".
The only real action was a test mission (Operation Tamoure), during which on July 19, 1966 a Mirage IV dropped a 70- kiloton bomb in the South Pacific about 500 km from Hao Atoll .
To ensure that the bombers were operational within a very short time, 80 percent operational readiness was maintained at all times. An aircraft was on immediate, 5 or 15 minute alert around the clock (depending on the threat level). It was possible to equip the Mirage IV with launchers .
As of 1971, twelve aircraft were equipped to accommodate the half-sunk reconnaissance vessel CT 52, the rest of the fleet was retrofitted later. From 1974 the reconnaissance Mirage IV was used in the Libyan-Chadian border war until 1987 .
When it became clear in September 1979 that the Mirage 2000N , for which the ASMP stand-off missile was developed, could only be put into service much later, the decision was made to convert the Mirage IV. The aircraft, now under the name Mirage IVP (P for penetration), were specially converted for low-level flight operations. As part of the renovation work, the avionics were renewed, which now had a low-level attack system based on dual inertial navigation (compared to the usual Doppler navigation system ) and an Arcana pulse Doppler radar from Thomson CSF. For electronic warfare were jammers and chaff launchers built into the machines. The first flight of the first converted machine took place on October 12, 1982. In May 1986 the first of 18 retrofitted Mirage IV jets (another machine was later converted after an accident) were put into service.
The machines remained in use as atomic bombs until their official decommissioning on July 4, 1996 and replacement by the Mirage 2000N. Until June 23, 2005, the remaining aircraft served as strategic reconnaissance aircraft, which were also used in Bosnia (1995), Kosovo (1998), Iraq (1998 and 2003) and Afghanistan (2001).
20 machines are still in storage at the Chateaudun military airfield, the rest can be seen in museums or air bases.
Incidents
From the first flight in 1959 to the end of operations in 2005, the Dassault Mirage IV resulted in 12 total aircraft losses. In 5 of them 9 people were killed.
Technical specifications
| Parameter | Data |
|---|---|
| length | 23.50 m |
| span | 11.84 m |
| height | 5.56 m |
| Wing area | 78 m² |
| Elongation | 1.8 |
| Wing loading : |
|
| Empty mass | 14,500 kg |
| normal takeoff mass | 31,600 kg |
| maximum take-off mass | 33,475 kg |
| Top speed | Mach 2.2 or 2,340 km / h (at an altitude of 10,975 m) |
| Service ceiling | approx. 20,000 m |
| maximum rate of climb | ? |
| Use radius: |
|
| Transfer range | approx. 4000 km |
| crew | 2 |
| Engine | 2 × SNECMA Atar 9K-50 jet engines |
| Thrust | 2 × 68.67 kN (with afterburner) |
| Thrust-to-weight ratio |
|
Armament
- Gun load of up to 7,257 kg at five external load stations under the two wings and under the fuselage
- Cruise missiles
- 1 × Aérospatiale Air Sol Moyenne Portée (ASMP) - cruise missile with 300 kt nuclear explosive device
- Unguided bombs
- 16 × Société des Ateliers Mécaniques de Pont-sur-Sambre (SAMP) BL EU 3 (500 kg free-fall bomb )
- 6 × Société des Ateliers Mécaniques de Pont-sur-Sambre (SAMP) BL 4 (1000 kg free-fall bomb)
- Nuclear weapons
- 1 × CEA AN-22 - 700 kg free-falling nuclear bomb ; Explosive force 70 kilotons
- 1 × CEA AN-11 - 1,500 kg free-falling nuclear bomb; Explosive force 60 kilotons
- Additional container
- 2 × disposable additional tanks for 2,500 liters of kerosene
- 1 × CT52 reconnaissance container
Self-defense systems
- 1 × SAAB BOZ-103 decoys launcher with 18 × 50 mm decoys cartridges chaff or heat flares
- 1 × Thompson-CSF Barax NG - EKF disturbance container
- 2 × Philips-Matra Phimat - decoys launcher with 210 chaff cartridges
- internal decoys launcher Alkan F1A
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ FlugRevue June 2009, pp. 100-103, Dassault Mirage IV - The Big Sister
- ↑ NZZ Technology: The French Aviation Industry , NZZ, noon edition September 5, 1962, sheet 3, page C9
- ↑ La mission de reconnaissance , Archived version of the page mirage4P.com
- ↑ Libyan Wars, 1980-1989, Part 6 ( Memento from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ List of accidents involving Dassault Mirage IV , Aviation Safety Network WikiBase , accessed on July 26, 2018.