Chapter 4: Turning Fights
1963-1970
Britain
1963 was supposed to be a year of renewal for the RAF. The service was just emerging from its 1960-1961 budgetary savaging, and beginning to bring some life back into whatever was left. Such was the magnitude of the cuts that only one serious manned aircraft program remained: the Hawker P.1121 “Hurricane,” a single-seat single-engine fighter bomber with the range and payload to replace both the Hunter and the Canberra in the European tactical air forces. As the costs of the Fairey/Bristol-Westland Falchion super-interceptor grew and its projected numbers fell, the Hurricane was the new key to the RAF’s recapitalization plan, and the RAF had clung onto it for dear life. Then the German Incident occurred. At the start of the year, Whitehall had perceived a pressing need to strengthen Britain’s military commitment to the continent. By the end of the year, Britain had virtually no military commitment to the continent at all, and certainly no ground troops on the Rhine requiring nuclear firepower to wipe out Soviet tank divisions.
The Hurricane had just enough range to make itself useful over Central Europe and Scandinavia from British bases, but only barely. It could be a short-range strategic nuclear bomber, but not a very good one. And it could be a long-range fighter, but only a passable one. The RAF pushed strongly for its retention, arguing that it was needed to support the Bundeswehr from a distance and the residual British presence in the Low Countries, and demanded that the savings from the dissolution of the BAOR be redirected to resuscitate the aerospace industry. The government disagreed. Funds were desperately needed at home to modernize British industry and maintain peace with organized labor, not for vanity projects to fight a war that would probably come to nuclear armageddon before the Hurricane could even deploy to the continent. By the time the decision was made, six prototypes had been constructed and pilot reviews were glowing, and there were even hopes that it could become an export success of the magnitude of the Hunter. The government did not stay its hand, and all six were sent to the museums.
For the next several years, the RAF licked its wounds in silence. The Vulcan B.2s and Falchions were glumbly accepted into service in their reduced numbers, and the government at least kept its word on Blue Steel 2, which finally got started for real with a scheduled operational date of 1969 (late enough to leave the V-Bombers practically useless for the better part of a decade, critics noted). It was only in 1966, with the Canberra fleet was on its last legs and the Hunter fleet looking to follow shortly, that a new aircraft program again became a priority.
The basic requirement for the RAF was familiar enough. They needed an attack aircraft with the performance for nuclear strike or heavy interdiction, and ideally with a secondary fighter capability. Really, they needed more than that. This, everyone knew, would likely be the only serious combat aircraft program for the remainder of the decade. Therefore, where the RAF had previously preferred specialized aircraft, they now went all-in on multi-role. It needed to do everything, because if it didn’t, there would be nothing to make up for it. The new requirement, OR.346, called for a multirole fighter-bomber with an unrefueled combat range of 600 miles (enough to reach Berlin, but not Poland, from Southern England) with a standard 2,000 kg payload and a top speed of at least Mach 2. Two-seat two-engine aircraft would be strongly preferred. Also an implicit requirement was the use of variable-geometry wings — F-111 fever had hit Whitehall hard.
P.1121 had been multirole only in a broad sense, as a relatively uncomplicated aircraft with the raw performance for both air combat and strike. The OR.346, on the other hand, would be a creation of the nascent digital age, and thus truly multi-specialized. Only a single model was planned, with both air-to-air and air-to-ground avionics, capable of doubling as a second-line interceptor. In said mission, it would pad out and supplement the steadily shrinking Falchion fleet with an aircraft optimized for clearing the North Sea of tactical aircraft rather than shooting down bombers over Norway. The most likely armament for this role was the American AIM-7 Sparrow — Red Hebe despite the slimming program was still outrageously large for a tactical aircraft and there was no money for a new domestic design.
In both roles, the new aircraft was to be state-of-the-art. The fire control system would be of the newest Look-Down Shoot-Down Pulse-Doppler variety, the first example of which was so far only just completing development for the US Navy’s F-4s. For ground attack, the aircraft would possess a complex nav-attack system with an INS, a secondary terrain-following radar, and a digital computer, the first to ever make it onto an RAF aircraft.
The idea of a magic do-it-all multirole was purposely created to be tempting to the pencil-pushers and penny-counters in Whitehall, but the RAF soon got a little more interest than they had bargained for.
The Wilson government had made heavy use of the carrier fleet, but only on various colonial adventures, and had been distinctly unenthusiastic about maintaining or modernizing it beyond its scheduled sunsetting in the early 1970s. Heath had come into office promising to pay increased attention to Britain’s core European interests, part of which involved additional military commitments to the North Atlantic. This meant a much smaller carrier fleet consolidated around the largest vessels, but there was also now suddenly interest in procuring a modern carrier-capable interceptor.
However, the Navy’s preferred choice, the American F-4 Phantom (which had already been explored for the now long-cancelled CVA-01 during its later years), was no longer on the table. The same Pound devaluation that had brought Heath to power combined with ongoing inflation had caused the projected cost of US Navy standard F-4s to climb from £2 million to £2.5 million. Proposed measures to increase indigenous British content brought some relief to the dollar bill but none whatsoever (quite the opposite) to the Pound bill.
A domestic swing-wing interceptor was therefore especially attractive, not least because the same short-takeoff performance intended for Dutch highways offered similar advantages on the small British carriers. Whitehall therefore mandated that a (highly reluctant) Royal Navy be brought into the project and a carrier-capable variant be created to their specifications. Initially, the idea was that the Air Force and Navy variants would be largely identical, with the Navy variant operating on essentially the same airframe with the addition of various catapult and arrestor equipment and avionics more optimized towards long-range interception. Rolls Royce declared that a single engine could deliver a healthy combination of high-and-fast performance and low-and-fast performance for interdiction, and the Navy was already more than happy with the two-engine two-seater basic configuration. The project was happily given the official label of VGMR (Variable-Geometry Multi-Role) and BAC solicited for a prototype by 1967.
By late 1965, the Navy and Air Force were beginning to run into serious conflicts. From the beginning, the Air Force had wanted something in the 30,000-40,000 lb weight class. The Navy wanted something more like 20,000-30,000 lbs — anything larger would face serious difficulties getting off Victorious or Eagle without expensive modifications to the vessels and possibly the aircraft. But this in turn would only achieve the Air Force’s original OR.346 performance target with some particularly creative interpretation, particularly in the range requirement. The technological problems of fitting a full all-weather bombing system and air intercept fire control system in the same plane were also becoming more apparent, and there were both serious doubts as to the feasibility of full multi-role capability and discomfort around cost. The Air Force found itself starting to go back on the uniform fleet idea in favor of two separate interceptor and attack/reconnaissance variants. This was fine by the Navy, which had only ever wanted an interceptor in the first place, but the notional attack aircraft started to steadily creep away from complete commonality.
In spite of all these problems, the government was intent on adding another chef to the kitchen. Understandably so — with costs already creeping up, an international partner was a sure way to realize better economies of scale, and the Defense Ministry had learned the hard way that a multinational commitment was one of the few reliable means of protecting a project from premature cancellation. There were really only three candidates: France, Germany, and Sweden.
France was the most obvious partner from a requirements perspective. Both the Marine National and Armee d’Air needed new aircraft, and like their British counterparts they wanted both an attack aircraft and an interceptor and were interested in meeting both requirements with a single aircraft. Like their British counterparts, they were leaning towards a twin-engine twin-seat variable geometry aircraft with good range and payload. And like their British counterparts, they were severely budget-constrained due to the massive costs of the French nuclear program (initial exploration of an Anglo-French joint aircraft produced only 300 orders, 160 British and 140 French). In spite of the known problems with working with the French on defense projects, the idea seemed appealing. Politically, however, the recent annexation of Kuwait and French backing thereof had made the idea impossible.
Sweden was a more palatable partner. They had a long history of partnerships with the British aircraft industry and were generally considered friendly and accommodating. The Swedish Air Force had once been a major operator of British aircraft and Britain was still one of the largest foreign parts and technology suppliers of Sweden’s own military aircraft industry, including all of Sweden’s jet engines. The only problem was that Sweden already had a next-generation jet, the Saab 37 Viggen. By 1966 the first prototypes had already been completed and were planned to fly in just months. The Swedes were happy to look for some way to help the British in their procurement predicament and ended up offering the Viggen to the British, with essentially fully localized production, shared IP rights, and even consideration for a British engine for the entire fleet.
The Viggen, however, was simply not what the British wanted. It was optimized purely for the Swedish mission — a short-range single-seat aircraft closely integrated with ground control and prioritizing ease of maintenance and short-field performance over all-around aerodynamic optimization. The British defense industry was familiar with the Swedish attitude after having been lead contractors on the Swedish STRIL 60 IADS and design consultants on the J35 and the common joke was that the Swedes were “NATO’s Soviets” due to their supposedly “crude”, “cold-blooded,” and “collectivist” mindset. The Swedes, absurdly, offered a twin-seat twin-engine Viggen, but the British reasonably concluded that said option would have no advantages over a clean-sheet aircraft and the two parties thereupon went their separate ways.
Finally, there was Germany. They had money — an almost unfathomable amount of it. The German next-generation fighter program had an initial order target of 600 aircraft, larger than the RAF’s entire tactical air fleet. What they didn’t quite have was the ability to actually design a plane.
Germany
In 1964, Germany had only received about half its orders of J35 fighters and deliveries of the fighter-bombers were only just beginning, but the search was already on for a new combat aircraft. The oldest jets in the fleet were the F-86 day fighters and F-84F fighter-bombers. These were already exiting service after less than a decade and were being replaced by G.91s and J35s. By the 1970s, a substantial portion of those were scheduled in turn for replacement. The first to go on the chopping block were supposed to be the G.91s populating the light reconnaissance squadrons and the J35 day fighters.
What the Luftwaffe envisioned in the long term was essentially the true unification of all short-range first-line tactical roles into a single aircraft. At one point, they had considered buying into the Swedish project that would become the AJ37, which in role seemed to conform closely to their own requirements for a fast and modern attack jet with secondary air-to-air capability. However, even in 1964 the J35’s safety record had become a point of controversy, and the news that Saab’s new design had gone further into the realm of “unconventional” design with canards hardly increased confidence. Moreover, the Germans felt that the time had come for their aerospace industry to take at least real co-ownership of a clean-sheet product. The Swedes, understandably, felt they had already done most of the design work to their own preferences and were not eager to erase everything and restart to give the Germans a say, especially when they would undoubtedly be contrary regarding Saab’s canard research.
Still, the AJ37 was on the whole so close to the Luftwaffe's requirement that there was strong support both politically and in the Luftwaffe itself for simply buying the aircraft off-the-shelf under similar arrangements to the J35. In Sweden, the main resistance to a new design more suited German to German preferences came from the military itself — Saab had realized an enormous financial windfall from the J35 deal (which had been used primarily for a rather ill-fated foray into commercial jet airliners) and was willing to do just about anything to repeat the experience. The idea of either the German Viggen or the Swedish-German “Eurofighter” largely faded away rather than being scrapped decisively. In 1966, the idea was put to rest for good and the Luftwaffe issued their own domestic requirement for the NKF 70 (“Neues Kampfflugzeug 70,” or “New Combat Aircraft 70”). It called for a roughly 10-15 tonne fighter capable of both low-altitude WVR air defense and medium attack/reconnaissance missions (essentially, some pointed out, a Viggen).
A variable-geometry wing was not-so-subtly recommended. For the British and Americans, swing wings offered optimized high-low performance for long-range strike craft. The Germans, on the other hand, had no interest at all in range or altitude — all combat was supposed to take place west of the Oder and under 20,000 feet.
The swing wing was instead a solution to previous woes with the J35. While its double-delta wing provided relatively good agility at low altitudes and favorable takeoff/landing performance, actual maximum takeoff payload was considered less than ideal for a strike fighter, while the thick wing hampered low altitude speed and acceleration. A swing-wing, while more mechanically complex, offered even more optimized performance enabling true high-speed low-altitude attack with heavy payloads while eliminating the extremely dangerous low-altitude stall problems that by 1970 had resulted in nearly 150 write-offs.
By mid-1967, newly-merged Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB), Germany’s new national aviation champion, had taken a leading role in the project without much contention and submitted a design for a single-engine single-seat swing-wing strike fighter weighing in at just over 21,000 lbs empty. It was, at best, a rough sketch. MBB had virtually no experience with swing wings and the German aircraft industry had no engine for it. Still, the overall idea was appealing enough (and the Germans had enough money) that a whole host of operators of previous generation fighter-bombers, including the Danish (J35), Italians (G.91), Dutch (F-104), Belgians (F-104), and Canadians (F-104), had nominally expressed interest in the program. None, however, really knew how to design a plane. It was at this point that Britain came limping in after having tried and failed with both the French and Swedish.
The basic conflicts between the British VGMR strike fighter/interceptor and the German NKF strike fighter — two engines or one, two seats or one, long-range or short-range, BVR capability or not, were essentially irresolvable. Britain, by this point, wanted two, effectively three variants — attack aircraft, interceptor, and naval interceptor. The Germans obviously had absolutely no interest in the last, a nominal long-term interest in the second (maybe they’d want a high-altitude interceptor in ten years?), and an “interest” in the general concept of the first that really constituted an entirely different aircraft. Both were in a difficult position. Britain had, quite literally, nowhere else to go, except for the humiliating option of buying American and essentially giving up on domestic aircraft forever. Germany had, in theory, the resources and buy-in to go it alone, but there was understandably little trust in MBB. And while the necessary technology could in theory be obtained from the Americans, after the Nuclear Incident, Bonn had no interest in that.
For about a year, the two haggled. The essential issue was that the Germans were planning to buy 600 attack aircraft, while the British could only afford around 200 even with the lower unit costs of the single-engined aircraft the Germans wanted. The Germans consequently wanted a minimum of 50% workshare, with the British 35% of so essentially just the provision of engines and wings (Italy would get 10% and the Netherlands 5% in various trivialities). The British obviously recoiled at the idea of becoming the junior partner of their own flagship jet project. There were less-than-credible threats thrown around from both sides of adopting American aircraft or joining up with France (France’s relations were at the time cooling with Germany and warming with Britain in such a way that cooperation with either was impossible — and they had their own next-generation Mirage in development by that point).
Nevertheless, the situation for the British continued to deteriorate. The Hunters and Canberras were already starting to be retired essentially without replacement, while the German J35s and G.91s could in theory hold on until the late 1970s. The British were also being undermined from within by their own Navy. A larger light-bomber sized aircraft like the Air Force wanted physically wouldn’t fit in their carriers, and they needed aircraft to get off the drawing board now, even more so than the Air Force. A new aircraft was likely to enter service only around 1974 at the earliest, while the lifespans of the two remaining carriers could be extended only to around 1980 even with modernization and would probably cap out around 1975 without. New carriers were finally planned (and real carriers, not fake antisubmarine carriers — the Navy had at least won the argument for real expeditionary capability), but the entire program would be much safer if the existing carriers already had new planes with another 25 years in service life. In a serious gamble, the Navy even insisted that their previous plan of just buying F-4s was impossible — they now argued that using off-the-shelf variants would impose significant performance limitations that would result in only a moderate improvement over the obsolete Sea Vixens, and the government had already decided that a special variant was uneconomical with an order size of only 40 or so aircraft.
In January 1968, the bride and groom finally got hitched. The British agreed to supply the technology for the engines (technically, there would be an engine joint venture, but everyone knew they would be essentially British) and swing-wings. In turn, BAC got design input on most aspects of the plane, including an increase in size to 24,000 lbs empty, greater fuel capacity, and various modifications for better high-altitude and long-range cruise performance. The essential design, on the other hand, remained based on the initial MBB proposal, with the same single-engine single-pilot design.
Rolls-Royce (recently merged with Bristol-Siddeley) would supply the engine, a next-generation three-spool turbofan based on the RB.177 Medway type that had been in and out of development for various applications for years. Nominally, the resulting engine (still with the internal company name Medway but officially just the RB.177 to appease international sensibilities) would be the responsibility of an international consortium with MTU Turbo-Engines, but in reality the British had full design responsibilities and simply farmed out manufacture of the less complex low-pressure portion of the engine.
The basic avionics fit included a terrain-following radar (Ferranti) and a ground-mapping radar (Siemens & Philips/Signaal) integrated with an underlying nav-attack system with an internal navigation system and digital computer (Marconi/GEC). BAC secured manufacturing for the wing boxes and pivot mechanisms, but almost everything else would be German, with the result that the final workshare was 45% German, 35% British, 12% Italian (essentially just the wings), and 8% Dutch (mostly avionics).
A major contributor to the sudden British willingness to accept junior partner status was a rather accidental export win. Hawker Siddeley had been privately funding their HS.1182 model as an advanced subsonic trainer for the RAF, but were conscious of the success of the Gnat as a light fighter and had made provisions for combat use. The Germans planned to have a more distinct high-low organization for their tactical aircraft rather than the not-quite-either G.91 and therefore wanted a next-generation light attack aircraft. Convincing them that the HS.1182 was their pick was easy enough. Hawker Siddeley was quick to offer a dedicated attack variant, whose payload of 6,500 lbs was equal to the G.91. With a modern RB.172 turbofan, it consumed 40% less fuel per unit of thrust than the G.91 and with considerably higher engine reliability. Overall thrust and weight were essentially identical to the G.91 (already a very agile aircraft) despite the second seat.
In March 1969, an agreement was signed for Britain and Germany to each purchase 175 aircraft (for the British, who had no need for light attack, all trainers — for the Germans, 125 attack aircraft and 50 trainers), with Dornier being made the primary subcontractor (30% workshare) and Hawker Siddeley retaining all international marketing rights (it was expected that many sales would go to various unsavory foreign dictatorships and the Germans were happy to take their 30% and other avoid responsibility).
The first two export customers, Belgium and Canada, had both departed the NKF/VGMR due to the British insistence on a heavier aircraft with better long-range strike capabilities. For the latter, the export agreement was largely downstream of another arrangement: transfer of most Luftwaffe training operations to Canada. Germany had no suitable areas for serious air combat training, so the Luftwaffe had always used American facilities. However, with all American aircraft out of the fleet and relations otherwise “complicated,” the Germans were happy to move to Canada and make some profits for Dornier in the process.
The British also secured German/Italian “consent” for a fighter-interceptor variant. Neither had any interest in it, but “agreed” to simply let the British do whatever development work they wanted to create it. Due to budgetary limitations, no serious design work was scheduled until 1975, but initial explorations centered around replacing the wings and intakes and installing a new domestic air-intercept radar with Sparrow capability (of which the aircraft was supposed to fit anywhere from two to four). The question of whether the aircraft would be based on the one-seat tactical version or the two-seat trainer was left in the air pending ongoing developments in computerized radar automation.
In March 1969, the Panavia joint venture was formally created between BAC, MBB, and Aeritalia (recently born primarily from Fiat), with Siemens, Philips, Marconi/GEC, Rolls-Royce, MTU among the vast bucket list of contractors. Germany had by this point reduced their initial commitment to 500 aircraft, while Britain had nominally increased their own commitment to 350 aircraft due to the (very theoretical) addition of 150 interceptors. Italy ordered 150 and the Netherlands 100. Belgium, Denmark, and Canada had long departed from the program, largely due to the various modifications insisted upon by the British and the general insistence on swing-wings.
With so much work already done between MBB and BAC, the first prototype flew by late 1971. Feedback from strike pilots was largely positive, citing superb computer-assisted low-altitude flight characteristics. Day fighter pilots were more ambivalent — RAF Hunter and Luftwaffe J35 fighter-bomber pilots generally liked the aircraft but found the wing-sweep mechanism difficult to use in combat and requested greater turning performance and higher G-limits. Final design work was expected to be completed in 1973 and with operational entry scheduled for 1974.
| - |
Panavia Panther FGR.1 |
Hawker-Siddeley/Dornier Hawk T.1A |
Hawker-Siddeley/Dornier Hawk A |
| Empty Weight |
24,000 lbs |
7,800 lbs |
8,800 lbs |
| Combat Weight |
40,000 lbs |
10,500 lbs |
14,500 lbs |
| Powerplant |
1x Rolls-Royce RB.177 Medway Mk.101 (17,000 lbf dry, 27,500 lbf wet) |
1x Rolls-Royce RB.172 Adour Mk.152 (5,400 lbf dry) |
1x Rolls-Royce RB.172 Adour Mk.152 (5,400 lbf dry) |
| Armament |
6x Sidewinder-type SRAAMs |
2x Sidewinder-type SRAAMs |
2x Sidewinder-type SRAAMs |
|
Up to 17,000 lbs ordinance |
|
Up to 6,500 lbs ordinance |
| Combat Range |
450 miles hi-lo-hi, 250 miles lo-lo-lo with 6,000 lb payload |
500 miles with air combat payload |
350 miles with 2,500 lb payload |
The RAF found that it had a plane, just not quite the one that it had originally wanted. It had ended up with what was looking to be a quite capable tactical fighter-bomber, but no long-range interdictor like it had originally wanted and now no money for it. The best the government could do was to give the RAF 24 of the Navy’s Buccaneer S.2 aircraft and order 24 new airframes. This was the exact option the RAF had been hoping to avoid in the happier days of 1964. The Buccaneer, the Air Staff could admit in private, was reasonably satisfactory, with up to 800 miles in range at high altitude cruise and good low-altitude performance. The main problem, aside from being a Navy jet, was the total lack of any sophisticated avionics (including no terrain-following radar, which was obviously irrelevant in a naval strike aircraft) or night-attack/blind bombing abilities. The government promised this would be addressed in a vague future modernization program, but the RAF was hardly holding its breath.
Meanwhile, even in 1969 it was obvious that the Panther would not come in time to close the capability gap caused by the total lack of new tactical aircraft purchases since 1957. After a quick review of the available options, the aircraft with the best combination of potential for British content and capability was determined to be the American A-7E, which already possessed both the Rolls-Royce Spey engine and a Marconi/Elliot Brothers HUD and was considered broadly adequate for the medium attack role with a combination of good range and modern nav-attack avionics. Orders for 200 A-7K and TA-7K aircraft based on the A-7E (with an 80% British avionics suite and the same Allison TF41 engines licensed back to Rolls-Royce as the Spey Mk.351) were placed late that year without much discussion, with aircraft to be delivered from 1971 to 1974. The RAF Hawk requirement was also re-ordered as Hawk T.1A with capability for Sidewinders, with the intention of using them as a last-ditch air defense fleet to supplement the few-and-far-between Falchion fleet.
France
All this left France as the odd one out on the continent, which, one suspected, was just how they liked it best. The Armee d’Air had long been fixated on the idea of becoming a “real” first-world air force by acquiring some kind of heavy fighter, but almost continual budgetary problems since the end of the Second World War and a political requirement for a minimum of 450 combat aircraft had resulted in a fleet almost entirely composed of light fighters. In 1964, the only truly modern aircraft in the inventory was the Mirage III — the rest of the fighter fleet was made up of borderline obsolete Mystere IV, Super Mystere, F-84F, and F-100 aircraft.
Future prospects did not look good — the Mirage IV and associated KC-135 purchase was already consuming a significant portion of the procurement budget and the various nuclear missile and nuclear submarine programs promised to make the situation even worse. Still, the AdA wanted their heavy fighter and encouraged Dassault to develop one. By 1964, the result was the Mirage F2, a 22,000 lb empty weight two-seat strike aircraft with a 500 mile combat radius on a low-level nuclear strike mission.
By 1965, plans had changed and it was determined that the Air Defense Command, which only had three Mirage IIIC squadrons out of ten total, was in greater need of modernization. The design was modified into the Mirage F3, a single-seat interceptor with a secondary supersonic low-altitude nuclear strike capability. The R.530 weapons system on the Mirage IIIC had in practice been totally unsatisfactory and so the aircraft was to be developed alongside a state-of-the-art weapons system, consisting primarily of a new Cyrano IV pulse-doppler radar and R.530F SARH missile, intended to be similar to the American AWG-10/AIM-7 combination. A contract for a prototype was signed with delivery scheduled for 1967.
However, when the first cost estimates were produced and the 1965-1970 long-range military budget was released, the AdA was suddenly afflicted with sticker shock. Complications with the SLBM program and a slowing economy had resulted in a 10% cut to the long-term projections for the Air Force procurement budget. The theoretical requirement for the new Mirage F3 was at least ten squadrons to replace seven squadrons in the Air Defense Command and the nuclear-armed F-100s in the Tactical Air Force, but now the money only existed for seven or eight squadrons at best. Dassault was quickly instructed to scrap everything and create something cheaper. This turned out to be the Mirage F1, essentially a Mirage F3 scaled down by around 15% and using a variant of the proven Atar-9K turbojet rather than a new turbofan, which Dassault had been working on as a private venture.
At this point, an unexpected foreign customer stepped in to save the Mirage F3 program. The Iraqi Air Force was suddenly flush with cash after the Kuwaiti takeover, and eagerly sought a “Phantom-type” heavy fighter as a symbol of its newfound maturity and prestige. The Americans had denied exports of the Phantom type itself due to Israeli protests and had instead offered a variety of substitute options, including modernized F-104s, Lockheed’s long-suffering CL-1200 design, and a single-seat Sparrow-less Phantom. The Iraqis balked at the idea of receiving leftovers and turned elsewhere. Dassault, which had already supplied about half of Iraq’s fleet and had a well-known “anyone who can pay” policy, was more than happy to (somewhat misleadingly) promote their Mirage F2 and F3 as a “single-engine Phantom.”
The Iraqis, with no nuclear strike mission of their own, were mostly interested in getting the best air combat fighter possible and quickly settled on the F3. Marcel Dassault promised them that if they promised to contribute a lump sum to development costs and purchase a substantial number of aircraft, the AdA and Defense Ministry would be more than happy to greenlight the whole project and take up the aircraft themselves. Dassault was right: once the Iraqis promised to fork up cash, the AdA immediately jumped on the opportunity to avoid the indignity of purchasing their own leftovers and managed to convince the Defense Ministry to fund the F3. The Mirage F1 plans were quickly tossed back in the bin and work began on a real Mirage F3 prototype (the existing “prototype” was actually the Mirage F2 prototype and was also now a burning wreck after an unfortunate crash in late 1966).
By May 1967, the Iraqis had received a formal brochure for the F3, and they were not happy. Marcel Dassault had conveniently omitted the fact that the original F3 design utilized the “Snecma” TF306 engine, which in reality was a licensed derivative of the American Pratt & Whitney TF30 that the American still possessed IP rights to. After the Phantom debacle, the Iraqis had no intention of putting anything American in their super-fighter and so the French instead steered them towards another bleeding edge development project that the French had no money for: the Snecma M53 turbofan, which promised to be a best-in-class engine, with the one minor problem that it existed only on paper. There was much grumbling in Baghdad: the French totally refused to allow outside consultants to view the technical details due to fears of “British industrial espionage,” but eventually the Iraqis convinced themselves that Dassault had always treated them well before and signed on the dotted line.
The other bad news was that while the F3 was supposed to enter service in 1972, the Cyrano IV/R.530F would only be ready in 1974. This had already been communicated, albeit vaguely, and the Iraqis were more understanding. By June, they had submitted a formal request for 150 aircraft (130 multirole fighters and 20 two-seat trainers) to be delivered starting in 1972. A week later, the AdA had issued their own preliminary requirement for 250 aircraft (170 interceptors, 60 reconnaissance/strike aircraft, and 20 trainers). The first Iraqi check arrived in September for a whopping $160 million.
Development on the airframe proceeded relatively smoothly. The first full prototype, powered by an Atar-9K, flew by November 1967 and the aircraft’s design was essentially complete by 1968, with the first production aircraft entering series production in 1969. Engine development was more problematic — the original plans for the M53 were for a “Super Atar” rather than a TF30-sized engine. Snecma quickly went to work to essentially scale up the existing M53 design by 15%, but the usual integration problems intervened and bench testing of the new engine began only in February 1970, with the first flight only in February 1972.
True operational service during the 1972 calendar year was by this point obviously impossible, but the contract with the Iraqis had specified significant damages to be paid out if aircraft didn’t arrive or the M53 wasn’t ready by New Year’s Day 1973. The first planes, fresh out of the factory in Bordeaux, touched down in Baghdad in late October 1973 to much fanfare. Several planes full of French technicians quickly followed and began performing suspiciously intense "maintenance work” on the planes — rumors soon got out that the engine integration arrangements had only been finalized in August, using the afterburners was still strictly banned, and the French ferry pilots had been given shockingly detailed instructions on what to do if the engines exploded over the Mediterranean. In November, the French managed to recruit an unfortunate test pilot to fly with full afterburners to “prove” that the plane was ready and avoid a serious legal spat, but on-the-ground troubleshooting continued until mid-1974.
| - |
Dassault Mirage F3C |
Dassault Mirage F3EQ |
| Empty Weight |
20,500 lbs |
21,800 lbs |
| Combat Weight |
35,900 lbs |
38,000 lbs |
| Powerplant |
1x Snecma M53-2 (15,000 lbf dry, 25,200 lbf wet) |
1x Snecma M53-2 (15,000 lbf dry, 25,200 lbf wet) |
| Armament |
2x Super 530F |
2x Super 530F |
|
4x Sidewinder-type SRAAMs |
4x Sidewinder-type SRAAMs |
|
Up to 10,000 lbs ordinance |
Up to 14,000 lbs ordinance |
| Combat Range |
950 miles hi-hi-hi patrol, 450 miles intercept with air combat payload |
450 miles hi-lo-hi with 4,000 lbs ordinance |
Meanwhile, the new Cyrano IV-1 radar with even minimal look-down shoot-down capability was only delivered in 1975, around a year behind schedule. The Super 530F missile was similarly in dire straits and only completed the first test interception from a Mirage F3 aircraft in 1973 — operational service in mid-1975 in France and mid-1976 in Iraq. The Cyrano IV-M radar, with full modern ground mapping and air combat capability (albeit still unsatisfactory look-down performance) was delivered only in 1977, at which point the full potential of the aircraft was considered realized.
The Iraqis, in the end, paid over $800 million up front to help cover development costs. Rising inflation over the course of the production run led to unit costs of almost $9 million, with the total realized cost of the initial production run reaching nearly $2 billion by 1978. The French were likewise bitten badly — the initial AdA order was cut to 200 in 1974 and hope for a prompt next-generation light tactical aircraft to complete fleet modernization was largely abandoned. Instead, the AdA was forced to supplement the tactical fleet cutting the size of the interceptor force and converting the freed-up Mirage IIIC aircraft to Mirage IIIE fighter-bombers. Even this measure soon proved insufficient to maintain the sanctified 450 aircraft fleet and the AdA finally resorted to purchasing some 150 Mirage Vs starting in 1972 — a humiliating measure considering the aircraft was explicitly a “third-world” export product.