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overscan (PaulMM)

overscan (PaulMM)

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Aeronavale Plan recommends a naval Mirage F1/M53 to replace the Jaguar M.

Source:
  • Air Enthusiast March 1972

M53 engine expected to equip future Mirage F1; final 20 of 105 for Armee De L'Air to have M53, giving top speed of Mach 2.5. J79 engined version expected for export to J79-using countries like Netherlands, Belgium, Italy.
 
That's can't be true... Do you know the whatif modeler forum, overscan? I imagined exactly what it is describe here.
- navalising the F-1/M53 to replace the Jaguar M-
In this case, be sure that the F-1M53 would also have replaced the Crusaders as naval interceptor... So now I know that my idea was not pure whatif! This was clearly the more obvious, logical choice to make!
Common aircraft for French Air Force and Aeronavale is the logic of the Rafale...
 
Although there are people saying not possible, the M53 was solely intended for those countries in the Buy of the Century deal which finished with the selection of the F16. The French Air Force was more or less forced to order the aircraft.
I do recommend the doubters to read publications about the Dutch/Danish/Norwegian /Belgian F16 buy.........
 
"Although there are people saying not possible, the M53 was solely intended for those countries in the Buy of the Century deal which finished with the selection of the F16."

Errrr....no. Also a rank outsider for RAF's ASR.395.

Chris
 
Below is a poor quality picture of the M53 being installed into a Mirage F1.
 

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Line drawings of the Mirage F1 with M53 and usual 9K50.
 

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Here is the Mirage F1-M53. It was originally called the Mirage F1E, before that designation was re-used.

It was longer, had a more rounded nose, enlarged intakes, more internal fuel, retractable inflight refueling probe, and strengthened undercarriage. The new engine afforded a blistering top speed of Mach 2,5.
 

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Another couple.

The first one shows the subtle differences, particularly around the nose area.

The second one shows what appears to be a retractable refuelling probe (?). I'm not sure why they went for this, instead of the far neater probe as found on the South African Mirage F1AZ's, but it may have to do with radar antenna interference? Unless of course it is only on the proposed maritime variant and not the land F1E-M53.
It appears to be the same as the line drawing posted by Ivran above.
 

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Wasn't this model offered up, in addition to the Viggen, as a competitor to the F-16 for NATO back in the day?
 
Wasn't this model offered up, in addition to the Viggen, as a competitor to the F-16 for NATO back in the day?
Click to expand...

Yes, it was.
 
pometablava said:
Wasn't this model offered up, in addition to the Viggen, as a competitor to the F-16 for NATO back in the day?
Click to expand...

Yes, it was.
Click to expand...

What was the earliest then that the Mirage F1 M53 could have attained production status?
 
Some lovely shots here. May i ask , what radar was intended for Mirage F-1E(M53)? Was it called Cyrano-500, which aparently is the precursor ( (or initial name) for RDM?

Thank you. :)
 
lancer21 said:
Some lovely shots here. May i ask , what radar was intended for Mirage F-1E(M53)? Was it called Cyrano-500, which aparently is the precursor ( (or initial name) for RDM?

Thank you. :)
Click to expand...

Not sure. The original specification stated that the F1E (M53) would be fitted with "multirole avionics".
 
What was the earliest then that the Mirage F1 M53 could have attained production status?
Click to expand...

F-16 first flight: 2 February 1974
F-16 introduction: 17 August 1978
F-16 European Participating Air Forces (EPAF) selected: April 1975
F-16 European Participating Air Forces (EPAF): It was accepted by the Belgian AF on January 29th, 1979, being the first locally built F-16 to be delivered to a European Operator.



F-1 M53 first offer as a F-104 replacement for NATO members: 1972
renamed F-1E (for Europe) to rival the F-16. Other engines considered: J79 and Spey. Versions studied: two-seater and F-1EA for Egypt. The radar was a modernized Cyrano which was the precursor of the RDM.
F-1 M53 first flight: 22 December 1974

sources:
wikipedia
http://www.f-16.net/f-16_users_article2.html
Le Mirage F-1 Vol 1 Liébert & Buyck Lela Presse 2007
 
pometablava said:
What was the earliest then that the Mirage F1 M53 could have attained production status?
Click to expand...

F-16 first flight: 2 February 1974
F-16 introduction: 17 August 1978
F-16 European Participating Air Forces (EPAF) selected: April 1975
F-16 European Participating Air Forces (EPAF): It was accepted by the Belgian AF on January 29th, 1979, being the first locally built F-16 to be delivered to a European Operator.



F-1 M53 first offer as a F-104 replacement for NATO members: 1972
renamed F-1E (for Europe) to rival the F-16. Other engines considered: J79 and Spey. Versions studied: two-seater and F-1EA for Egypt. The radar was a modernized Cyrano which was the precursor of the RDM.
F-1 M53 first flight: 22 December 1974

sources:
wikipedia
http://www.f-16.net/f-16_users_article2.html
Le Mirage F-1 Vol 1 Liébert & Buyck Lela Presse 2007
Click to expand...

Yet the Mirage F1 was in service before the F-16. So I was thinking it was an M53 engine issue. As far as I know, the prime user of the M53, the Mirage 2000, was driven by the entire system available, not necessarily the M53 engine availability, which could have seen service in another airframe earlier?
 
As of July 1973 the M53 was tested on a Caravelle, and the F1 M53 was originally only a testbed for the future ACF engine. Then, the prototype performance was good enough that the F1 M53 was pitched against the F-16 for the deal of the Century...
 
A long time ago at the whatif modeler board I toyed with the idea of making the F1-M53 a kind of earlier Rafale - replacing (altogether) the Crusader and Etendard, the Jaguar, Mirage III, Mirage V, Jaguar. Of course the Mirage 2000 and Super Etendard never existed.

The idea was to clear the way for the Mirage 4000 in the 80's.

http://myparalelworld.populus.org/rub/2

Then I discovered this book: the memory of Admiral Sanguinetti. He was a major supporter of French carriers in the 70's; yet he clearly disliked the idea of a naval Mirage F1...

S'agissant des deux avions français, il n'a jamais été possible, pour des raisons de vitesse lente à l'appontage, d'adapter à l'emploi sur le pont un avion conçu pour se poser à grande vitesse sur une piste terrestre ; et cela élimine et cela élimine d'office le Mirage F1, avion d'assaut médiocre, au demeurant, parce que construit pour autre chose
Click to expand...

"about the french aircrafts [Jaguar M and Mirage F1M] - the adaptation of fast-landing, land-based aircraft to the low speeds of a carrier landing was never consider viable; and that by itself eliminated the naval F1, which by the way made a very bad attack machine, since it had been build for an entirely different mission in the first place"
 
Interesting and quite logical in fact. Dassault was best at designing fast interceptors. The attack business was more in Bréguet's scope I guess... Thanks for sharing anyway!
 
You're welcome ! By the way (and from the same book !) I also have the answer to another intriguing question: the one about the Crusader successor.
The competition was clearly about replacing the Etendard IV in the assault role; the Jaguar, Skyhawk, Corsair II and SE are all subsonic bombers.
One can really ask "well, why not enlarge the competition to a multirole supersonic machine also replacing the Crusader ?" An excellent question when one realize the Crusader ultimate fate they remained in service until 1999 !

Well, here's Sanguinetti opinion
Nous avons donc décidé que les Crusaders ne seront pas remplacés : leur fonction dïntercepteurs est du ressort de missiles sol-air moyenne portée - seuls suffisants en nombre pour s'opposer à un raid conséquent -, tirés à partir des des escorteurs de défense aérienne construits pour cela
Click to expand...

We had decided the Crusaders would not be replaced: and the interceptor role would be taken by medium-range missiles fired from the air-defence frigates build for the job.

Sanguinetti also explains that the Foch and Clemenceau were just too small to both attack and defend themselves. The Crusaders were not only too little in numbers to be any useful against Soviet bombers raiding the carriers; they also ate too much of their carriers capacities.

Three comments:

a) in Red Storm Rising, the french Crusaders kills a handful of Backfires, but the Foch is sunk, and the Nimitz crippled.

b) Clemenceau and Foch were much like Essex or even CVL in size: in the USN, it was the Midways and Forrestals and Nimitz that were in the frontline and carrying Phantoms and Tomcats.

C) unlike today - were the French Navy only has the old Cassard and a couple of newer ships, in the 60's there were indeed air defence frigates aplenty http://www.netmarine.net/bat/ee/duchayla/index.htm
The T-47 and T-53 was a big class of destroyers... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_53_class_destroyer
Interestingly, a quartet of T-47 were rebuild with Tartar missiles in 1965, the year the Crusader entered service...
 
Archibald said:
A long time ago at the whatif modeler board I toyed with the idea of making the F1-M53 a kind of earlier Rafale - replacing (altogether) the Crusader and Etendard, the Jaguar, Mirage III, Mirage V, Jaguar. Of course the Mirage 2000 and Super Etendard never existed.

The idea was to clear the way for the Mirage 4000 in the 80's.

http://myparalelworld.populus.org/rub/2

Then I discovered this book: the memory of Admiral Sanguinetti. He was a major supporter of French carriers in the 70's; yet he clearly disliked the idea of a naval Mirage F1...

S'agissant des deux avions français, il n'a jamais été possible, pour des raisons de vitesse lente à l'appontage, d'adapter à l'emploi sur le pont un avion conçu pour se poser à grande vitesse sur une piste terrestre ; et cela élimine et cela élimine d'office le Mirage F1, avion d'assaut médiocre, au demeurant, parce que construit pour autre chose
Click to expand...

"about the french aircrafts [Jaguar M and Mirage F1M] - the adaptation of fast-landing, land-based aircraft to the low speeds of a carrier landing was never consider viable; and that by itself eliminated the naval F1, which by the way made a very bad attack machine, since it had been build for an entirely different mission in the first place"
Click to expand...

Thanks for the interesting post.

I'm wondering how accurate some of the opinion is, however.

The Mirage F1 was certainly not a "bad attack machine".
It could carry more, further, and faster than the F-8 Crusader and Super Etendard. I cannot imagine a naval F1 losing that much of it's advantage.
It has been used with success in combat in the land attack and naval strike/anti warship roles.

On the point of fast landing, there are some interesting points out there.

The Mirage F1 had a new non-delta wing for the very reason of doing something about the Mirage III's high approach and landing speeds. With the more advanced wing, equipped with leading edge slats and double-slot flaps, it improved on the Mirage III in this regard by a whopping 25%.

The Super Etendard had an approach speed of 126knots.
The F8 Crusader had an approach speed of 133, which the new wing on the French models got down to about 120 - 125 knots, or about the same as the Super Etendard.

I'm not sure of the Mirage F1's approach speed, but it's landing speed is 124 knots. Bear in mind that a bigger wing was to be fitted to the naval Mirage F1M, so I'm not convinced speed was a problem at all with the Mirage F1.

If somebody has the Mirage F1's approach speed, it would be helpful.
 
I'm wondering how accurate some of the opinion is, however
Click to expand...

Well, Sanguinetti was
major général de la Marine en 1972, et vice-amiral d’escadre en 1974
Click to expand...

I'm unable to translate that in English, sorry, but it was rather high-ranking, for sure.
What is also sure is that, if Sanguinetti didn't wanted a Mirage F1 on the French carriers, well, there was probably little chance it was ever adopted...
I think another issue is that the multirole F1s come much later; probably with the Iraqis and South Africa, in the late 70's. As of 71-74 the F1 was an interceptor uber alles.
 
Archibald said:
I'm wondering how accurate some of the opinion is, however
Click to expand...

Well, Sanguinetti was
major général de la Marine en 1972, et vice-amiral d’escadre en 1974
Click to expand...

I'm unable to translate that in English, sorry, but it was rather high-ranking, for sure.
What is also sure is that, if Sanguinetti didn't wanted a Mirage F1 on the French carriers, well, there was probably little chance it was ever adopted...
I think another issue is that the multirole F1s come much later; probably with the Iraqis and South Africa, in the late 70's. As of 71-74 the F1 was an interceptor uber alles.
Click to expand...

Thanks Archie.

I could see that he was pretty high up in the system. I was wondering aloud that sometimes even high ranking people are susceptible to outside pressure.

I would have thought that a single airframe replacing 3 would be a good thing, especially if it had great commonality with the airforce.
 
kaiserbill said:
I would have thought that a single airframe replacing 3 would be a good thing, especially if it had great commonality with the airforce.
Click to expand...
Hmmm. Inter-service rivalry is not only a USAF-USN blight...
 
Archibald said:
As of July 1973 the M53 was tested on a Caravelle, and the F1 M53 was originally only a testbed for the future ACF engine. Then, the prototype performance was good enough that the F1 M53 was pitched against the F-16 for the deal of the Century...
Click to expand...
It would be interesting to know, say from the Greek Air Force perspective (as they operate both Mirage F1 & F-16's), as to how the F1 performs against the F-16 in air-to-air dissimulated combat?? Didn't a Greek Air Force F1 shot down a Turkish Air Force F-16 that long ago? But this Greek/Turkish comparison would have to take into consider rules of engagement and pilot skills!

Regards
Pioneer
 
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kaiserbill said:
The Mirage F1 was certainly not a "bad attack machine".
It could carry more, further, and faster than the F-8 Crusader and Super Etendard.
I cannot imagine a naval F1 losing that much of it's advantage.

It has been used with success in combat in the land attack and naval strike/anti warship roles
Click to expand...
I can see the benefits of operability advantages of a single platform replacing the three!
I for one have never been a fan of the Etendard or Super Etendard, as I have always seen it as a limited design in over-all capability (weapons load) and general performance (especially range vs payload for a carrier-based design!). I personally think the French Navy would have been better served by a variant of the Douglas (McDonnell Douglas) A-4 Skyhawk proposed, rather than the 'nationalistic' push for retention (and hence) of the Super Etendard!! I It's my opinion that the French Navy got far less capability for their bucks due to 'buy French' attitude :-[
The one major advantage I could see in the a carrier-based Mirage F1 derivative, would have been that of the Matra Super 530 long-range AAM, which would have gone a long way in improving the otherwise poor fleet defence capability of the French carriers (a capability neither Crusader or Super Etendard gave or offered)!
Did the proposed carrier-based Mirage F1 have a folding-wing arrangement?

Regards
Pioneer
 
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Not sure if it had a folding wing, Pioneer.

I think it did have larger wing, so perhaps they would have take the opportunity to give it one?
Looking the pictures on the first page, it doesn't look like it.
Still, it has a smaller span than the Rafale by over 2 meters, which doesn't have a folding wing.

I'll see what I can find.
 
Hi all

I have just completed my new F-1 M53 line art. There is very few "meh" quality pictures to work from so had to go mostly with the description of what the plane would have looked like and worked from there.

First up is the vanilla F-1 M53

MirageF-1-M53.png


From there I went with the buts that the Mirage F-1CT/R picked up in it's life.

The added attack suite

MirageF-1-M53withattacksuite.png


And the recon suite
MirageF-1-M53Recon.png


Still to do is the naval variant which I will use the attack suited profile to do. Hope you like them :)
 
Great ! May I ask, which software do you use ?
BTW, line drawings of actual projects are absolutely appropriate for the projects
section and need not to be duplicated in te artist section. That's more for colour
profiles or CGI. ;)
 
Jemiba said:
Great ! May I ask, which software do you use ?
BTW, line drawings of actual projects are absolutely appropriate for the projects
section and need not to be duplicated in te artist section. That's more for colour
profiles or CGI. ;)
Click to expand...

Hi Jemba

I use Inkscape to create the vectors and then Paint.net for the colourisation. I will be replacing the line art with completed profiles over the next few weeks :) Working on a collab over on Beyond the Sprues where I am supplying the images for an alternative history.
 
Thanks for the heads up Damian. I've always enjoyed your work you posted at the What If Modelers Forum.
 
Hello everyone. Does somebody have a 3 view drawing of Mirage F.1 prototype, and catawey of Mirage F.2.
Which magazine was launched this plane or published monographs on him

Thanks in advance
 

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Recommended reading is "Mirage F1" by Michel Liebert and Sébastien Buyck,
Éditions Lela Presse. Two volumes, the first one dealing with development and
variants, the second one mainly with the service history. Not quite cheap, but
a good source about this aircraft.
 

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ivran said:
Hello everyone. Does somebody have a 3 view drawing of Mirage F.1 prototype, and catawey of Mirage F.2.
Which magazine was launched this plane or published monographs on him

Thanks in advance
Click to expand...


Nice photo Ivran,


I have a drawing to early Mirage F.1 design,from a Russian book,but hard to find now.
 
Made a quick search and, well, seems not that easy, the usual sources all saying "not
available in the moment". So you may have to look for the second hand market, sorry.
 
ivran said:
where I ceb buy this book
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Hi Ivran,


I will search about that book in my files,I have more than 150 Russian books,
 
Thanks in advance, I'm trying to get a book from a friend, it is desirable'm my collection, I have very little of the original book on the French aircraft, particularly appeals to me Mirage G, G4, G8 and mirage F2,
 

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