Mirage F in 1960?

[Lascaris]

Someone might say that this actually was the Breguet Br.1120 but that has the major problem of not being built by Dassault. So say that Dassault manages to buy out Breguet a dozen years early at the time of Louis Breguet's death in 1955. Along come the peliminary designs for what became 1120, at a time the Mirage III as we know it is not quite around yet. Dassault can recognise a good idea when he sees it and along with the OTL delta winged variants, also test flies a variant that mates the Mirage III fuselage with the 1120s wing. In testing it proves just as fast as the delta but superior in other aspects, besides being suitable both for carrier and land based versions. And thus Mirage F enters service in 1960 with French air force and navy and Israel originally. More versions follow as better engines and electronics come available potentially all the way into the 1980s...

Thoughts?

 

[Archibald]

Intriguing idea.

If you ever wonder, I am the very one who noted the astoninshing ressemblance between the Br.1120 and the F1, back in 2006.

I created this website 14 years ago. http://myparalelworld.populus.org/rub/3

I also created this picture (attached). The Breguet profile come from Jean Cuny "Les avions de combat français" "les avions breguets" old books from the 80's. I put it along a Mirage F1 to highlight how they looked similar.

I fact I single-handedly got the Breguet Br.1120 out of oblivion and into the Internet.
Because the book was so old, and because it was written in French, noboy remembered that obscure Breguet project. In fact even Jean Cuny has few details in the two books bar basic weight and dimensions.

Fun times. 2006.

 

[Archibald]

Let the madness begin !

Note that if you take "1120" and tweak the numbers a little, the result is "1210". Breguet Br.1210
From there - Breguet 121 > ECAT > Jaguar.
In Cuny's book, the Breguet 121 starts as 1210, they just dropped the last zero later.

The name Jaguar is similar in french and english language.

Well, so is "Cyclone" (typhoon, hurricane...)

So instead of OTL
- Breguet 1210 ECAT supersonic trainer, 1965 > Jaguar
...
-Breguet 1120 JNSF - Joint Naval Supersonic Fighter, 1960 > Cyclone

An aircraft that should be able to fly out Clemenceaus and Hermes and Audacious class carriers.

Very much an anglo-french F-11F-1 Super Tiger.

 

[Lascaris]

Let the madness begin !

...
-Breguet 1120 JNSF - Joint Naval Supersonic Fighter, 1960 > Cyclone

An aircraft that should be able to fly out Clemenceaus and Hermes and Audacious class carriers.

Very much an anglo-french F-11F-1 Super Tiger.

I doubt the British would be willing to buy but the interesting question is whether it can fly off the Colossus class ships as well, at least the modernized ones. If the answer is yes you've just got a viable fighter for them... well till the end of the century really. On the other hand we have here a fighter that is performing even better than Mirage III competing against F-104G. Of course politics and bribes will be playing their role here... but by the same token if you look at it in the somewhat longer term, you do not have Mirage 5 and Mirage F1 here they are just upgrades to the original Mirage F... by 1974 if everything else has remained unchanged the Belgians are being offered a much improved version of the aircraft they already have in service.

The other question is what happens to Mirage IV TTL. If similar to Mirage III it is switched to a non delta wing as well, you've just invented and put into service Mirage ACF 15 years early...

 

[uk 75]

The main problem with this nice idea is the timing. In 1960 NATO including France is beset by the craze for VSTOL. Countries with Hunters and Thunderflashes are looking for a VSTOL superjet (P1154) to replace them.
France has quite a lot on its plate with Mirages for the AdA and Etendards for the MN. Crusaders as well.
The F100 Super Sabre replacement (eventually Jags and Mir IIIs) is expected to be VTOL.
Germany and Italy are already operating rough field G91s (rather then Breguet Talons) and again looking to replace them with a VSTOL.
As for the UK the answer is P1154 or Phantom or something weird on a drawing board with vg and vstol.
Right plane possibly, wrong time definitely.

 

[Archibald]

So say that Dassault manages to buy out Breguet a dozen years early at the time of Louis Breguet's death in 1955.

An intriguing idea, really !

Dassault eating Breguet would be coherent with their policy of "neutering" potential competitors. Although they were far more worried by the big public companies, the SNCA-SO, SNCA-SE, SNCA-N.

Louis Breguet died of a heart attack on May 4, 1955. At this point in history, the LWF program had already started, it produced both Breguet TAON and Dassault Etendard... and Mirage I & II, which were useful to pioneer the delta but also pretty bad - shitty weak engines made them underpowered.

Maybe Dassault taking over Breguet and preliminary TAON studies could get the Etendard prevails over the Mirage.

That is: low-mounted, swept wing rather than delta.

Note that the end result wouldn't be like the 1120 and F1, which had the wing above the fuselage and the tail below.
The Etendards are inverse: low wing, control surfaces high, attached to the vertical fin.

The end result might very well be a (fun) mix of Mirage F1, Super Etendard, and Breguet 1120...

Imagine a Super Etendard / Etendard IV with
- pointy nose
- afterburner
- triangular shock cones in the air intakes (as per the Mirage)

There is no reason an Etendard couldn't go supersonic with the correct intakes and an afterburner.

Fundamentally, the year 1957
- the SMB-2
- the Etendard IV
- the Mirage III-01

Had the exact same fuselage, with an Atar 101 inside. They just differed by the intake / wing / control surface combinations.
- Nose intake & swept wings
- Side intakes & swept wing
- Side intakes and delta

The ultimate SMB-2 derivative (called the SMB-4, how imaginative) got the Mirage III afterburning Atar 9 and hit Mach 1.4 without issues.
No reason an extremely similar Etendard IV - only differing by the side mounted intakes - couldn't go supersonic.

Dassault aircraft were like legos, really. It is possible to link together all the combat jets - from Ouragan to Rafale, Etendard included. I should do that, someday.

 

[zen]

Etendard is one of those curious beasts that could have been so much more in evolution than it was.
At least one early version has two small engines....well not small in diameter but certainly short and light.
But a theoretical scaled up twin Atar Etendard development, gets close to being a French Phantom.
As is, Etendard was supersonic at altitude in the clean condition. Though I suspect it took too much time and fuel to get there.

The right engine would deliver reheat and a much more practical supersonic machine.
Something like the Bristol BE.33 or AS P.151 seem ideal and even the Gyron Junior, had it worked out better, would suffice.
Then again an Avon powered Etendard did fly and was seriously looked at by India.
But something like the RB.106 Thames or RB.168 Spey would radically enhance the design.
Or of course the J79, which did so much for the Israeli Kfir.

So as with other French aircraft, it seems the key problem is the engine.

 

[Archibald]

It is a very, very tortured story.
To try and make it less a headache...
Both Breguet TAON and Dassault Etendard chased two customers
- Armée de l'Air, LWF
- NATO, LWF
and yet they ended competing for a third (!)
- the French Navy.

To complicate matters further... all three had different engines (!)
- Armée de l'Air, LWF : Turbomeca Gabizo
- NATO, LWF : Bristol Orpheus
- the French Navy: Atar 8 (give or take)

At the end of the day
- Armée de l'Air LWF went by the window, because Mirage III + force de frappe eating the budget
- NATO LWF went by the window, because FIAT G-91
And so the Navy picked up the pieces.
It wasn't the end of the story, however, because unlike the other two, to be honest the Atar 8 was not mandatory, not at the beginning.

So there were a whole bunch of Etendard IV prototypes with all kind of different engines and other goodies, until the design froze around the Etendard IV-M.

Then again an Avon powered Etendard did fly and was seriously looked at by India.

Yeees ! Forgot this one ! And there was another one with some kind of BLC not unlike Buccaneer.

Phew !

 

[Archibald]

Considering all the mutated and enlarged Mirage the basic " III " sprouted, the Etendard fuselage certainly could have done the same.

The low mounted wing however, was a PITA to hang big bombs and missiles, not enough ground clearance. The Super Etendard was pretty bad for that. Nothing could go on the centerline, because the undercarriage was all over the place.
Exocet or ASMP had to go on a wing pylon, balanced by a drop tank because the aircraft either would not have enough power to drag TWO missiles... or not enough fuel to go anywhere.
In the case of the ASMP, they even had to throw one of the DEFA gun away.

 

[H_K]

Avon Etendard (with reheat) would be a dream come true... a French Super Tiger.

A much more likely what-if than the Br 1120. The lack of clearance for ventral stores wasn’t a deal-breaker IMHO, as the asymmetric underwing weapons carriage worked well in practice.

 

[Archibald]

And don't forget, while the IV-M and SE were attack planes, before them Etendard II / IV / VI were LWF competing with the Fiat G-91. Give them the correct air intakes and an afterburner, and they can go supersonic.

 

[Archibald]

In a sense, we identified two ways of creating a Mirage F1 a decade earlier

- get Breguet build their 1120.

The only way is to make it a "proto-Jaguar", British collaboration, but on a naval supersonic fighter. Call that the Breguet 112 Cyclone.

- have Dassault give the Etendard IV-M a Mirage treatment to get supersonic.

I even created a name for it: Etenrage - half ETENdard, half miRAGE.

"Il est en rage" means "He is angry". So better not to mess with it. ROTFL.

Lame pun, runs for cover !

More seriously: ETAGE, which mean "stage".

Or ETRANGE : strange. Goes well with Mirage, and the"N" is for naval.

MIRAR ? means "to look" in spanish.

 

[H_K]

@Archibald How about... Mystere... Mirage... Magic??

For an all singing and dancing naval light strike fighter and interceptor that would seem quite appropriate. ;-)

 

[Archibald]

Magic was the french Sidewinder AAM...

 

[zen]

So what is the scenario were the UK jumps onboard the Br.1120?

One might be as a CTOL backup for NMBR.3 ?
This be a low cost and slow effort, but once the political decision is to award Dassault and HSA joint winner status. Then this other effort might get an enormous boost as a compromise solution between the states. Dassault will rage, but it only gets worse when the RN and MN see it as their best bet. RAF will drag it's heels being stuck in the mindset that VTOL is necessary. But even if HSA still go forward, the compromises the RAF will have to make. Undermine that sort of thinking. Ultimately leading to the P1154 being cancelled.
Meanwhile Br.1120 with ? as UK partner have moved forward and present a solution.

 

[Archibald]

Well let's be clear, my reading of Tony Butler remind me that British specs circa 1960 for naval fighters were overambitious and complicated (can't remember the numbers, unfortunately). Lots of lift jets, VSTOL, VG wings, advanced avionics, long range missiles and loiter time... you know, the Vickers VG 580 series.

Shazam: https://aviationsmilitaires.net/v3/kb/aircraft/show/1602/vickers-583

OR.346 & AW.406

And yet, they also briefly considered things like Short Crusader, then the P.1154, and finally got Phantoms.

The Breguet Br.1120 is nothing like this. So that's the big roadblock.

By contrast the French don't really care, they just want something supersonic since the Etendard IV-M is not, and barely good enough for strike. So Phantom or Crusader, they don't care about specific loiter time, two-seat, long range radar / missile, or VG / VSTOL.

This will come later, with the DAFNE specs. And even later, with the Crusader replacement - Mirage G or naval F1 in the late 60's.

At the end of the day, TBH the requirement for a 1960 naval fighter doesn't really match, unlike the ECAT ones for a supersonic trainer-attack plane.

The French got Crusaders, the British wanted an early Tomcat and took Pantoms.

 

[Archibald]

Someone might say that this actually was the Breguet Br.1120 but that has the major problem of not being built by Dassault. So say that Dassault manages to buy out Breguet a dozen years early at the time of Louis Breguet's death in 1955. Along come the peliminary designs for what became 1120, at a time the Mirage III as we know it is not quite around yet. Dassault can recognise a good idea when he sees it and along with the OTL delta winged variants, also test flies a variant that mates the Mirage III fuselage with the 1120s wing. In testing it proves just as fast as the delta but superior in other aspects, besides being suitable both for carrier and land based versions. And thus Mirage F enters service in 1960 with French air force and navy and Israel originally. More versions follow as better engines and electronics come available potentially all the way into the 1980s...

Thoughts?

Back to the O.P
(blame the forum software than send me back to square one)

How to get a swept wing Mirage in 1957 rather than 1967 ?
- a) tweak the SMB-2 or SMB-4 (with side intakes)
- b) tweak the Etendard IV (with "mices" and afterburning Atar)
- c) Eat Breguet and "steal" their 1120 design

There is a fourth way... it seems the Mirage F1 body & fuselage, circa 1967, narrowly derived from the Mirage V (the simplified Mirage IIIE with no radar and pointy nose) - with different wings of course.

Now if that recipe was applied in 1956... we would get either

- d) Mirage III-01 body, with Etendard or SMB-2 low swept wings and tail.
- e) Mirage III-01 body, with high swept wing and low tail
(a F1 before the F1 without Breguet being involved, or robbed...)