Question regarding Mirage III

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Subject: Question regarding Mirage III
Aussiegunneragain 6/20/2009 12:14:30 AM

I was wondering whether anybody could clear something up that has been bothering me for a while. There are various sites on the internet that states that the Mirage III had an initial rate of climb of about 16000 feet per second. Considering that types with similar TWR's, speed etc like the Mig 21 and F-104 had initial ROC's of between 30,000 and 50,000 feet per second this seems very low, especially given the Mirage's big wing and consequent low wing loading. Can anybody confirm for me whether the internet sites are correct and if so, explain how the Mirage had such a poor climbing performance?

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Aussiegunneragain 10/19/2009 5:52:10 AM

It wasn't just the Israelis that did well with it, in 71' the Pakistani Mirage 111's wiped the floor with the Indian Mig-21's which in turn wiped the floor with the Pakistani F-104A's. IMHO its a nice demonstration of pecking order amongst those three fighters.

I think the Mig 21 was the second best fighter of the 60's, after the F-4. The reason it's record in A2A combat is so poor is because almost every time it went to war its pilots were of much lower quality. The few times they had competent pilots they did very well.

I disagree entirely. The Indian and Pakistani airforce pilots were pretty evenly matched, as evidenced by the fairly balanced kill ratios when they flew comparable types like Hunters and Gnats versus Sabres, but the Paki's got a clean sweep with the Mirage 111 versus the Mig-21. The Mig-21 had a terribly short range, a lousy view out of the cockpit, a very small radar and a mediocre turning circle at low altitude. The only things that made up for this were that it was fast and could turn at high altitude. It wasn't the worst fighter of the era but it definately wasn't the best either.

Excluding strike fighters my rating scale for the early mach 1 to 2 types would be:

Top of the Class - F-4

Pretty damn good - Mirage III, F-8, F-106, Draken, F-5A

Ok - Lightning, Mig-19, Mig-21, F-101, Su-9/11, Super Mystere

Borderline crap - F-100, F-104

Crap - F-102

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DropBear 10/19/2009 11:45:50 AM

Senty, DB has a raging anti-fetish with the Mirage 111 which is entirely based on the fact that it had a high peacetime crash rate due to engine failure in Australian service and because its radar wasn't that flash. The bit he always "forgets" is that most of the early supersonic fighters had distinctly average safety records and avionics.

A well justified hatred for that utter garbage called "the French Lady". It's accident rate in RAAF service was worse than the % of F-104's lost in Luftwaffe service.

On the otherhand, some forget that note every 104 user had bad issues either. Italy did ok considering they kept their Zippers in service longer than anyone else.

I actually don't have a problem with the Cyrano at all. Lack of an inertial system from the outset was a major blunder in retrospect.

The Miracles actual loss rate in service was above the expected loss rate for years 1964-1988, except for a brief period encompassing 1971 and then again in 1975. Just a tad worrying and I can't think of another platform since the AFC/RAAF came in to being that could claim that woeful peacetime record.

To have 34 of 116 written off with 14 fatalities does not say much for this type in RAAF service.

I am well aware how the MirageD (and others) did well in foreign service, however, I come from an Oz perspective, hence my dislike of this clunker.

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Hamilcar 10/19/2009 11:55:29 AM

The Snecma engine in the Mirage was a disgrace. The Israelis went American engine when they designed their Kfirs for a GOOD reason.

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Bluewings12 10/19/2009 2:51:36 PM

Hamilcar :

""The Snecma engine in the Mirage was a disgrace.""

Huh ??? The Snecma Atar 09C was a rather good engine . Why do you say that ?

Bear , maybe just maybe your people were not good enough ... The Oz Mirage III0 was made in assembly lines in Australia , the Snecma engine too and the maintenance was obviously done by Autralians . In fact , your probabmy fuc*ed it up in some way ...

The AdA had few problems too but nothing to be compare with Australia .

Cheers .

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Aussiegunneragain 10/19/2009 6:43:56 PM

Hamilcar :

""The Snecma engine in the Mirage was a disgrace.""

Huh ??? The Snecma Atar 09C was a rather good engine . Why do you say that ?

The AdA had few problems too but nothing to be compare with Australia .

Cheers .

I'm not sure you'd class the SNEMCA as that good an engine, the Israelis had a fair few problems with it too, but I don't think it was as terrible by the standards of the day as others here are making out.

However, you may have a point about the Australian assembly side of things. Australians were a delusional from the 1940's till the 1980's about the capacity of our small, remote economy to run a comprehensive manufacturing sector, when in fact we should have been concentrating on things we were good at such as mining, agriculture, tourism and some niche manufacturing. Consequently the manufacturing industry was protected, dominated by government owned corporations (like the Government Aircraft Factory that assembled the Mirages) and highly unionised. I certainly saw shoddy workmanship come out of government owned arms factories in the early 90's with the Steyr so its entirely possible that GAF did a shoddy job with the Mirage.

I doubt that it was a maintenance issue though as I've never heard of the RAAF being anything but very professional with maintaining its kit.

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Hamilcar 10/19/2009 7:21:33 PM

Hamilcar :

""The Snecma engine in the Mirage was a disgrace.""

Huh ??? The Snecma Atar 09C was a rather good engine . Why do you say that ?

The AdA had few problems too but nothing to be compare with Australia .

Cheers .

I doubt that it was a maintenance issue though as I've never heard of the RAAF being anything but very professional with maintaining its kit.

From the Israelii Air Force...

The History of the Shahak in the IAF:

The Mirage is undoubtedly the most famous and legendary aircraft to serve with the IAF. By the time the Mirage was in design, Israeli French relations were at a stage were Israeli pilots and engineers were taking part in it's development. The Mirage was planned as a Cold War Interceptor. The Cold War called for an interceptor that could take off like a rocket, reach the strategic nuclear bomber's altitude as soon as possible and bring it down before it could drop it's bombs. The new weapon of the 60's was the air to air guided missile, and missiles-only interceptors were the word of the day. The French Mirage took the take off like a rocket thing a little too seriously, and was fitted with a rocket pack that was fired after takeoff, as the plane razed it's nose up, and propelled the Mirage to an amazing 75,000ft in the nick of time.
But what Israel needed was an air superiority fighter, a fighter that will combat other fighters, not large unmaneuverable strategic bomber. So Ezer Weizman, (commander of the IAF 1958-66), demanded the rocket pack replaced with cannons, and the option to replace the rocket pod with a pair of 30mm cannons was added to the export versions of the Mirage. The decision to add that guns proved very right when the missiles of that generation turned out to be ineffective against highly maneuverable fighters. Only when more advanced missiles were fitted to the Mirage later on in it's service, did the number of air victories attributed to missiles supercede those attributed to guns.

70 Mirage IIICJs, 2 Mirage IIICRJ and 4 Mirage IIIBJ (combat capable two seat conversion trainers) were purchased form France, and began arriving to Israel on the 7th of April 1962. They came as a counter to the Soviet MIG-21, that entered service with Arab air forces at the time, and was also a Mach 2 capable, missile armed, radar equipped fighter interceptor. In it's early years, the Mirage suffered from problems with it's engine, guns and radar, some of which were never solved. In it's first years of service 6 Mira

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sentinel28a 10/19/2009 7:35:33 PM

This sentence is telling in that article (thanks for posting it, BTW):

These problems with the Mirage did not stop it from gaining more air victories than any other IAF plane.

Every aircraft has problems, and one might notice that upgraded Mirage IIIs remain in service while most of its contemporaries are gone. The early Atars did have a problem with despooling (which I would think also was partly due to the wings blanking out the tail at high AoA), but this was fixed in the later Atar types used on the Mirage 5 and F.1. The radar was probably garbage, but that was a problem not limited to only the Mirage III; many late 1950s-era aircraft suffered from crappy radars. The fact remains that the Mirage has an enviable combat record in Israeli and Pakistani service, and if it did poorly for Argentina, that was the fault of its user--fighting at extreme range with poorly-maintained aircraft and rear-aspect only missiles, with Sea Harriers armed with AIM-9Ls operating from basically home waters.

As far as loss rates, I would be interested to know how much of that was due to aircraft problems or how much was due to pilot error or misuse. I do not agree that Australian pilots suck, which is what BW is implying, but such losses are inevitable, especially in making a jump to a new aircraft--I may be wrong, but wasn't the RAAF transitioning from the F-86 into the Mirage? The Germans had similiar problems making the leap from the F-86 and F-84 to the F-104. The Danes had absolutely ludicrous loss rates with their F-100s. Again, not necessarily the fault of the aircraft, since the F-104 turned out to be a good aircraft, and the Hun was pretty decent too.

The MiG-21 was deadly in the hands of a good pilot, and if it was used correctly--as a point-defense interceptor. Nguyen Van Coc did pretty well with it, but he also made sure that he had all the cards before making his attacks. To my knowledge, he was never drawn into a fight with F-105s or F-4s, but made hit-and-run attacks. Of course, getting shot down your first time out by Olds' Wolfpack probably engendered a healthy respect for American fighter pilots...

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south2 10/20/2009 4:37:38 AM

one of the problems with the Mirage, associated with the propensity of the engine to fail was the PFL.

I think it was something like glide @ 280kts, raise the nose to slow down @ 240kts (gear extension limiting speed), and then glide. Something like 15000ft overhead the runway and 8-10000ft at Low key. Begin the 2 stage flare at ~1000ft to arrest an astronomical rate of descent.

Something told to bograts at 2OCU. "dont be overhead the base at 15000ft otherwise you'll have to attempt a PFL" or alternatively "there is no problem getting trimmed in a glide in the mirage. Throw out a housebrick and follow it down."

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usajoe1 10/20/2009 4:49:18 AM

Top of the Class - F-4

Agree 100%

Pretty damn good - Mirage III, F-8, F-106, ~~Draken~~, F-5, Mig-21

The Draken never proved itself in combat, and the Mig 21 was better than ok.

Ok - Lightning, Mig-19, ~~Mig-21~~, F-101, Su-9/11, Super Mystere, Draken

Borderline crap - F-100, F-104

Crap - F-102

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sentinel28a 10/20/2009 2:29:23 PM

The F-106 never proved itself in combat either. Let's be fair here.

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