Returning to the delta wing, albeit with fly-by-wire controls which eliminate many of the disadvantages associated with the configuration, Dassault has produced a worthy successor to its earlier Mirage families. Assured of a solid home market, the Mirage 2000 has also achieved significant exports in an era of falling fighter sales. uccini's 'Minii', the consumptive heroine Above: New life has been breathed into the Below: Representing Dassault's heavy/light of his opera La Bohème, had a short and Mirage 2000 by the second-generation Dash 5 fighter family, the sole Mirage 4000 poses with family, which introduces a new radar, completely the second prototype Mirage 2000. The 2000 now Punfulfilled life. Dassault's 'Mimi' ('Mini revised cockpit and the MICA missile, available undertakes all of the missions originally Mirage'), admittedly less melodious, is today the in both IR and active radar (illustrated) versions. envisaged for the larger aircraft. matriarch of a large and diverse family; its descendants are instantly recognisable as the Mirage 2000 in its various guises. However, slightly different circumstances could have consigned this aeronautical namesake to equally premature oblivion. It is as much a measure of the rapid evolution of avionics as of the Dassault company's exper- tise that the sophisticated and immensely complex warplane that is the Mirage 2000-5 was developed as a cheap alternative to a design which would have had a fraction of its potential - albeit nearly two decades earlier. The story of the Mirage 2000 is woven from many threads, one of which, perversely, originates at exactly the juncture at which the United Kingdom's TSR.2 strike aircraft met an abrupt, political ly- The crux of that muddle was that while the the fixed-geometry, Mach 3 Mirage G8A inspired end. RAF and Royal Navy wanted strike/attack strike/interdictor, which the AA nominated as In May 1965, one month after the cancella- capability, the Armée de l'Air (AA) then said it its Avion de Combat Futur (ACF) and planned tion edict, another UK government statement was looking for an interceptor, and there to fit with a pair of the new SNECMA M53 revealed the launch of a venture known as seemed no way of combining the requirements engines, then on the drawing board. AFVG: Anglo-French Variable Geometry. This in one airframe with recourse to the technolo- Procurement of 200-250 examples, redesignated interceptor and strike/attack aircraft overlapped gies available at the time. In June 1967 France Mirage F8, was envisaged, yet, before the the General Dynamics F-lllKs to which the withdrew from AFVG, releasing a joyful prototype could be completed, the dispropor- RAF committed as a TSR.2 replacement and - Dassault to proceed unencumbered with its tionate cost of the programme proved its fatally, as it transpired - posed a threat to the Mirage G (which had been rolled out the downfall: the same expenditure could have variable-geometry Mirage G which Dassault month before) and the UK, eventually, to fall in secured 500-625 Mirage Fis. was developing. As in all the best French farces, with West Germany and Italy on the aircraft Chaired by Prime Minister Valéry Giscard the British Aircraft Corporation and that became the Panavia Tornado. d'Estaiiig, a National Defence Council meeting Groupement Avions Marcel Dassault suddenly Looking like an enlarged, swing-wing of 18 December 1975 took the not-unexpected found themselves sharing the same bed as the Mirage Fl, the Mirage G was further developed step of terminating the ACF when the prototype unwitting victims of a misunderstanding. as the twin-engined G8, and from there into was almost complete. In many countries, that 97 Smce entering service in 1984 the Mirage 2000C has slowly assumed the French air defence mantle from the Mirage F1C, and has now replaced the older type in all fighter squadrons apart from one in Djibouti. It is likely that more than the currently funded 37 aircraft will be upgraded to 2000-5F standard. dynamic Marcel Dassault spoke scathingly of the F-16's performance - particularly in claiming that its fixed air intakes restricted oper- ational speed to Mach 1.7 - but had to concede that its fly-by-wire (FEW) design was a generation ahead of the Fl. In the Mirage 2000, France planned to embrace the new technology of what was then called the combat-configured vehicle (CCV) or relaxed-stability design. Target operational speed for the Mirage 2000 was Mach 2.5, somewhat higher than actually achieved. Today, 'clean' speed is claimed to be Mach 2.2 for the Mirage and 2.0+ for the F-16C. Dassault made no secret of the fact that the would have prompted a call of 'back to the a decade earlier) with some ground attack Mirage 2000 was intended to better the F-16 in drawing board', but the designated replacement potential. A deciding factor in this volte face was all aspects except range, this deficiency being a had been taking shape in the Dassault design undoubtedly the promise of 200 Delta Mirage consequence of superior US engine technology. offices for several years and was ready for 2000s at a total price of Frl5,000 million, It may seem curious that, in order to achieve its immediate adoption. compared with Frl8,000 million for a cut-down aim, the company resorted to an old configuration fleet of 100 ACFs. which it had seen fit to discard for the Simple fighter While it was possible for the single-engined second (Fl) generation of Mirages. However, Despite working on ever more complex Mirage 2000 to adopt the M53 engine from its that would be to underestimate the advantages versions of Mirage, Dassault had shown fore- stillborn predecessor, a suitable intercept- of FEW control which enables a delta configu- sight in keeping alive the concept of a simpler optimised radar presented more of a problem. ration to accentuate the positive while going fighter. Patriotic fervour may have been the Thomson-CSF, the natural source, had no some way towards eliminating the negative driving force, but a cynical observer might development programme under way in late features inherent in this shape. point to the ACF's virtually non-existent export 1975 and estimated that eight years would be potential. During the early 1970s, several needed to have an advanced pulse-Doppler A different delta concepts of a 'Mimi' - Mini Mirage - had been system ready for service. Dassault was more In some (admittedly mainly British) accounts, examined under the direction of Jean-Jacques sanguine regarding its own capabilities, predicting it was the potential of the record-breaking Samin and a team of engineers led by Jean-Paul that a prototype Mirage 2000 could be Fairey FD2 which persuaded Dassault to abandon Emoré and including François Dessirier, flying within 18 months and be in service by the stubby Mystère Delta (or Mirage I) in Christian Decaix and Jean-Maurice Roubertie. 1982. These dates were to slip, and although it favour of the larger, single-engined, area-ruled As the aircraft looked like the first-generation was 27 months before No. 01 took to the air, Mirage III. With the prevailing technology, the Mirage, it was alternatively known as Super this still remarkably short time indicated how delta had much to commend it at a time when Mirage III and later gained the alternative much work had been undertaken on the the driving forces behind fighter design were epithets of Delta 1000 and 2000. venture while the F8 was still supposedly the ever-increasing speed and ceiling. Benefits By December 1975, Super Mirage 2000 was priority programme. include high internal volume, low wave drag the generally accepted name for the aircraft The impetus behind the Mirage 2000 was and a simplicity of construction, reflected in which the Defence Council immediately nomi- clearly apparent from the viewpoint of nated as the ACF's successor. This appeared a December 1975. Six months earlier, four Having been deployed to Saudi Arabia for the curious move, as the F8 was optimised for NATO nations had rejected Dassault's offer of 1991 Gulf war, Mirage 2000Cs remained on penetration missions with an Aérospatiale an M53-engined Mirage Fl in favour of the station in the country as part of Operation Alysse (then) General Dynamics F-16 and rubbed salt (Southern Watch), suspended in December 1998 ASMP stand-off nuclear weapon and had after the US/UK Desert Fox air raids. This EC 3/2 secondary interception roles, whereas the 2000 into the wound by making their announcement aircraft ('4', seen over Iraq) was the first to be was seen as an interceptor (what the AA wanted during the Paris air show. The ageing but still delivered to the Armée de l'Air. Throughout the fighter world the Mirage 2000 is renowned for its excellent handling, making aerobatics a joy to those pilots lucky enough to fly the 'Mimi'. Low-speed manoeuvrability is on a par with the F-16 and MiG-29. reduced costs. In part, this is because a tailless delta has fewer control surfaces than the more conventionally shaped aircraft and does not need the additional structural strength required to carry a horizontal tail. Furthermore - though few bothered about it at the time - the delta exhibits lower radar reflectivity at many angles. In short, it can fly fast in a straight line and carry a reasonable volume of internal fuel. On the opposite side of the balance sheet, a low aspect ratio reduces the sustained turning rate, while having the aircraft's centre of gravity ahead of its aerodynamic centre means that the rear-mounted élevons have to work hard to produce any effect.