The Dassault Mirage 5 is a French supersonic attack aircraft/fighter-bomber designed by Dassault Aviation during the 1960s and manufactured in France and other countries. It was derived from Dassault's popular Mirage III fighter and spawned several variants of its own, including the IAI Kfir. In the Pakistani air force, the Mirage 5 has been modified and is capable of nuclear weapons delivery.Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons Programme: An Assessment .
Design and development
Early development The Mirage 5 grew out of a request to Dassault from the Israeli Air Force. Since the weather over the Middle East is clear and sunny most of the time, the Israelis suggested removing the air intercept radar and its avionics, normally located behind the cockpit, from the standard Mirage IIIE to reduce cost and maintenance, and replacing them with more fuel storage for attack missions.Duchateau/Salvador 1990, p. 26.Jackson 1985, pp. 32–34. In September 1966, the Israelis placed an order for 50 of the new aircraft. Due to customer preference, some variants of the Mirage 5 were radar-equipped.Jackson 1985, p. 35.
Mirage 5
The first Mirage 5 flew on 19 May 1967.Jackson 1985, p. 34. It looked much like the Mirage III, except that it had a long, slender nose that extended the aircraft's length by about half a metre. A pitot tube was distinctively moved from the tip of the nose to below the nose in the majority of Mirage 5 variants. The Mirage 5 retained the IIIE's twin DEFA guns, but added two additional pylons, for a total of seven. Maximum warload was 4,000 kg (8,800 lb). Provision for the SEPR rocket engine was deleted.
Like the Mirage IIIE, the Mirage 5 was popular with export customers, with different export variants fitted with a wide range of different avionics. While the Mirage 5 had been originally oriented to the clear-weather attack role, with some avionic fits, it was refocused to the air-combat mission. As electronic systems became more compact and powerful, providing the Mirage 5 with increased capability became possible, though the rear avionics bay had been deleted; in some subvariants, the result was a "reinvented" Mirage IIIE.
Reconnaissance and two-seat versions of the Mirage 5 were sold, with the designation Mirage 5R, and Mirage 5D, respectively. The Mirage 5 was sold to Abu Dhabi, Belgium, Colombia, Egypt, Gabon, Libya, Pakistan, Peru, Venezuela, and Zaire, with the usual list of subvariant designations and variations in kit. The Belgian aircraft were fitted with mostly US avionics, and some Egyptian aircraft were fitted with the MS2 attack avionics system from the Dassault-Dornier Alpha Jet. In total, 582 Mirage 5s have been built, including 51 Israeli Neshers.
Belgian production
In 1968, the Belgian government ordered 106 Mirage 5s from Dassault. All aircraft but the first one of each variant were to be license-built by SABCA in Belgium. Component production at the SABCA Haren plant near Brussels was followed by assembly at the SABCA plant at Gosselies airfield, near Charleroi. The ATAR engines were produced by FN Moteurs at this company's Liège plant. SABCA production included three versions: Mirage 5BA for the ground-attack role, Mirage 5BR for the reconnaissance role and Mirage 5BD for training and conversion.
By the end of the 1980s, a MIRage Safety Improvement Program (MIRSIP) was agreed to by parliament, calling for 20 low-time Mirages (15 Mirage 5BAs and 5 Mirage 5BDs) to be upgraded. Initial plans included a new more powerful engine, but this idea was abandoned to limit cost. The upgrade eventually included a more modern cockpit, a new ejection seat, a laser rangefinder, and canards to improve takeoff performance and overall maneuverability. A new government canceled the MIRSIP but SABCA was allowed to carry out the update, in order to sell the aircraft on the export market. After completion, the Belgian government sold all 20 aircraft to Chile, together with 4 non-upgraded Mirage 5BRs, and one non-upgraded Mirage 5BD.
IAI Nesher Rising tensions in the Middle East led French President Charles de Gaulle to embargo the Israeli Mirage 5s on 3 June 1967. The Mirages continued to roll off the production line, though they were embargoed, and by 1968, the batch was complete and the Israelis had provided final payments. In late 1969, the Israelis, who had pilots in France testing the aircraft, requested that the aircraft be transferred to Corsica, in theory to allow them to continue flight training during the winter. The French government became suspicious when the Israelis also tried to obtain long-range fuel tanks and cancelled the move. The Israelis finally gave up trying to acquire the aircraft and accepted a refund.
Some sources claim that cooperation with France resumed outside the public's eye and Israel received 50 Mirage 5s in crates from the French Air Force, while the French took over the 50 aircraft originally intended for Israel, as Mirage 5Fs.Rabinovich, Abraham. The Boats of Cherbourg: The Secret Israeli Operation That Revolutionized Naval Warfare Seaver Books, New York Officially, Israel claimed to have built the aircraft after obtaining complete blueprints, naming them IAI Nesher and later developed it into the IAI Kfir.Cooper. Tom. Wing Magazine via acig.org, 24 September 2003. Retrieved: 6 December 2010.Baker, Nigel and Tom Cooper. Wing Magazine via acig.org, 26 September 2003. Retrieved: 6 December 2010.
Mirage 50
The development and subsequent installation of the new Atar 9K50 engine led to the next Mirage variant, the Mirage 50, during the 1970s. The uprated engine gave the Mirage 50 better takeoff and climb characteristics than its predecessors. The Mirage 50 also incorporated new avionics, such as a Cyrano IV radar system. However, despite these upgrades, it did not prove popular in export sales as the Mirage 5 itself was becoming obsolete.
Chile ordered a quantity of Mirage 50s, receiving both new production as well as updated Armée de l'Air Mirage 5s. The Chilean aircraft were later modernised along the lines of the IAI Kfir and were called the ENAER Pantera. The Pantera incorporates fixed canards and other aerodynamic improvements, as well as advanced avionics, an in-flight refuelling probe, a reinforced landing gear, and two additional harpoints under the fuselage. These aircraft have an extended nose to accommodate some of the new systems.
In the early 1990s, Dassault upgraded a batch of Venezuelan Mirage IIIEVs and 5s to Mirage 50 standards, in addition to some newly built aircraft.
Mirage 5 ROSE
In the 1990s, the PAF launched a Mid-life update (MLU) program, codenamed as Project ROSE (Retrofit Of Strike Element), to its Mirage III and Mirage 5 aircraft with modern avionics provided by French, Italian, and Pakistani companies. The PAF acquired blueprint drawings of the aircraft from France, redeveloping and redesigning it at the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex.
In the first phase of the project, former Royal Australian Air Force Mirage III fighters received a modernisation designated ROSE I. Mirage 5Fs were also bought in the late 1990s from the French Air Force. Twenty of them were upgraded with new cockpit equipments including multifunction displays and a head-up display, navigation/attack suites, defensive aids systems, encrypted radios, a radar altimeter and a forward-looking infrared (FLIR) sensor under the aircraft's nose, under the ROSE II program.
Additionally, 14 Mirage 5Fs were similarly upgraded but with newer systems, under a program designated ROSE III. The FLIR sensors enable the Mirage 5 ROSE fighters to specialise in the night-time attack role.
Operational history
Argentina Between 1978 and 1980, Israel sold a total of 35 of their Neshers plus four Nesher trainer aircraft (Nesher Ts) to Argentina, where they were locally known first as Daggers and underwent several different upgrades over time referred to as Fingers. Mirage IIIs were also bought from Israel under a similar arrangement. All were retired in December 2015.
Falklands War The Argentines lost two Mirage IIIEAs and twelve Daggers during the Falklands War in 1982. As a measure of solidarity, the Peruvians transferred 10 of their Mirage 5Ps to Argentina, under the name Mirage Mara, to help alleviate its losses. At least one of these transferred Mirage 5Ps was lost during the war, with the remaining nine upgraded after the conflict along the aforementioned Finger upgrades.
Belgium
Gulf War During the 1991 Gulf War, 18 Belgian Mirage 5s were deployed to Turkey alongside German Alpha Jets and Italian F-104s under a NATO-based operation to protect Turkey against potential Iraqi attacks.
Chile Chile incorporated some Mirage 5s under name Mirage Elkan.
Egypt
Egypt has historically used Mirage 5s, with 101 airframes according to most sources, and at least 82 continually modernized overall. They were primarily used as ground strike aircraft and were extensively modernised throughout their time with the Egyptians, and at least one was shot down by Iranian F-14As on 14 March 1986, a Mirage 5SDE. Another Mirage was damaged by an F-4 Phantom on the same day. As of 2019, there was some talk to selling old airframes to Pakistan, though this seems to have not gone through.
Gabon Gabon initially ordered three Mirage 5Gs, two Mirage 5RG Reconnaissance jets and two Mirage 5DG trainers for the Force Aerienne Gabonaise in 1975. The two reconnaissance variants were eventually cancelled and deliveries of the remainder were completed in 1978, with the Gabonese aircraft arriving in Libreville in 1980. In 1982, a follow on order for four Mirage 5G-IIs and two Mirage 5DG-IIs was placed with deliveries running until 1984, the contract also saw the eventual refurbishment of the older order Mirages. Two Mirages were lost in a mid-air collision a year after their initial delivery to the country over the capital of Libreville. These Mirages were the first fighters operated by the Gabonese Air Force, and they were flown regularly until at least the 1990s, when three Mirage 5Gs and three dual-seat trainers were still in service with the Escuadron de Chasse 1-02 "Leyou". They would be officially retired in 2006-2008 and Gabon would later acquire six ex-South African Mirage F.1s as replacements for the Mirage 5s.
Libya The Libyan Airforce sought to improve its combat capability and looked to the weapon it viewed as the winning weapon of the Six Day War, the Dassault Mirage series. France–Libya relations were positive at this time and thus they placed a rather large order for Mirage Vs in December 1969 composed of 53 Mirage 5D fighter-bombers (serials 401 to 453), 32 Mirage 5DE radar-equipped interceptors (Serials 101 to 132), 10 Mirage 5DR Reconnaissance variants (Serials 301 to 310), 15 Mirage 5DD dual-seat trainers (201 to 215) alongside other French Arms including Mirage IIIs, ground simulators and spares for 25 years. Libya was the second Arab nation (after Lebanon) and the largest Arab operator of the type. Libyan pilots were first sent to train in France in 1970 for platform-specific conversion training, but as Libya did not have enough pilots to man all acquired fighters, a portion of the crew trained were in fact Egyptians who were being trained to fight Israel with the first two batches being half Egyptian.