Dassault Mirage III variant
Dassault Mirage III Mirage IIIC
First production version of the Mirage III, an all-weather interceptor. Fuselage longer than the IIIA (14.73 m) with Cyrano I bis gun-ranging radar and Atar 9B-3 turbojet, able to carry a SEPR auxiliary rocket if the cannon were removed. First flew on 9 October 1960; deliveries to the Armée de l'Air began in July 1961 and the first squadron was declared operational in January 1962. 95 units were built for France, plus significant export series (IIICJ for Israel, IIICZ for South Africa).
- October 9, 1960
- First flight
- 95
- Units built
History
The Mirage IIIC is the version that brought into operational service the formula validated by the IIIA pre-production series: a fuselage lengthened to 14.73 metres to house the Thomson-CSF Cyrano I bis gun-ranging radar and the SNECMA Atar 9B-3 turbojet, with provision for a SEPR auxiliary rocket in the rear fuselage if the cannon were removed. It first flew on 9 October 1960 and deliveries to the Armée de l'Air began in July 1961, with the first fighter squadron declared operational in January 1962. According to the record held by the Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace — which preserves an example of the type, ordered in 95 units in 1960 as the chosen successor over the SE 212 Durandal and the SO 9050 Trident — the Mirage IIIC equipped French fighter squadrons from 1961 and remained frontline until the arrival of the Mirage F1 in 1974, with detachments operating in Djibouti until 1988.
The IIIC's initial armament was limited to two 30 mm DEFA 552 cannon with 125 rounds each — six or seven seconds of continuous fire — extendable with a Matra R530 medium-range air-to-air missile (later also the Nord AA.20 or Matra R.511), AIM-9B Sidewinder short-range missiles, an AS-30L air-to-surface missile, 400 kg bombs, two JL100 rocket pods with 18 68 mm SNEB rockets each, or a tactical nuclear bomb — of US origin by default, since the French nuclear arsenal was not yet developed. Two additional underwing hardpoints were added over time. The aircraft also suffered teething problems, in particular a fragile undercarriage that led to several temporary fleet groundings; of the 95 aircraft delivered to the Armée de l'Air, 55 were lost or written off in accidents over some 25 years of service.
The IIIC was also the family's great initial export success: 70-72 units as the Mirage IIICJ for the Israeli Air Force — delivered between 1962 and 1964, some later resold to Argentina in 1982-83 — and 16 units as the Mirage IIICZ for South Africa, delivered between December 1962 and March 1964. The Israeli IIICJ fought in the 1967 Six-Day War, a campaign that gave the Mirage III enormous international publicity and paved the way for the whole family's later export orders.