Dassault Mirage III Mirage IIIV

The origin of the Mirage IIIV goes back to the Mirage Balzac V, a concept demonstrator built from the airframe of the first Mirage III-001 to prove the feasibility of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) on a supersonic combat platform. The Balzac carried a main Bristol Siddeley Orpheus BOr.3 turbojet plus eight Rolls-Royce RB108 lift engines, arranged in two rows on either side of the fuselage. It made its first conventional flight on 12 October 1962 and its first complete transition (vertical takeoff, horizontal flight and vertical landing) on 18 March 1963, but the programme claimed two fatal accidents, one in 1964 and another in 1965, which cost the aircraft and its pilots.

In parallel, Dassault developed a larger, higher-performance version under the designation Mirage IIIV, with a main SNECMA TF104B turbojet (later the TF106, a development version of the TF306) and eight Rolls-Royce RB162 lift engines, of greater thrust than the Balzac's RB108. Two prototypes were built. The first flew in conventional mode on 12 February 1965 and completed its first vertical-to-horizontal transition on 12 March 1966. The second prototype, with a more powerful main engine, reached Mach 2.04 in level flight on 29 September 1966, a historic mark for a vertical-takeoff-capable aircraft that would not be beaten for years.

The Mirage IIIV programme, however, shared the Balzac's unfortunate fate: the first prototype was lost in an accident on 28 November 1966, and the second, despite its speed record, was also lost in an accident on 28 November 1966 according to some sources, or on a nearby date according to others in the captured material. Faced with the loss of both aircraft, the programme's high cost and doubts over the operational viability of the eight-dedicated-lift-engine concept — which severely penalised the aircraft's payload and range in its conventional mode — Dassault and the French government cancelled development without reaching series production. The Mirage IIIV is documented in the material as an experimental dead end with no direct operational descendants, though it contributed to European knowledge of VTOL aerodynamics of the period.