SHAHAK! The Mirage III Was The Most Successful Supersonic Fighter Of The Cold War 

A little bit later than usual this week as I got carried away on this one. A labour of love that I hope you enjoy. If so, please consider subscribing as it helps me climb up the algorithm. Thanks so much for your continued support!

“The ballast offered greater detection range and overall reliability” absolutely savage

My Dad who was a pilot in IAF and flew the Mirage told me all about the Cyrano radar (BTW Cyrano is named after Cyrano de Bergerac, a 17th Century French dramatist known for his big nose). He said it was an ingenious piece of French Engineering that never worked. When one of his fellow pilots was taken captive in the 1973 Yom Kippur war in Syria, he was concerned about what secrets the Syrian interrogators might coerce out of him. And you can imagine his relief when throughout his captivity period he was relentlessly interrogated about the Cyrano.

I am a Canadian and I remember the Mirage III on the TV series Les Chevaliers du ciel (The Knights of the sky) that impressed all the French canadian boys of my generation. The TV series was Top Gun a long time before the movie. I was always in admiration as the airplane is so good looking so I kept sketching it everywhere.

Would love to see a video on the Kfir. The finale to the Mirage 3/5 saga that improved a lot of its shortcomings.

Your production is in a rare league. The depth of investigation and historical research is most appreciated. Your viewers might appreciate a follow- up on Giora Epstien as much as I would. Likely, not to be 'bested', ever in Air to Air combat.

The day a Frenchman find a way to walk on water, expect that about a million of Brits will explain everyone that it is only because he can't swim.

One slight point you missed, the french navy , air force an army participated in the Korean conflict , in a limited fashion being involved in the indo china wars . The French participation is reflected in the formation of a battalion composed solely of volunteers, the French Battalion of the UN (BF/ONU). 1,034 volunteers landed in Pusan in November 1950. Three battalions followed from November 1950 to November 1953, the date of the withdrawal of French troops from Korea.

I known the channel is about air to air combat (it's in the name after all) but I'd love to see a video on the technology that enabled aircraft to turn into truly multirole fighters. You always hear in interviews from the 80s with pilots of the F-18 about how all they had to do was "flip a switch" to go from air to air to air to ground (lots of "to's" in that sentence!). It obviously took serious technological advancements to make that possible but I haven't ever seen that topic covered on any aviation channel. And since you've done a great job covering the history of aviation tech (the advancement of the Sidewinder comes to mind) I figured I'd ask. Keep up the great videos; I watch them on my lunch breaks on Fridays and it's a great herald of the weekend!

Brings back memories of watching "The Aeronauts" as a kid on British TV 🙂

Any chance of a MiG-23 video? It’s a desperately misunderstood fighter by most and has a combat record most are surprisingly unaware of, in addition to just being cool a hell

The Swiss Mirage IIIS were the only ones with Hughes Taran Radar and Sparrow Missiles. Plus the installations to drop nuclear bombs, but as the swiss nuclear program was shelved never used.

You really are top drawer. It is SO appreciated that your photos, video, and graphs EXACTLY match the narration at the time.

The Atar engine was basically developed by german engineers suborned by the French after WW2, but they were well compensated for their efforts compared to their former colleagues in the USSR. It is interesting that the French managed to retain the service of former german turbine engineers but lost the tank engine expertise back to Daimler Benz in the 50s due to the Leopard tank

I got to fight against Kfirs. They were very cool looking and similar in performance to the F-5. Another outstanding video. Thank you.

i've rewatched your recent cold war era videos more than once. just love them. thank you and keep up the great work

Excellent video, well researched and wonderfully narrated. Thank you !

The automated gunsight story is really interesting; supposedly Dassault tried the same thing with the Rafale, and despite that aircraft being so much more modern they *still* couldn't quite get it to work.

Think about it, 15 years after WW2, we have this plane, its just so amazing.

Another superb video from you!. Enjoyed it a lot. Congratulations

Just some clarification if I may: 00:57: "although France was not involved in the Korean war ..." this is not true. Indeed the Korean war was an intervention under a UN mandate so that about 20 countries were involved, not only the US although they were obviously the most numerous. France sent a Battalion in Korea (about 1000 men initially, named "Bataillon de Corée") integrated in the 2nd US Infantry Division. This unit fought in the Korean war from November 1950 till the end, participating in all the main battles from Wonju to the Twin Tunnels battle, , Chipyong-ni and Crèvecœur (Battle of Heartbreak Ridge). They had 270 KIA and 1350 wounded. They left UN forces on October 23rd, 1953 and they embarked in Incheon for ... Indochina. The ease with which the Americans can forget their allies still surprises me! I have a counterexample: In 1942 it was decided to send a French unit to ... the Soviet Union to fight the Germans. As France was not in a strong position at the time, to say the least, they sent volunteer pilots to establish a French squadron fighting over the Eastern Front. This was enthusiastically accepted by the USSR and eventually a squadron was created, named GC3 Normandie (GC stands for Groupe de Chasse = Fighter Group or so). They were flying Yak-1 fighters intially and Yak-3 later on. They flew more than 5000 war missions and they ended the war being the 2nd most efficient and decorated squadron within all Soviet forces. After the battle of the Niemen in November 1944, they were awarded the honor to bear the name "Niemen". From then the squadron was named "Normandie-Niemen". The last reward they got was to fly back to France with "their" aircrafts as a present not to mention that 3 pilots who survived the war were awarded "Heroes of the Soviet Union" ... Pretty amazing, isn't it? In Russia, to this day, the history of this squadron is more famous than in France itself: it is described as one of the "striking facts of WWII", in books and TV, many museums are dedicated to this squadron and several schools bear its name. Russian people still bring flowers to the graves of the pilots who are buried in Moscow. In comparison to the forgotten 1000 soldiers of the French Battalion in Korea ... I mean, I'm just saying ... For information in case somebody is interested: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-wBJgS5mKy4g.html&ab_channel=ILoveDocs ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-E68HtWvyeN4.html&ab_channel=RusVitulina The Normandie-Niemen squadron still exists: they are located in South-West France and fly the Rafale. For the record, they flew, among others, the F6F-5 Hellcat in Indochina, the SO-4050 Vautour (a twin-engine bomber) in the 60's, the Mirage F1C (C meaning fighter) and now the Rafale but ... they never flew the Mirage III. 10:30: the Mirage IV was not designed for multi-role missions but as a nuclear "strategic" bomber, the only strategic bomber France ever had btw. It was replaced in its nuclear mission by the ballistic missiles and from then it became a strategic reconnaissance aircraft until it was decommissioned but it has never been designed or used for ground support missions. Regards

Another outstanding documentary on modern aviation. Keep it up.

I just realized that the Cyrano radar was probably named after Cyrano de Bergerac who suffered from a large nose ;)

Another great Friday video! This channel is flying into the upper echelon of aviation channels.

Such a beautiful aircraft, the French took the delta to a fine art. Nice work. Your channel has been rapidly elevated to a top tier production.

Love the video! Very professionally produced. Be advised though that the audiovolume seems a bit jumpy?

I absolutely love your presentations, and really appreciate the work you put in to these. And I also really appreciate how you just get right in to the topic. There isn't 7 minutes of commercial reads, sponsor or social media plugs, giveaways, etc that I have to scrub through just to get to the actual video. The only thing I'd have to say needs an improvement would be with your audio. More specifically your voice over. You need either, or a combination of a different microphone, or just perhaps some different settings in the audio mix/balance in post. Not sure what you use for editing, but I'm pretty sure that most of the big editing suites like Premiere have options for balancing volume. The issue is that some of your enunciations peak out louder, and some dip so low that it's difficult to tell what you're saying sometimes. It's not really an issue on headphones, or if my volume is really loud, but on normal or lower volume, it's an issue that rears it's head quite often. Maybe someone more knowledgeable than I can give you better information on this, but I'm almost certain that there's some kind of balancing or regulating option in your editor of choice. A quick toggle on would probably do the trick. That one issue of audio balance aside, there's no one better making content like this. Even the Dark Docs guy with all his sub counts and big budget. So much of his information is either wrong, or just really surface level wikipedia stuff. Many of his reference images and video clips have nothing to do with the topic, it's just footage for the sake of having some motion to appease the lowest common denominator. Your research and presentations are just better than the vast majority of others in the field. Regardless of their sub counts, budget or funding status. Anyhow, thank you for the many hours it must take you to make these for us, and I most sincerely wish you well. ^_^

France had a small contingent fighting during the Korean War. Busy in Indochina, it was merely 3000 men.

Belle vidéo merci, il ne faut pas négliger l'extraordinaire taux de disponibilité de ce Mirage 3 pendant ces guerres! un avion fabuleux et solide sur tous les plans!

Anyone interested in the relative performance qualities of the Mirage III vs the later MiG-21 variants should read comments by former Australian fighter pilot Phil ‘Frawls’ Frawley. A former Mirage and F/A-18 pilot and instructor and once billed as ‘the world’s oldest fighter pilot’, Frawley also has extensive experience flying a late model 2 -seat MiG-21 in airshows in the 1990s. His conclusion was that the MiG-21 was a much better aircraft than western pilots believed and in good hands was a very dangerous opponent. The critical differences between the two types were largely insignificant at a technical or spec sheet level and the success of the Mirage seems to have been born of training and general competence of Mirage crews over their opponents. That said, the Mirage undoubtedly deserves more recognition in a world dominated by a lot of American ballyhoo about who builds the best aircraft.

Thanks for this video which is the most comprehensive I've seen so far about the Mirage III in English language. I have a problem though with considering the Mirage III as "deeply flawed aircraft". I don't see how an airframe with such development potential, going from Mirage IIIC to upgraded Mirage 50s or Cheetah C for the Israeli/South African branch could be seen as something deeply flawed (and being replaced only just nowadays in Pakistan). Sorry but all that lineage shows how adaptable and well designed the airframe was from the beginning. Something deeply flawed on the Mirage III was some of the equipments, radar and targeting system mainly as you pointed out. But problems were common on almost all first generation supersonic fighters of the time. It was a time of very early electronics to be used in hostile environment, and everything had to be invented and ironed out. If one as to compare the first versions of each of these "iconic" supersonic fighters, still the Mirage IIIC (which was the first version in service) did superbly well. So as much as IDF-AF did to iron out Mirage IIIC "youth problems" ( that they would have had to do with any other very new generation fighter entering service ), they were also very lucky Dassault designed such a good and adaptable airframe. One bad luck that turned good in retrospect for the Mirage was that France had poor jet engines at the time. The ATAR 9B was a weak engine compare to what the US or GB could field for their first gen bi-sonic fighters. Was a weak engine, but the same after his youth problems found (the fuel pump you mention), quite reliable because very simple. Mirage III had to rely to that boost rocket pack to be the acceptable interceptor that Fr AF wanted, and Dassault had to design an airframe that could make good of the poor ATAR 9B… Which in turn made the Mirage a very adaptable airframe, to something else than interceptor. Anyway, I sometime feel it pi**s off a lot of people that such a famous plane as the Mirage IIIC is French, to the point that the story told is usually how the Israelis almost "did" the Mirage. reading comments here confirm my feelings. For sure, they made it famous and were the first combat users (thus first to find her youth problems). If I may add, IDF-AF also used it as a fighter-bomber very successfully, many of the strikes on Egyptians airfields at the six days war start were done by Mirage IIICJ loaded with bombs. Also you mention the upgrades, at one point the engine was changed from ATAR 9B to ATAR 9C, same engine as on the Mirage 5/Nesher, with increased power and reliability. Sorry for the long post. Thanks again for this vid on a fav of mine.

An engrossing piece of longform content. The 45 minutes flew by. Very informative and brought out some things I wasn't aware of and a better focus of things I was. Two things I'd point out, that 37mm Russian cannon was a slow firing beast, and the canopy glass of the Korean era Migs was optically awful. Whether that was ever adressed; I've no idea.

Thank you, very interesting and informative.

Excellent video. An interesting coda might have been a look at Pakistan's number 5 squadron using Mirage III E in the 1971 war. The PAF must have encountered many of the same challenges with the aircraft and I have to wonder how they tackled them. In any event, from what I can tell, the PAF may have used the Mirage much more for strike missions since most of the air to air fighting I've read about involved mostly the F-86 and F-6 (on rare occasions the F104 chipped in.)

Leading distributor of parts....This was the Logo of Lockheed during the defence exhibitions back in the 80s. Thanks for the nice expression.

Cool video, thx for all info.

Yay! Love the long videos!!

Could you make a video on early air-to-air refueling?

Another great video boss

Can you do a video of either the f 14 in iranian service during the iran-iraq War or the Mirage f1 in the iraqi Air Force during the iran-iraq War?

also.... a doc about Sustained and instantaneous turn rate would be great... and dog fight tatics ( one circle, two circle, scissors etc..)

Good video. One anecdote about Mirage III, the Phanton and Danni Shapira: Danni the Israeli test pilot mentioned in the video was the 1st Israeli to test-fly the F-4 Phantom in the US (not sure which model, but it was USAF one). He was impressed by the beast, but as they climbed down the American instructor who was in the back seat asked Danni what he thought of the Phantom, and Danni without a shred of diplomacy immediately answered: "In a dogfight, I'd rather be in a Mirage"... One comments, the Mirage V (and Nesher) was not larger than the Mirage III and was heavier mostly due to extra internal fuel - it has the same fuselage, wings and engine, and all modifications were internal. By IDF/AF requests Dassault removed all the nonsense from the Mirage III and rearranged its internals to have a range-finder instead of radar, an extra fuel tank and more hardpoints for AG munitions.

Extremely unbaised and informative video. As a military aviation enthusiast, I really appreciate your hard work. just wondering, what software(s) are you using to make these amazing videos ?

Very helpful; thank you.

A very good video. Thank you. A small correction about the notion that the Mirage 3 was "colloquially known" as Shahak in Israel. The name Shahak,as all of the Hebrew code names assigned to IDF/AF aircraft of the period,was classified at the time and wasn't known to the general public. To the Israeli public,it was colloquially known simply as "Mirage". The IDF/AF assigned Hebrew code names,rather than nicknames,to its aircraft out of OPSEC considerations and these names were not meant for public consumption and remained secret for many years only to be revealed much later in the aircraft's career or only after its retirement. The code name Shahak remained classified throughout the Mirage's service career and remained so for another decade after its retirement. Shahak was revealed as the code name for the Mirage 3 in Israeli service only in the early 1990's.

France embargoed Mirage soon after the 6 day war. France then lost their best sales pitch for Mirages. A few years later Israel had the F 16 which was a Mig killer and a Mirage sales killer.

Nice bit of research so very well done there. Your sound quality is poor - I had everything turned up full to full volume but still the volume faded away from time to time. South Africa also had Mirages and they also shot down a few Migs but once the Angolans upgraded from the Mig 21 to whatever was then next, 23? the Mirage's became pretty much outclassed. Subscribed to the algorithm, lol

The J35A Draken used a lot of Mirage III avionics because the Swedish electronics industry was not ready to deliver systems until the J35B/D Swiss Mirage's did used the Hughes weapons system which the Draken also used, and to be frank two underslung AIM-26B missiles looks way better on the mirage than the single radar missile normally used.

Brilliant Video!!!!

Great video!! is there going to be a follow up on the kfir ?

Another great video, thank you! Just a small criticism: I think by the time you got to the third: "IDF/IAF" we got the idea that this is the ISRAELI Air Force you're talking about and not the INDIAN Air Force....

Who remembers the Mirage III from the comic Mick Tangy, (with his friend Rene Dupont - at least that were the names in the german comic magazine ZACK) from their youth? And as a thought of Michel Vaillant as well (with his friend Steve Warson), another french comic from ZACK, I now learned that the name was chosen in honour of Carl Benz, builder of the first automobile, whose original birth name is Karl Friedrich Michael Vaillant. I learned something new today - thanks.

The aircraft comparison sheet is a nice addition, but could you at least in these instant show the new money data values? It would make it a bit easier. Apart from that it's another jem. You are really good at story telling, an appropriate narrator for neglected era in military aviation.

🔥🔥🙌🙌👏👏🤲🙏 much greatful outstanding work

Really impressed with your work here. I only ask that you please upgrade your microphone!

Excellent video, really enjoy your work.

What have early printed circuit boards got to do with overheating?

Making the best of what you have and then making it better is my experience in supporting the Israeli defence industry in my previous line of work. Excellent deep dive and thoroughly enjoyable historical overview! Thank you for sharing your passion!! שלום

really nice- ty

45 minute of joy

France wasn't "very" involve in the Korean war because it was involve with the Indochina war at the time but it still was part of the UN corps. A few thousand french fight in Korea with several hundred KIA and a 1000 WIA.

15:17 The 20mm M39 or T160 was based on the Mauser MG 213 and was designed by Ford Motor Company and was produced by Pontiac, Ford, FMC Corporation and other, not Browning. I think you confused it with the M3 Browning.

I always thought the Kfir was an absolute beauty.

"The ballast offered better performance and reliability" 😂 good one.

Nice research but you should improve your audio BTW- keep up the great work

I really really like the camouflage pattern the guy is wearing @ 41:54 in the video.

Nicely done! It's easy to find videos that do a solid job analyzing US aircraft and, to a slightly lesser extent, Soviet aircraft and British aircraft. With French and other European countries' aircraft, it is a much tougher proposition as most of the videos simply recount the usually flawed data available on Wikipedia. So, thank you for the fantastic job researching your subject as part of a proper analysis prior to making the video!

The SAAB 35 Draken hit Mach 2 in January 1960. So a little over a year later than the Mirage 3. Still, impressive for a tiny country like Sweden. And the Draken reached Mach 2 without moveable intake cones, used by the Mirage. The mice, peeking out of their hiding holes. Les souris. I'm Swedish, so I like SAAB and the Draken. But that also makes me appreciate how brilliant the Mirage 3 was! France was not in a good shape after World War 2, so creating this was impressive!

That tail is so massive! I wonder how bright it was on radar.

Era's best light fighter found hiding as interceptor, and now back to Steve with the news.

Mirage III was fantastic in almost all aspects, the main reason it was rejected by NATO to replace the F-84 and F-86 as their new standard fighter for the European airforces (the bribes issued by Lockheed were another reason) was that its systems were impossible to integrate with standard NATO radios and weapons, making it way too expensive and time consuming to adopt the type. Israel of course didn't really have that problem as they were already using mostly French equipment, and had the reverse problem when adopting the F-4 and A-4 into their armouries, needing to set up entirely parallel systems for logistics, training, and everything else until the older French aircraft were retired fully, something they did because they were forced to by the French arms embargo rather than because they wanted to.

Top 5 aviation channel ! More on reccce flights...

The interrupter: I'M BACK!!!

Great video! Though i think youd grearly benefit from clearer audio.

Weren't f8 equipped with the colt Mk12?

What does "Not A Pound For Air To Ground" mean?

Could you do the same for the Israeli phantoms? 🤩

Speaking as someone who had the misfortune of attempting to train Arabs in modern infantry combat theory and marksmanship, I can tell you that the biggest advantage the IAF had is the fact that the opposing aircraft were flown by Arabs.

A wonderful video about Mirage III which was a legend aircraft at its time...thanks

The EE Lighting first exceeded Mach 2 on 25th November 1957 nearly a year before the the French. Not as claimed in this video.

40:22 the FL and PFM were by no means flawed. In fact, they were some of the best versions of the MiG-21 produced, and their combat record in the hands of Indian and Vietnamese pilots will attest to that. What was flawed were the K-13 IR missiles (which were too sensitive to heat and didn't work in desert environments) and Arab pilot training (no comment needed).

Such a beautiful aircraft, as well when it was released in War Thunder it was op as hell, very fun.

I think another case for superior training and gci was the Somali-Ethiopian border clashes with MiGs taking on F-5s. Although a smaller instance still a similar line events.

I'm the 29th guy to push the thumbs up button. 👍

Also the accomplishments of the French aviation industry postwar are totally under appreciated in english speaking media. They managed to match or in many cases out do the british with a lot less political fuss

Great Doc!! mig-21and chinese versions, mig-23, Su-25, F-5 and cold war planes pleaaaasssse!

Interesting fighter, RAAF were excited to fly this advanced jet moving from F86, USA F104 was too expensive n wasn’t multi role. For RAAF they did experience Mirage with been you needed full consecration especially at night n bad weather in the rain due cockpit glass design. Interesting fact the Mirage struggle cover Australia areas as it small air time even with external tanks. When F18 arrived this would suit what RAAF was looking for.

Cyrano is pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable, after Cyrano de Bergerac, who was famed for the size of his nose.

The pitot tube was heated..found out when I put my thumb over the opening.

1 mrad is 1m @1000m So 6 mrad @ 700m is a 4.2m dispersion

France significantly under quoted The Mirage when selling it to Australia, It mistakenly assumed the Australian Pound was equivalent to the British Currency.

I'm impressed with the results of your labour's,mdear,,especially in such a small scale.....almost tempted to try N gauge myself 😊

Whats up with the mic ?

One of the big advandage of the Mirage III for low level and ground attack work was his high wing loading. When you fly low and fast you constantly bump in the turbulences and that can greatly undermine the effectiveness of any low level mission. The Mirage III high wing loading combined with it's detla wing rendered it almost immune to low level turbulence and you could fly it fast and low on rails and use it's cannons and/or deliver bombs on a very stable platform.

Glad to see this, the Mirage III is my beloved.

... looks a lot like an Avro Arrow might've ...

Love the Mirage series, such elegant aircraft, but "successful" is supremely arguable. The Phantom had far more kills but probably a less favorable loss ratio. Nevertheless brilliant video I love your content. Thanks.

29:03 that was an active God to have mercy on all members involved. That was not a normal engagement. That was God, staying both sides and keeping both sides alive even though the by all rights could have been destroyed, if there had not been mercy.

I like this powerful fastest planes

Am I the only one who wondered how it stacked up against the F-102?