- Yes
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Mirage 50FC
History:
The Mirage 50 is the successor to the well-known Mirage 5 but was not its replacement. This aircraft had the more powerful and better performing Snecma Atar 9K-50 engine than the Atar 9C, the Mirage 50 owes its name to this more powerful engine. Only a total of 24 units were produced or modified, with Chile and Venezuela being the only customers. Chile was the first customer to buy this new model with a total of 16 aircraft in different versions (50C, 50FC, 50DC) but we will only focus on the Mirage 50FC (French-Chilean) variant.
Due to tensions with Argentina Chile decided to incorporate new fighters in response to the new Argentine Dagger fighters purchased from Israel, so in 1980 Chile received 8 Mirage 50FC (Chilean French) receiving the serials 500 to 507, later, at the end of 1981, the Mirage 50FC 500 series would be re-registered as 508. Although the history of these fighters begins much earlier, linking them with Israel, since originally these fighters were Mirage 5J that had been ordered by Israel in 1966, but due to the outbreak of the conflict in the Middle East, France would end up embargoing them and in this way Israel would create its own variant, the Nesher. The Mirage 5Js were stockpiled and in 1973 they were put into service in the French Air Force by powering them with the Atar 9C-7 engine and renamed Mirage 5F, then France would repower them with the new Atar 9K-50 engine and sell them to Chile as Mirage 50FC.
As mentioned before, the new Mirage 50 carried the more powerful Atar 9K-50 engine that provided 5000 kg of normal thrust and 7200 kg of thrust with the afterburner being well above the 4300 kg and 6200 kg of thrust respectively provided by the Atar 9C this being the main improvement from the Mirage 50 to the Mirage 5, other technical improvements to the Mirage 50 were 15% to 20% improvement in take-off run, an additional 1,900 pounds of take-off weight (approximately 900 kg), an additional 140 km of range and a 35% improvement in mount time.
At the level of armament in Chile, the Mirage 50FC was armed with nationally produced bombs manufactured by Cardoen Industries that specialized in devastating cluster bombs as well as general purpose bombs of different weights and sizes, at the level of air-to-air missiles they once again relied on the Israeli Shafrir II missiles that had been in the inventory of the FACH since 1977, they also had SNEB rockets.
Aesthetically the Mirage 50FC was practically identical to the French Mirage 5F although the cockpit differed in some aspects, there are not many photos of the Mirage 50FC cockpit but here I share one. Later its paint scheme was changed a few times so it could be differentiated more easily in addition to having the Chilean national emblems and written on the painting “Mirage 50FC”.
Finally the Mirage 50FC along with the other versions of the Mirage 50 would be put under the Chilean modernization program called Pantera and renamed Mirage 50CN Pantera, but that is another story.
Specifications:
- Crew:
- 1
- Armament:
- Primary: 2x 30mm DEFA 552A internal cannons
- Secondary: hardpoint mountings 7 support 4,000 kg:
- Bombs: Cardoen GP Bombs (Mk 81, 82, 83, 84), Cardoen Cluster Bombs (CB-130, CB-500), Snake-eye bombs
- Rockets: 68mm SNEB rocket pods
- Missiles: 2x Shafrir 2
- Dimensions:
- Lenght: 15.5 m
- Wingspan: 8.22 m
- Height: 4.50 m
- Empty weight: 7,150 kg
- Weight maximum take-off: 13,700 kg
- Performance:
- Powerplant: Atar 9K-50 that provides 5,000 kg Normal thrust, 7,200 kg. thrust at full power
- Maximum speed: 2350 km/h
- Service Ceiling: 18000 m
- Range: 4000 km
- Rate of climb: 186 m/s
CARDOEN GP BOMBS (general purpose)
CARDOEN CLUSTER BOMBS
Photos:
Sources:
- Amazon.com
- Amazon.com
- El Mirage 50 Pantera en la Fuerza Aérea de Chile
- 10 años del último vuelo oficial del Mirage Pantera de la Fuerza Aérea de Chile
- Chile, Industrias Cardoen, Uso Militar y Civil | PDF
- Janes Air-Launched Weapons 1997
- Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft 1987-88