The era of the cold war brought special memories in the design of defense equipment, such as bombers and fighter jets that carried a variable sweep wing design. Apart from names that stick to your heart, such as the F-14 Tomcat, Panavia Tornado, MiG-23/27 Flogger and the B-1B Lancer and Tu-160 Blackjack bombers, it seems that Dassault Aviation from France has also launched a fighter jet with a swing-wing design.
What is meant is the Mirage G, even though production did not continue, however, the Mirage G has actually gone through the stages of successful first flight testing up to Mach 2.2 speeds.
From its history, in 1964, the French Ministry of Defense requested a program to develop swing-wing aircraft for dual use, namely operating on land and aircraft carriers.
Then Dassault Aviation received an order for a prototype, powered by a single Pratt & Whitney/Snecma TF-306 turbofan engine in October 1965. And Dassault's first swing-wing aircraft was labeled the Mirage G, a single-engine, two-seat fighter jet. tandem seats). The first Mirage G prototype made its first successful flight on November 18, 1967.
If you look closely, the Mirage G is actually a swing-wing version of the Mirage F2 fighter. The wing on the Mirage G can be swept 22 degrees full forward, and 70 degrees fully rear and is equipped with a full span dual slot trailing wing and a dual position leading edge wing.
The Mirage G's flight trials have been relatively successful, but unfortunately there are no production orders. Due to a lack of orders, the Mirage G program was eventually canceled in 1968. However, Mirage G flights continued on January 13, 1971, when the lone Mirage G prototype was lost in an accident.
Remembering when the world was infatuated with the threat of nuclear war. Dassault Aviation designed not only one prototype (Mirage G). Dassault is in fact developing twin-engine Mirage G4 and G8 variants as multi-role fighters capable of carrying out interception and nuclear attack missions.
Although Dassault built and flew all prototypes, the entire program was discontinued in the 1970s without a single aircraft entering production.
- Mirage G4
Developed from the Mirage G to the twin-engine, two-seat nuclear attack fighter, the Mirage G4 after a separate contract was issued in 1968 to build two aircraft. The aircraft is powered by a Snecma M53 turbofan engine. While the aircraft was being built, requirements changed and the French military requested that the aircraft design be changed to a dedicated interceptor, and the Mirage G8 was born.
- Mirage G8
The Mirage G4 was redesigned to become the G8 and remained a two-seater (first flight 8 May 1971) with the second aircraft, G4-02 becoming the single-seat version, G8-02 (first flight 13 July 1972).
The G8 variant adopts a 2× Snecma Atar 9K50 afterburning turbojet engine and is equipped with a Thomson-CSF radar, as well as an altitude navigation system used in the Specat Jaguar. Because no funding was included for the Mirage G8 in the 1971-1976 French defense budget, the aircraft did not enter production.
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