Vought Mirage G for the first VFAX, 1968

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Archibald

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As said in the tin.
OTL it happened that way
1-F-111B (canned 1967-68)
2-VFAX the first (1968 only)
3-VFX-1 (= Gruman 303 = F-14A) 1969
4-VFX-2 (= F-14B)
5-VFAX reborn (1973)
6-NACF
7-F-18 Hornet

Between 1968 and 1971 the USN wanted an all Tomcat force but USMC first, then SecDef David Packard, strongly disagree. Despite fierce USN resistance, by 1973 VFAX had returned.

The tipping point seems to have been 1971. This was the moment (FY70) when Packard cut the number of Tomcats to be procured from 722 to 313 (multiple crossed sources at Google books, including Congressional Hearings).

So: the dream of a 100% Tomcat force seems to have lasted three years, 1968-71.

Now, the 1968 VFAX was to replace the Phantoms and SLUFF without AWG-9 / Phoenix: only AIM-7 Sparrow.

And there, enters Vought. Who was familiar with the French Aéronavale since 1938 and the V-156F dive bombers, followed by loads of Corsairs, then Crusaders in 1963.

IOTL Vought had to follow VFX-1 and the end result were the V-505 / 507, the later a Tomcat-Mirage startling hybrid.

There were multiple cooperation opportunities between Vought and France in the late 1960's

- the Crusader deal
- a 1969 agreement to re-wing the same Crusaders (Aerospatiale or Dassault, can't remember)
- The Vought - Dassault agreements of 1968, related to V-507
- a proposal to get three Mirage G into a Harrier-like international squadron at Patuxent river (July 1969)
- the 1972 proposal by the same Vought to build A-7Es for the Aéronavale with Aerospatiale

I can see a small opportunity for a VFAX - Vought - Dassault - Aerospatiale - Aéronavale to get through. The Aéronavale certainly loved the Mirage G, which provided Phantom capabilities to Foch & Clems better than any naval F-1 or Crusader or... Phantom, as considered in '62 before buying the Crouzes.

Your thoughts ? Do you think a Vought Mirage G could sneak into the USN as a VFAX low end to the Tomcat ? and then the Aéronavale would buy 100, 71, or 42 of them ?
 
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I think it's unlikely for the straight G to sneak into the USN, but not impossible. The Aeronavale would likely only get 42 of them - one to one replacement for the Crusaders, and enough numbers for two squadrons with being unable to fit more without the plane replacing the Etendard fleet.

As I said in the last thread this came up in, the really spicy option is for whatever plane that comes out of this to fill the interceptor role the Mirage F1 did IOTL.
 
Don't count on the Armée de l'Air here - the Mirage F1 & Jaguar ate their whole budget from 1968 to 1973, when they both IOC in the spring of that year. The same year the first oil shock played havoc with every single future military budgets...

And then there is Jaguar M, that pig of an aircraft. The S.E sprung from there, in January 1973 (much like the contemporary Space Shuttle, on it was a GO, Super Etendard could not be canned).

The Aéronavale would have to do it alone, and as you noted the Mirage G is a more expensive beast than Super Etendard; although Jaguar as a whole was so expensive -M included - it could make the G look cheap in comparison. The Mirage G could fill both roles, however, so once the Jaguar M is toast (the fall of 1971: engine bay cracks during testing on Foch) it wouldn't be too hard adding A2G to the Mirage G.

Crucially, with such a small french order (a paltry 42 airframes) a massive VFAX order from the USN is mandatory to drop unit cost. Think of all those Phantoms and SLUFFs needing a successor by 1969 (and better than OTL controversial F-18)...

The ace in the sleeve here is the TF306E / Mirage G / integration, which was much much better than any F-111 (not too hard) and still better than the murderous F-14A with all the stalls... seems SNECMA and Dassault did a much better job than GD / Grumman / Pratt there.

That's one of the key reason the Americans were so excited by the Mirage G in 1968, at the juncture between the doomed F-111B and the Grumman 303...

Compared to the F-111 miseries, the Mirage G looked like a goddamn miracle. A pity Vought and Dassault could not pull out a F-18 and screw both GD and Grumman... just like MDD screwed Northrop, Vought, GD and countless others with the F-18 "Pentagon paradox" Hornet

Btw, did the Hornet really looked so bad, compared to both Phantoms and SLUFFs before it ? I know its range suffered compared to the A-7...
 
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I wonder whether Mirage intakes make more sense to a TF30 than squared / rectangular ones, F-111 / Tomcat style.
Could the rounded intakes with the moving spikes (souris = mice) help in any way, those awful compressor stalls that plagued the Tomcat until the very end, in 2006 ? Also the F-111 and that loosy "triple plow" business ?

Or was it just a coincidence, or better job by SNECMA than Pratt ?

Note that the french took a lesson in JTF10 compressor stalls right from day one, in 1964: with the Mirage III-T. This was a Mirage IIIE with the "rump" and engine bay much enlarged for the Pratt turbofan. The area rule essentially vanished, for a start: and then the intakes, while vastly enlarged compared to plain old Atar, were still not enough. Only a quick glance show that a even the earlier JTF10 was already a tight fit, and the TF30 would be even worse. Atar was merely 85 cm in diameter when the US turbofan was 125 cm or more - more than 1 ft of difference.

miii-t13.jpg

The Mirage III-T had severe issues with compressor stalls, much like the F-111 and Tomcat later. Dassault and the CEV in Istres struggled with all kind of different intakes, I think they even went with some kind of rubber edges that could be swapped at will, rather than aluminum or steel that had to forged again and again. At some point however the stalls just shut down the JTF10 and forced test pilot Jean Coureau into a rather hair-raising glided landing.

Most of the time the compressor stalls made a tremendous noise that was, in a very typical french military tradition, found to be similar to the firing of a 1897 Canon de 75, of WWI and Verdun fame...

So I wonder whether the Mirage III-T severe issues kind of "vaccinated" SNECMA and Dassault against the TF30 ramping plague... hence the F2, G, and III-V thatlater flew with the TF30 engine escaped the issue, unlike the F-111 and Tomcat for the next four decades (1966-2006).

This is just a personal hypothesis, I have no clue whether it make any historical or technical sense.
 
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The Mirage G is frankly a lot better fit to the post STOVL (1965) RAF and FAA for MRI Strike than the heavily modified supersonic trainer.....
A tripartite arrangement for this could change a lot.
 
Archibald said:
I wonder whether Mirage intakes make more sense to a TF30 than squared / rectangular ones, F-111 / Tomcat style.
Could the rounded intakes with the moving spikes (souris = mice) help in any way, those awful compressor stalls that plagued the Tomcat until the very end, in 2006 ? Also the F-111 and that loosy "triple plow" business ?
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The intake issues on the F-111 were mostly about positioning - the airflow to the intakes wasn't great because of where they were placed.

As for the Tomcat, no, rounded air intakes won't help. The problems with the TF30 fit on the Tomcat were about a. the engine not being designed for the amount of throttle control the Tomcat's high-speed maneuverability imposed and b. the tendency to shed turbine blades. The latter probably was one of the things SNECMA fixed that Pratt took longer to.
 
Thank you. Pretty rare to see SNECMA teaching even a small lesson to Pratt and other US jet engine companies. It usually worked the other way around (case in point: the story of the CFM56). Nowadays it has gotten much better, but back in the 1950's / 1960's, outside the Atar SNECMA mostly sucked. To Marcel Dassault utter despair at times...
 
Another thought.
While obviously a massive German order would help, wouldn't it be more likely to gain an Italian order or licensing?
 
Been reading again that awesome book Fighters over the fleet by Friedman. He has exquisite details about that first VFAX, 1963-1967.
From this : Mirage G came too late and only had one engine.

So I red again Liébert-Buyck Mirage F1 book, which details Mirage G... and AFVG stories.

And then it dawned on me.

AFVG makes a far more logical VFAX than the Mirage G.

I'll try to put AFVG and VFAX requirements side by side. Should be fun.
 
AFVG could have solved a range of problems if Dassault and BAC had taken a more Concordelike approach and combined their VG ideas into a single multi role aircraft.
The US had nothing like it apart from the larger F111 and the bizarre AVS with W Germany.
 
Demise of AFVG 29/6/67 is the most destructive Aero-industrial event in W Europe of modern times.

Pace the Anglo narrative, it was not (all) Marcel D's fault. Nor was it the low-volume Naval need after RN left 22/2/66: F-8E(FN)+SuE served admirably. What became M.2000+Tornado could have been melded under political impetus, so I hold both sets of Defence Ministers culpable for the duplication of effort that seems doomed to continue at 6G.

We tried again 4/9/98 as European Aerosystems Ltd: 50% ea, BAe./Dassault {1/99: FOAS Definition}. That, too, lapsed 6/05.

It's unacceptable to blame pride/intransigence of either party: Ministers were doing 100% of the paying, so could call the pipers' tune.

When T260 was being merged with RB172, to be Jaguar's Adour the 2 design teams could not agree the % carve-up that Ministers deemed to be in the interest of their taxpaying publics: industry believed itself entitled to a say in this. Wrong. I watched the UK Ministers' trusted Scientific Civil Service advisor take a red crayon to the cutaway drawing and carve it to (his interpretation of) the desired %ages.
He, not a money man, understood respective technical strengths - say reheat, so both Ministers rested content that this carve-up was
In the Best Interests of the Joint Project.

RRTM went on to do more. So did other Special Purpose Vehicles - to be MBDA, Euromissile, Eurocopter...as Teams grew mutual respect.
Just contemplate an AH where AFVGAeroSystems added MBB when AVS died in 1968, (the Italian entity) when VAK191B died.
 
alertken said:
Demise of AFVG 29/6/67 is the most destructive Aero-industrial event in W Europe of modern times.
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Though it pains me, I think I can agree there.
AFVG with Anglo-French avionics fit offers potential for IDS mission set earlier than MRCA Tornado.

Bristol/SNECMA M.45 Mars offers potential alternative for Supersonic Trainer in a single engine, marine GT replaces Orpheus, turboprop for Transports etc....

Anglo-French ADV option (AI.24 not foxhunter and Super R530 developments) provides a clear European independent track for the Fighter missions.
France gets it's long sought after Heavy Fighter.
The UK gets ADV BARCAP earlier.

The two plough the AEWACS effort together....

Frankly this ties into Tripartite relationship. Potential for a broad sweep of systems in Anglo-French cooperation, with Dutch input....

UK FMICW seeker technology inserted on Super R530......

SAM R530 to SAM.72 and GAST.1210......

ADEN/DEFA 30mm successor....

Within this gamut of technologies lie the potential for greater future developments.

Lets Dassault toy with Spey F1.....

AdA gets ALARM.....maybe?
RAF gets ASAMP.

Successor leaves open the door for the CVF and FAA to return....
 
alertken said:
He, not a money man, understood respective technical strengths - say reheat, so both Ministers rested content that this carve-up was
Click to expand...
Apparently SNECMA actually made more money from its reheat section contract than Turbomeca made from its share of the engine. RRTM got off to a rocky start but worked well.
Breguet and BAC worked well together too - Ziegler knew Edwards and other BAC bods from his time running Air France (he'd brought Viscounts from Vickers and Comets from DH - albeit more strained given the Comet woes after he placed the order).

Under the Anglo-French Memorandum of Understanding there were to be four joint companies set up to insulate the manufacturer's from government interference:
SEPECAT - for Jaguar airframe, Breguet and BAC as 50/50 shareholders, founded under French company laws, contracts administered by DTCA.
RRTM - for Jaguar engine, Rolls-Royce and Turbomeca as 50/50 shareholders (note not the same as the actual workshare), founded under UK company laws, contracts administered by MoA.
??? - for AFVG airframe, BAC and Dassault as 50/50 shareholders, founded under UK company laws, contracts administered by MoA.
??? - for AFVG engine, SNECMA and Bristol Siddeley as 50/50 shareholders, founded under French company laws, contracts administered by DTCA.

The AFVG joint companies were never founded, there wasn't time before it went belly-up.
There was no set reason why the workshare had to be a straight 50/50 split, the joint companies were 'shells' really, small capital, no permanent staff of their own etc., they were just a way to combine the partners and look after the project's back from the government, air force and industry interference.

But saying that, I don't find it just coincidental that Dassault - who knew of BAC's desire to build a VG aircraft and had its own plans in that sphere - chafed at deferring its wing know-how and with the knowledge that the company (lets call it BACDAS) would be held to British company laws and have its contracts issued by the British MoA where it had no political influence. Dassault didn't want want insulating from government - they needed a direct hook-up into the ministerial veins.


I suspect for AFVG to work, it would have to be SEPEAFVG with Dassault lead and BAC somehow getting the workshare for the wings while leaving Dassault to apportion chunks of the airframe to itself and having SNECMA lead on the engine instead.
 
For the record (Liébert - Buyck Mirage F1 book) Mirage G started as early as 1964, so even before the AFVG deal of May 17, 1965 (same one as Jaguar and all the helicopters too).
The reason why Dassault managed to create the Mirage G very quickly, yet cheap enough and with a lot of success - is that the fixed-way Mirage F2 showed the way: it was used as a template.
I long had doubts that the Mirage G had been created as a straight "F2 + VG" and Liébert Buyck confirms that (second paragraph)

Capture d'écran 2024-01-24 094131.png

Mirage G was first and foremost an experimental type. Its specified performances were expressly tailored for a direct comparison with the Mirage F2. This is the reason why the Mirage G overal geometry was tightly aligned on the F2.
 
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Assuming everything works out with airframe and engine, we come to avionics. Are the Americans going to be content to take a French fit, which also ties them to French AAMs etc? My bet is no, they're going to want their own radars, fire control systems and missiles; and this, my friends, is where the costs start to rise.
 
pathology_doc said:
Assuming everything works out with airframe and engine, we come to avionics. Are the Americans going to be content to take a French fit, which also ties them to French AAMs etc? My bet is no, they're going to want their own radars, fire control systems and missiles; and this, my friends, is where the costs start to rise.
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Not sure they wanted production aircraft. According to Liébert & Buyck F1 book, it was just three planes for a P.1127-Kestrel like squadron at Patuxent. They wanted the planes as a successful package of a) TF30 b) VG and c) air intakes. Something the F-111 was failing at, plus it may help the coming Tomcat. The proposal was made in summer 1969, so a bit less than a year after this paper.
 
Archibald said:
Not sure they wanted production aircraft. According to Liébert & Buyck F1 book, it was just three planes for a P.1127-Kestrel like squadron at Patuxent. They wanted the planes as a successful package of a) TF30 b) VG and c) air intakes. Something the F-111 was failing at, plus it may help the coming Tomcat. The proposal was made in summer 1969, so a bit less than a year after this paper.
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OK, well that definitely changes things. All you need then is all the instruments relabelled.
 

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