Re-engining Mirage 2000?

[Lascaris]

How practical would be a Kfir style conversion of the Mirage 2000 to use instead of the M53 engine an PW F100 engine as powerplant?

For the obvious issues to address F100 would have somewhat different dimensions (about 9 cm higher inlet diameter and 21 cm less length), would need quite a bit of an increase to airflow and is about 200 kg heavier. But by the same token it would be offering a 23% increase in dry thrust, 36% on afterburner and lower fuel consumption if it could be mated successfully with the Mirage airframe...

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

It would have been a lot harder to differentiate from the F-16 with the same engine.


I'd look at twin RB-199s instead. Was actually considered (as Mirage 3000).

 

[Retrofit]

Is there more information available on this Mirage 3000 powered by two RB-199?
Thanks in advance.

 

[Archibald]

Better to put a Rafale engine (can't remember the name) and sold that as a low-end to, well, the Rafale.

 

[Lascaris]

I would think that Mirage 3000 would require rather more drastic changes to the airframe than replacing the single M-53 with an engine of roughly similar size all things considered? And compared to F-16 I suspect that a delta with the same engine may well be superior in performance.

 

[Apophenia]

Better to put a Rafale engine (can't remember the name) and sold that as a low-end to, well, the Rafale.

Do you mean better to put in two M88-2 engines rather than twin RB-199s? If so, although reheat output is about the same, the diameter is quite a bit bigger for the M88.

 

[GTX]

Breathing new life into this as i have heard rumours of the ROCAF looking at re-engining their Mirage 2000s. I find it difficult to believe though.

 

[Archibald]

Breathing new life into this as i have heard rumours of the ROCAF looking at re-engining their Mirage 2000s. I find it difficult to believe though.

Me too (and balance ton porc !) Perhaps with a M88 ? much, much smaller and lighter than M53 but also a tad less powerful, Although it could eventually get to 9000 kgp+ That was the M88-3 but seems to have died 15 years ago.

 

[TomcatViP]

F-414.

 

[kaiserd]

F-414.

My recollection is that Taiwan’s M200’s have had reliability/ availability issues for a number of years. Any one have info if that is specifically tied to it’s engine or not?
If it’s not seems even less likely any re-engining is on the horizon

 

[norseman]

There was an approx 25,000lb+ (wet) thrust M-88 variant talked about back in the late 90's for this very scenario. Was a slightly beefier version designed to sit in the Mirage 2000's engine bay but a lot lighter. This was an official project with some engineering done behind the scenes though how far it got I am not sure. There was also a degree of research done in applying M-88 technology to the M53 as well but again it all went a bit dark and was probably dropped though it looks like there will be a fair number of Mirage 2000's hanging around for a while yet.