In 1970, , which was already a traditional aircraft manufacturer, embarked on the journey to develop 4th generation fighters. From this work, two planes emerged: the Dassault Mirage 2000, a light fighter that continues to fly today, and the Dassault Mirage 4000, which despite having excellent performance, ended up not being successful.
Also called the Super Mirage 4000, the enormous Delta was designed to comfortably act as a long-range interceptor or fighter-bomber, similar in size, weight and performance to the Russian Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker and the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle of the United States. United. The 2000 and 4000 were developed in parallel, with the former being funded by the French government and the 4000 being funded by Avions Marcel Dassault-Breguet Aviation.
The manufacturer used knowledge gained from the Mirage F2 project (cancelled in the previous decade) to develop the M4000. In general , the Super Mirage was like a larger Mirage 2000, even using the same engine, the SNECMA M53 P-2, but powered by two of these turbojets. In fact, the engines were one of the very few contributions from the French government to the project, authorizing Dassault to use M53s from Mirage 2000 program stocks.
Its first flight took place on March 10, 1979, one day before the Mirage 2000's first flight turned one year old. Right away, the prototype, under the command of test pilot Jean-Marie Saget, reached supersonic speeds; five flights later, the heavy fighter sured Mach 2 (twice the speed of sound).
To cover the greater consumption of the two engines, the 4000 carried three times more fuel than its 'smaller brother'. It also had canards and used carbon fiber and boron in its construction, reducing weight and improving the aircraft's performance. Thus, even though it was much larger than the Mirage 2000, the Mirage 4000 still maintained good maneuverability, characteristic of this family of French fighters.
In of armaments, the large delta had 11 hard points and capacity for eight tons of various weapons, including short and medium range air-to-air missiles, conventional or guided bombs, rockets, air-to-ground missiles and others, as well as tanks. underwings and the traditional 30 mm DEFA cannons.
The Mirage 2000 competed with lighter fighter aircraft, such as the F-16 Fighting Falcon, and was the natural replacement for the Mirage III, being quickly adopted by the French Air Force. The Mirage 4000, however, did not attract attention from its own government and Dassault focused its efforts on exports. Even so, only two countries showed interest in the project: Saudi Arabia and Iran, which began negotiations to purchase the aircraft, but did not move forward.
The Saudi Kingdom ended up acquiring two aircraft: the pan-European Panavia Tornado and the North American F-15, two models that are still operated by the country. Iran, in turn, experienced the Islamic Revolution of 1979, which made it cut off friendly relations with Europe and the USA, the effects of which are still seen today.
Without customers, the Mirage 4000 project ended up being cancelled. The aircraft continued to fly as a testing and technology demonstration platform, including being used in the development of the ACX project, which gave rise to the Dassault Rafale, currently a sales success for the French company. During its “career”, the Mirage 4000 performed more than 360 flights. The only prototype built is preserved at the Air and Space Museum, in Paris.
