Launched on the personal initiative of Marcel Dassault, the Super Mirage 4000 was the last European combat aircraft financed with its manufacturer's own funds. After summarizing several years of interviews with the program's key players, Alexis Rocher takes the reader to the heart of the technological decisions that governed the design of the most powerful aircraft of its time.
Alternatively promoted as a possible successor to the Mirage IV nuclear bomber, then offered for export as a very high-performance fighter-bomber, the Super Mirage 4000 had the potential to alter the geostrategic balance of the Middle East. In this respect, it probably caused alarm. In France and elsewhere.
This book is the first ever published on this extraordinary aircraft, without which the Rafale would not be a technological and commercial success recognized worldwide today. Its author takes us through the emotions of the first flight and the presentations at trade shows and to foreign delegations, the divergent opinions at the highest levels of industry and politics, the dashed hopes for export success, and finally the discreet efforts of those who ensured its safe resting place today at the Le Bourget Air Museum.
Luxuriously illustrated with often previously unseen photos, some from the personal collections of those involved in the program, this book provides a better understanding of the French aviation landscape of the 1980s.
