France's Mirage 4000 is a twin-engine fighter built independently by France after leaving NATO, this fighter has a very advanced design concept, and its comprehensive strength can compete with the American F-15 fighter.
However, what is surprising is that the sales of the Mirage 4000 after its advent turned out to be very bleak, and it stands to reason that such a fighter should be on sale, why is this happening?
In the beginning, the French had great hopes for the Mirage 4000.
In 1959, Charles de Gaulle took office as the new French leader, and not long after taking office, he announced that he would withdraw from NATO and insist on the independence of a major power.
He also said that France opposes US control of Europe, and it is clear that de Gaulle's series of rhetoric is very encouraging for the French, but not for the Americans.
As the "leader" of NATO, the United States certainly hopes that all the people under its command will be obedient, but France will not be obedient and chooses to withdraw, and even threatens to establish a command structure of the United States, Britain, and France in NATO, which obviously touches on the interests of the United States.
Soon after de Gaulle withdrew from NATO, he expressed the hope that the United States would withdraw the nuclear weapons and bombers deployed in their country, and the reason why France was so bold to make this request was mainly because they built the atomic bomb in 1960.
Through de Gaulle's efforts, France officially withdrew from NATO in 1966, and the withdrawal from NATO meant that France would lose American aid in all subsequent international affairs, and it also set up the United States as an enemy for itself.
It is conceivable how much pressure France has, without the protection of the US Air Force, France can only develop its own air force, for the Air Force, fighter aircraft are the most important ** of the Air Force.
At that time, most countries were pursuing the construction of high-speed, long-range fighters, and the United States, as an aviation power, their fighters were the most in line with these two characteristics, such as F-14 and F-15.
At this time, Israel purchased a batch of American F-15 fighters from the United States, and Saudi Arabia, as Israel's opponent, naturally wanted to buy new fighters to replace its own country's old fighters.
It is best that the newly purchased fighters can counter the F-15 fighters that Israel has just purchased, and at this time, only the F-15 and other fighters of the United States on the market meet the procurement requirements of various countries.
Those countries that do not want to buy the United States ** are in an embarrassing situation, there are simply no fighters on the market that can resist the American F-15, since they can't buy it, then they can only buy the F-15 like Israel, in order to ensure that they will not be eliminated.
At this time, France saw this huge market and was bent on building a twin-engine fighter that could defeat the F-15 fighter, and France also knew that once they built this kind of fighter, it would not only be able to break the monopoly of the United States in the field of fighter aircraft, but also greatly improve France's international status.
So France began the development of this fighter, and here we have to mention a person with a strong influence in the field of aviation, that is, Marcel Dassault.
After being freed from a concentration camp as a Jew who had been exiled to a concentration camp for not working with Germany, Dassault decided to join France and contribute to French aviation.
After becoming an expert in the field of French aviation, Dassault helped France build the Mirage series of fighters including the Storm, Mystery, and delta wing layout, so that France, which was not dominant in the aviation field, gradually had the ability to build fighters independently, and to a certain extent, these fighters developed by Dassault also gave France the courage to leave NATO.
After France left NATO to prepare for the development of its own fighter that can counter the American F-15, Dassault also immediately proposed two related schemes, namely single engine and double engine two schemes, of which the single engine is the Mirage 2000, and the twin engine is the Mirage 4000.
The problem is that it is obviously difficult to carry out two projects at the same time, and it is impossible for France to give Dassault so much money at the same time, Dassault obviously also took this problem into account, so Dassault said when submitting the plan that only France needs to provide financial support for the Mirage 2000 project, while the other Mirage 4000 does not need to be supported by Dassault itself.
In fact, Dassault did not suffer from this decision, because the Mirage 2000 and the Mirage 4000 are actually very similar, and the components used are very similar.
The parts of the two sides can be used universally, France ** contributed to the Mirage 2000, in fact, it is also providing financial support for the Mirage 4000, and the Mirage 2000 and the Mirage 4000 are very likely to form a high and low match to reduce the manufacturing cost of the fighter.
However, at this time, Dassault did not expect that the future Phantom 4000 not only did not reduce the manufacturing cost, but lost the market because of the high cost.
In 1977, the Mirage 4000 was assembled, and it was not until 1978 that it finally made its public debut with the results of its first flight, and the Mirage 4000 carried the good expectations of the French, who hoped that it would be able to achieve excellent results in the market and pull the United States off the throne of the first place in the field of fighters, however, the French failed.
When the Mirage 4000 first came out, it relied on its test flight time1The flight speed of Mach 25 was famous in various countries, and later on the sixth test flight, the Mirage 4000 directly exceeded the flight speed of 2Mach 04.
Dassault also mentioned in his autobiography that "the Mirage 4000 is actually similar to the Mirage 2000, but because it uses a dual launch, which means that it has a larger payload and longer range, it will be the strongest competitor to the F-15." ”
The Mirage 4000 is indeed very powerful, it is equipped with two Defa 30mm cannons, and it can also carry short-range and medium-range air-to-air missiles, as well as some rockets.
In other words, the Mirage 4000 is a multi-purpose fighter, and the interception and combat effectiveness of this fighter can compete with the AIM-120 of the United States at that time.
Generally speaking, it is a fighter with very strong comprehensive performance, and the country that bought this fighter, not to mention being able to easily defeat the American F-15, at least will not be beaten down as soon as it enters the battlefield.
France's goal was achieved, and it did create a fighter that could compete with the American F-15 fighter, but unfortunately, this fighter did not sell well.
After showing strong performance during the test flight, France immediately launched this fighter to the world market, and the main researcher Dassault even said that the performance of the Mirage 4000 will become its biggest competitive advantage, and even directly asserted that the Mirage 4000 is the elite of modern heavy fighters, the best fighter in the world.
Dassault's very positive statement made the world full of curiosity about the Mirage 4000, but when they really began to understand the Mirage 4000, they gave up on buying it.
As early as the early days of construction, Dassault faced financial problems, although they have been trying to reduce the research cost of the Mirage 4000, but in the end it is limited, so in order to quickly recover the cost and continue to produce the Mirage 4000, in 1979 the Mirage 4000 was not long after the appearance of France let it appear on the Paris Air Show, hoping to be able to get users to buy.
In the beginning, everyone was attracted by the vigorous gimmick of France, and many countries showed strong interest in the Mirage 4000, but unfortunately it only stayed at the stage of budding interest.
For example, Iraq, after the advent of the Mirage 4000, Iraq was the first to show its willingness to buy to France, and also signed a contract with France to purchase it.
However, the plan could not keep up with the changes, and in 1980, a war broke out between Iraq and Iran, and Iraq was too busy with the war to take care of itself, with limited funds, most of the money was spent on the battlefield, and there was still extra money to buy** the expensive Mirage 4000.
As a result, in the end, Iraq did not become a customer of the French Mirage 4000.
Another example is Saudi Arabia, as mentioned earlier, the Saudi side urgently needs a fighter that can have a strike effect on the F-15, and after the Mirage 4000 comes out, they will naturally discuss cooperation with France.
Originally, in 1980, Saudi Arabia said that it was already considering purchasing the French Mirage 4000, but in the end, after comprehensive consideration, this thought was dispelled.
Why? Because it's too expensive.
French-made fighters have always pursued refinement, and the so-called refinement means that every detail must use the best materials to achieve a degree of perfection.
This means that the cost of French fighters is very high, not to mention the more superior performance of the Mirage 4000, the cost of which reached 30 million dollars, 30 million dollars a fighter is not high now, but in the eighties it was not low, after all, the price is not the same.
In the end, the cooperation between Saudi Arabia and France fell through, and Saudi Arabia also chose to buy cheaper and high-performance F-15 fighters from the United States.
Due to the high **, the sales volume of the Mirage 4000 in the international market was not high, and in the end, it could only be purchased and used by the French Air Force itself.
However, after entering the eighties, the performance ratio of the Mirage 2000 was higher than that of the Mirage 4000, and the performance gap between the Mirage 2000 and the Mirage 4000 was actually not very large, although the Mirage 4000 was superior.
But in the face of **, it is obviously better to choose the Mirage 2000, which is not so weak and **suitable, so the Mirage 4000 was abandoned by the air force of his own country.
Later, other countries successively developed fighters with better performance than the Mirage 4000, and the Mirage 4000 became a museum exhibit step by step and left the battlefield.
One might ask, it is impossible that there was no country that could not afford the Mirage 4000 at that time, right? In fact, the situation was far more complicated than what is described here, and the French Mirage 4000 was built under the guise of surpassing the American F-15.
How could the United States watch France move and do nothing, under the secret pressure of the United States, some countries that want to buy the Mirage 4000 naturally do not dare to show their desire to buy the Mirage 4000.
In general, the reason why the Phantom 4000 has strong performance but no market is mainly related to its expensive selling price, and it is true that a country does need a powerful **.
But no country is willing to spend a lot of money to buy a cost-effective **, unless the performance of this ** is really high enough to be irreplaceable.
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