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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 1624.PDF
436 FLIGHT International, 5 September 1%] The Mirage cockpit in LMT's compact trailer-mounted simulator, seen through the spider's web pattern of the transparent track-plotting board The start of a high-power climb, which can take the Mirage to the tropopause and beyond Mach I in little more than a minute LES CIGOGNES DE DIJON equipment. Although the designers must originally have worked in an aeronautical straitjacket dictated by the very small nose contours of the machine, they have made something of a break through in functional miniaturization in fitting all the appropriate indicators into so small a space, without creating turmoil or allowing various groups of lights and switches to beome illegible. This "compression factor" is typical of the aircraft as a whole, which carries a great variety of weapons at very high performance within a surprisingly small airframe volume. The same thinking has been applied to the wide assortment of special ground-support equipment used by the wing. Everything seems to be mounted in neat; small wheeled frames which can be easily manhandled on the flight line and appear to occupy very little space. The whole wing, including its workshops, servicing and administrative organization is in fact mobile, and can be moved quite rapidly to follow a tactical situation. In this respect, the 2e Escadre looked more like the traditional mobile organization of a£2nd ATAF wing than the fixed emplacement typical of a home-based RAF intercepter unit. Seen in such a framework, and remembering the proven grass- field capability of the aircraft, the Mirage IIIC becomes indeed a most potent weapon, and one of which Dassault and France may be justly proud. MARK LAMBERT The famous pale blue Cigogne emblem decorates the fins of the otnerwse unpainted Mirages, perpetuating the famous World War I fighter unit Mirage IIICs of the Cigognes and of its sister squadron, the Alsace, lined up on the ramp'at Dijon Longvic air base ..•-»w -...iy.-i^f :•••••'••...
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