The Mirage Fighter Jet and Switzerland: A Historic Partnership

Switzerland's Adoption of the Mirage

The Mirage Affair

Strategic Role in Swiss Defense

Legacy and Impact

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As you probably know the SR-71 Blackbird was the fastest plane in the world, at least when we do not take rocket planed into account (otherwise the winner would be the X-15). There is a funny story about the Blackbird - coming from "Sled Driver" - a sold out book by Blackbird pilot Brian Shul. We don't really know if it's true, but it makes for a great story anyway:

SR-71 Blackbird

There were a lot of things we couldn’t do in an SR-71, but we were the fastest guys on the block and loved reminding our fellow aviators of this fact. People often asked us if, because of this fact, it was fun to fly the jet. Fun would not be the first word I would use to describe flying this plane. Intense, maybe. Even cerebral. But there was one day in our Sled experience when we would have to say that it was pure fun to be the fastest guys out there, at least for a moment. It occurred when Walt and I were flying our final training sortie. We needed 100 hours in the jet to complete our training and attain Mission Ready status. Somewhere over Colorado we had passed the century mark. We had made the turn in Arizona and the jet was performing flawlessly. My gauges were wired in the front seat and we were starting to feel pretty good about ourselves, not only because we would soon be flying real missions but because we had gained a great deal of confidence in the plane in the past ten months. Ripping across the barren deserts 80,000 feet below us, I could already see the coast of California from the Arizona border. I was, finally, after many humbling months of simulators and study, ahead of the jet. I was beginning to feel a bit sorry for Walter in the back seat. There he was, with no really good view of the incredible sights before us, tasked with monitoring four different radios. This was good practice for him for when we began flying real missions, when a priority transmission from headquarters could be vital. It had been difficult, too, for me to relinquish control of the radios, as during my entire flying career I had controlled my own transmissions. But it was part of the division of duties in this plane and I had adjusted to it. I still insisted on talking on the radio while we were on the ground, however. Walt was so good at many things, but he couldn’t match my expertise at sounding smooth on the radios, a skill that had been honed sharply with years in fighter squadrons where the slightest radio miscue was grounds for beheading. He understood that and allowed me that luxury. Just to get a sense of what Walt had to contend with, I pulled the radio toggle switches and monitored the frequencies along with him. The predominant radio chatter was from Los Angeles Center, far below us, controlling daily traffic in their sector. While they had us on their scope (albeit briefly), we were in uncontrolled airspace and normally would not talk to them unless we needed to descend into their airspace. *Continue reading below*

We listened as the shaky voice of a lone Cessna pilot asked Center for a readout of his ground speed. Center replied: “November Charlie 175, I’m showing you at ninety knots on the ground.” Now the thing to understand about Center controllers, was that whether they were talking to a rookie pilot in a Cessna, or to Air Force One, they always spoke in the exact same, calm, deep, professional, tone that made one feel important. I referred to it as the ” Houston Center voice.” I have always felt that after years of seeing documentaries on this country’s space program and listening to the calm and distinct voice of the Houston controllers, that all other controllers since then wanted to sound like that, and that they basically did. And it didn’t matter what sector of the country we would be flying in, it always seemed like the same guy was talking. Over the years that tone of voice had become somewhat of a comforting sound to pilots everywhere. Conversely, over the years, pilots always wanted to ensure that, when transmitting, they sounded like Chuck Yeager, or at least like John Wayne. Better to die than sound bad on the radios. Just moments after the Cessna’s inquiry, a Twin Beech piped up on frequency, in a rather superior tone, asking for his ground speed. “I have you at one hundred and twenty-five knots of ground speed.” Boy, I thought, the Beechcraft really must think he is dazzling his Cessna brethren. Then out of the blue, a navy F-18 pilot out of NAS Lemoore came up on frequency. You knew right away it was a Navy jock because he sounded very cool on the radios. “Center, Dusty 52 ground speed check”. Before Center could reply, I’m thinking to myself, hey, Dusty 52 has a ground speed indicator in that million-dollar cockpit, so why is he asking Center for a readout? Then I got it, ol’ Dusty here is making sure that every bug smasher from Mount Whitney to the Mojave knows what true speed is. He’s the fastest dude in the valley today, and he just wants everyone to know how much fun he is having in his new Hornet. And the reply, always with that same, calm, voice, with more distinct alliteration than emotion: “Dusty 52, Center, we have you at 620 on the ground.” And I thought to myself, is this a ripe situation, or what? As my hand instinctively reached for the mic button, I had to remind myself that Walt was in control of the radios. Still, I thought, it must be done – in mere seconds we’ll be out of the sector and the opportunity will be lost. That Hornet must die, and die now. I thought about all of our Sim training and how important it was that we developed well as a crew and knew that to jump in on the radios now would destroy the integrity of all that we had worked toward becoming. I was torn. Somewhere, 13 miles above Arizona, there was a pilot screaming inside his space helmet. Then, I heard it. The click of the mic button from the back seat. That was the very moment that I knew Walter and I had become a crew. Very professionally, and with no emotion, Walter spoke: “Los Angeles Center, Aspen 20, can you give us a ground speed check?” There was no hesitation, and the replay came as if was an everyday request. “Aspen 20, I show you at one thousand eight hundred and forty-two knots, across the ground.” I think it was the forty-two knots that I liked the best, so accurate and proud was Center to deliver that information without hesitation, and you just knew he was smiling. But the precise point at which I knew that Walt and I were going to be really good friends for a long time was when he keyed the mic once again to say, in his most fighter-pilot-like voice: “Ah, Center, much thanks, we’re showing closer to nineteen hundred on the money.” For a moment Walter was a god. And we finally heard a little crack in the armor of the Houston Center voice, when L.A. came back with, “Roger that Aspen, Your equipment is probably more accurate than ours. You boys have a good one.” It all had lasted for just moments, but in that short, memorable sprint across the southwest, the Navy had been flamed, all mortal airplanes on freq were forced to bow before the King of Speed, and more importantly, Walter and I had crossed the threshold of being a crew. A fine day’s work. We never heard another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast. For just one day, it truly was fun being the fastest guys out there. 

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• Two of Lockheed Martin's biggest projects, SR-71 and U-2 Dragonlady
• The top 10 fastest aircraft in the world

• SIPRI.org

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Su-27SKM

Number 10: Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker. Its top speed of 2.35 Mach brings it to the very edge of USSR craftmanship with a twin engine and the first fly-by-wire control system on a Russian jet ever. It was built for air superiority to counter the new American 3.5 gen fighters such as the F-15 Eagle. It is armed with a 30 mm gun and 10 external pylons that can hold both Air-to-Air, heat-seeking, short and medium-range missiles. Due to all its accomplishments and popularity, it has very many different variants. Some of which are top-modern even today, 35 years after the first flight of the Flanker (1977). Some of them are:

• Sukhoi Su-30
• Sukhoi Su-33
• Sukhoi Su-34
• Sukhoi Su-35
• Sukhoi Su-37

Picture of an F-111 showing its variable sweep wing.

Number 9: General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark. Number nine on this list is not a fighter but a tactical bomber capable of flying at Mach 2.5. It had, before its retirement in 1998, 9 hardpoints and 2 weapon bays, together with being able to deliver a payload of 14,300 kg of bombs, a nuclear bomb, air-to-air missiles or a 2000 round machine gun could be fitted. However, due to the Aardvark’s role in air, it was rarely fitted with the gun. The Aardvark was the first aircraft in production with a variable sweep with the configuration which is why it was also tested for carrier-based operations, however, this was never completed (although there were some successful tries).

F-15C during Operation Noble Eagle

Number 8: McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle The F-15 has been claimed to be one of the most successful aircraft ever built and is still in service with the US Air Force. The Eagle’s twin-engine and thrust-to-weight ratio of almost 1:1 can propel the 18,000 kg aircraft to more than 2.5 times the speed of sound. It was introduced in 1976 and will continue to be a part of the air force beyond 2025. There has almost 1200 F-15s built and it has been exported to among others Japan, Saudi Arabia and Israel. The current plan is to keep producing them until 2019. It was first designed as an air-superiority aircraft but later the F-15E Strike Eagle was built, an Air-to-Ground derivative. The F-15 can load a variety of Sparrow, Sidewinder, 120-AMRAAM, drop bombs ( for instance Mark 84 or 82) or external fuel tanks on its 11 hardpoints. Together with its 20 mm M61A1 Vulcan gun, it is no surprise that this buster has over 100 confirmed aerial combat victories. By the way, a lot of visitors are interested in flying the F-15 - so we wrote a small article about that topic. Click the link for more information.

MiG-31 flying over Russia

Number 7: Mikoyan MiG-31 Foxhound With a top speed of Mach 2.83, the next aircraft on our list is the Mikoyan Gurevich-31 Foxhound (also this one was once available for tourist flights!). Due to its enormous twin-engine with a thrust of 2*152kN, it was able to fly at supersonic speeds at both high- and low altitudes. It is a Soviet Interceptor built to take out enemy aircraft and has great capabilities to do so using a combination of active and passive radars. Four Foxhounds can together control a front of 900 kilometres in length. The weapons that it has to its disposal are:

• One 23 millimetre gun with 260 rounds.
• Under fuselage:
  • 4x R-33 Air-to-Air (heavy) or 6x R-37 Air-to-Air missiles.
• On pylons:
  • Long or medium-range missiles, short-range IR missiles or a special medium-range Air-to-Air missile for high-speed targets.

The production ended in 1994 but is unknown exactly how many MiG-31 that were built but between 400-500 is said to be a qualified guess. The MiG-31 is still today in service with the Russian and Kazakhstan Air Forces. The MiG-31 is a derivative of the MiG-25 which can be read about further down (place 4) and in the link at the very end of the article.

XB-70 Valkyrie (taking off)

Number 6: XB-70 Valkyrie. The XB-70 Valkyrie was a unique aircraft with six engines which together could accelerate the 240,000-kilogram aircraft to a velocity of Mach 3. This speed resulted in the frame of the aircraft being heated up to as much as 330°C in some areas. The extreme speed was needed for two reasons: 1: To accelerate away from Soviet interceptors and 2: To be able to escape the blast of the nuclear bombs that it was capable of dropping. The big size (weight) was needed to carry the fuel needed for the 6,900-kilometre flight into the Soviet Union and escape without refuelling and to house the 14 nuclear bombs that it was capable of carrying. The aircraft had its first flight in 1964 and is now retired, only two were built.

X-2 Starbuster together with its crew

Number 5: Bell X-2 Starbuster. The Starbuster was an American research aircraft which had its first flight in 1955 and was retired in 1956. It was a continuation of the X-2 program and so Its area of investigation was to see how aircrafts behaved when flying at speeds higher than Mach 2.0. It did, as can be understood, not carry any weapons and featured a back-swept wing which made it have little air-resistance and was by that able to achieve the stunning speed of Mach 3.196 in 1956. However soon after this speed was attained the pilot, Milburn G. Apt, made a sharp turn and the aircraft tumbled out of control. He could not regain control of the aircraft and bailed out. Unfortunately, only the small parachute of the escape shuttle was opened and he hit the ground with too high speed. This fatal crash ended the Starbuster program.

Mikoyan Gurevich 25PU

Number 4: Mikoyan MiG-25 Foxbat. This jet was a Soviet machine built to intercept American aircraft during the cold war like the SR-71 and high- slow flying surveillance aircraft. Since it was built to intercept the SR-71 it was required to have an extreme speed, hence its Mach 3.2 top capability. The Foxbat, unlike the Blackbird, featured 4 air-to-air missiles which made it an interceptor rather than a reconnaissance aircraft. It has never shot down a Blackbird but it has had many other combat missions which have been successful, for instance in the Iran-Iraq war. Over 1100 Foxbats were built between 1964 and 1984, however, today the use is limited, with its only users being Russia, Syria, Algeria and Turkmenistan. For more information about this astonishing bird see the link at the bottom of the article. The MiG-25 was also the fastest plane ever offered for fun flights by MiGFlug - it was mainly used for Edge of Space flights.

YF-12A, the first YF-12

Number 3: Lockheed YF-12. This jet was an American interceptor prototype with a top speed of Mach 3.35. It looked almost like the SR-71 Blackbird and featured three Air-to-Air missiles. The reason for it looking a lot like the SR-71 was because the SR-71 was based on the YF-12, and also because both of them had the same designer, the extremely famous Clarence “Kelly” Johnson. Only 3 YF-12’s were built but the program still made it into the history books with its  “highest speed”, “highest altitude” (both of these were later surpassed by the Blackbird) and “biggest interceptor” records.

SR-71B (double cockpit)

Number 2: Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird After its introduction in 1966 it has been used by both the USAF and NASA. 32 Blackbirds were built, all used for reconnaissance and experimental research. It featured stealth technology but if it was, against all odds, spotted by enemy forces, it could outrun the interceptors or surface-to-air missiles that were fired at it, due to its fantastic speed. The Blackbird was so fast that the air in front of it did not have time to escape, hence building up a huge pressure, and raised the temperature. The temperature of the aircraft, which could reach several hundred degrees high, expanded the metal, hence it had to be built by too small pieces. Because of this, the SR-71 actually leaked oil when standing still. The Blackbird holds the record for manned, air-breathing aircraft, see here. A nice documentary about the SR-71 for those who love this plane as much as we do:

The winner of our top 10 - the X-15!

Number 1: North American X-15 This aircraft has the current world record for the fastest manned aircraft. Its maximum speed was Mach 6.70 (about 7,200 km/h) which it attained on the 3rd of October 1967 thanks to its pilot William J. “Pete” Knight. To be stable at these super high velocities, it had to feature a big wedge tail, however, the downside of this was at lower speeds the drag was extremely big from such a tail. Therefore a B-52 Stratofortress had to carry it up to an altitude of about 14,000 meters before dropping it at which it ignited its own engines. Just imagine sitting in a rocket measuring only 15 m in length and then being dropped, must have been a truly magnificent feeling! The X-15 was used at such extreme speeds so that it did not use traditional ways to steer (using drag over a fin) but instead it used rocket thrusters! This made it possible to reach altitudes higher than 100 kilometres, which was one of its world records. These are the three records that brought the X-15 rocket jet into the history books:

• It was the first operational space plane.
• It got to a height of more than 100 km.
• It flew more than six times the speed of sound (Mach 6.70).

Fastest planes in the world - Overview

The fastest Aircraft in the World

• Read about the SR-71 Blackbird mentioned in the article here.
• The XB-70 Valkyrie (also mentioned in the article)
• The world's fastest (rocket-) aircraft, the experimental X-15 
• The fastest interceptor ever built, the Mikoyan MiG-25 Foxbat

• Xb70.interceptor
• AF.mil
• Livescience
• Aerospaceweb
• Air-and-Space
• CIA
• Gizmodo
• Wilson (2000)
• Logan (1998)
• Davies and Dildy (2007)
• Nasa
• Airwar.ru

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Small Margins

The U-2 Dragon Lady. Notice its huge 31.4 m wingspan!

Introduced in 1957, the U-2 is remarkably still in use today. This puts it on the list of very few aircraft that has flown with the USAF for more than 50 years. It has a service ceiling of 21,000m and has therefore been very effective when surveilling the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam and Cuba. But how can it be able to fly this high? The answer is its light air frame, large wing span and big engines. The later model, TU-2S,  features the 84.5kN General Electric F118. This might not sound much, but since the whole U-2 only weighs 18.1 tons (max weight) the engine is perfect for its mission. The U-2 can fly for 12 hours without refueling, covering a distance of 10,300 kilometers with a cruise speed of 690 km/h and a max speed of 805. The speed that it had to reach to be able to climb to this altitude (ie the ideal speed) was only 19km/h under its stall speed. This means that if going 19km over the ideal speed the engine would stall, breaking the super fragile aircraft to pieces, and going under the limit would make it drop in altitude to a level where enemy anti-aircraft defences were within firing range. Therefore the pilots called this range of 19km/h the “coffin corner”.

Great glider becomes horrible lander

The aircraft is built to be easy to control at high altitudes, but at lower height the air has a higher density and so the U-2 gets very hard to control. It requires a lot of physical strength to steer it at the low altitudes of the runway, and due to its great glider capabilities, it floats over the runway, making the landing extremely hard. Usually there is a chase car and a second U-2 pilot assisting the pilot of the descending U-2 with information such as angle of descent and declining aircraft height. Since these cars need to have high speeds it is actually not any special-built Air Force vehicles but normal Chevrolet Camaros and Ford Mustangs.

The "unbalanced" aircraft

A U-2 at touchdown showing its "bicycle" landing gear.

The U-2’s landing gear is of a rather unusual configuration since it only features two wheels - one in the front and one in the back, making it look like a bicycle. Before taxiing the ground crew installs extra wheels called “pogos” under each wing who are then disconnected from the aircraft right after takeoff to reduce weight. When landing, the wings have a titanium skid at the very tip, protecting the wings from damage. When the aircraft has come to a complete halt, the ground crew once again installs pogos under the wings and begin to taxi the U-2 to its hangar. The rear landing gear is coupled to the rudder and so the pilot can provide some steering during taxiing.

The crew (ie the pilot since the U-2 is a one-seat aircraft) wears a special pressurized suit, just like on the Blackbird, in case of a pressure fall in the cockpit. The pilot can take both drink and food with him in small special containers when having long duration flights however many of the pilots choose not to, and can therefore lose as much as 6 pounds of body weight on a single mission. When the Dragon Lady was new, it was possible to bring a suicide pill when going on a mission, capable of killing you within 15 seconds. The reason was the danger of being shot down and captured flying over the USSR or Eastern Europe. However after an incident when a pilot almost swallowed his pill due to its resemblance to a piece of candy, it was removed.

50 years of U-2 development

As you would expect of an aircraft that has been in service for more than 50 years, there has been a wide variety of models and improvements of the Dragon Lady. Some of the most important improvements with their new designations are displayed in the table below:

A Dragon Lady without underwing pods indicating that it is a U-2H (not showed in table) or earlier.

End of the Lockheed U-2 Dragon Lady

The competitors - A RQ-4 Global hawk (front) together with a two-seat U-2 (back).

As you can see the Dragon Lady was a beast at its introduction and is still a great aircraft that has served with the USAF as well as with NASA and CIA. It was a lifesaver for American intelligence gathering services during the Cold War and made it possible for the Americans to spy on the Russians well out of range of anti-aircraft defence. But as with all great inventions there will come something greater eventually. To the U-2 that might be the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk. The Global Hawk is an UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) which has a service ceiling of 18,000 meters and can stay in the air for 28 hours. This change, which was made public in 2001, is to start taking place in 2016. However some politicians have made complaints about this as they claim that the U-2 will still be more cost-efficient than the RQ-4.

Additional Reading:

• Read the first article of the series (about the Blackbird) here.
• Interested in naval warfare? Learn about different designations of vessels here!
• Read about a giant Russian bomber project from the 30's here.

Sources:

• Militaryfactory.com
• Pedlow and Welzenbach 1992
• Blackbirds.net
• LAtimes.com
• Flightglobal.com
• Invention & Technology Magazine, Volume 22 by Huntington, Tom
• www2.gwu.edu
• NYtimes.com

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