Dassault-Breguet Mirage 2000
| Mirage 2000 | |
|---|---|
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| A Mirage 2000C of the French Air Force | |
| Role | Multirole fighter |
| National origin | France |
| Manufacturer | Dassault Aviation |
| First flight | 10 March 1978 |
| Introduction | July 1984 |
| Status | In service |
| Primary users |
French Air Force United Arab Emirates Air Force Republic of China Air Force Indian Air Force |
| Produced | 1978–2007 |
| Number built | 601 |
| Developed from | Dassault Mirage III |
| Variants | Dassault Mirage 2000N/2000D |
| Developed into | Dassault Mirage 4000 |
| Dassault Mirage 2000 cutaway | |
 Hi-res cutaway of the Dassault Mirage 2000 by Flight Global
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The Dassault Mirage 2000 is a French multirole, single-engine fourth-generation jet fighter manufactured by Dassault Aviation. It was designed in the late 1970s as a lightweight fighter based on the Mirage III for the French Air Force (Armée de l'Air). The Mirage 2000 evolved into a multirole aircraft with several variants developed, with sales to a number of nations. The variants include the Mirage 2000N and 2000D strike variants, the improved Mirage 2000-5 and several export variants. Over 600 aircraft were built and it has been in service with nine nations.
The origins of the Mirage 2000 could be traced back to 1965, when France was involved with Britain "Anglo-French Variable Geometry" (AFVG) swing-wing aircraft. After the country withdrew from the project two years later on grounds of costs, after which Britain would collaborate with Western Germany and Italy to ultimately produce the Panavia Tornado, Dassault focused its energy on its own variable-geometry aircraft, the Mirage G experimental prototype. The design was expected to materialise in the Mirage G8, which would serve as the replacement for the popular Mirage III in French Air Force service.
The Mirage 2000 started out as a project of secondary project tentatively named "Delta 1000" in 1972. Dassault at the time was devoting considerable attention on a more ambitious design, the Mirage G8A, a fixed-geometry derivative of the Mirage G8 that served as the competitor to the Panavia Tornado. The Mirage G8, which was envisioned as the "Avion de Combat Futur" (ACF / Future Combat Aircraft) of the French Air Force (Armee de l'Air), did not align with the service's conception of its future aircraft. More specifically, the AdA wanted a Mach 3 fighter, not an interdictor aircraft incapable of dogfighting that was the Mirage G8. As such, Dassault redesigned the Mirage G8 into the two-engine Super Mirage G8A that would prove to be ambitious and expensive, being two and a half times the price of the Mirage F1, and over-engineered especially compared to the F-16 that had just won orders from a number of European countries. Consequently, during a meeting of the National Defence Council on 18 December 1975, the Super Mirage was cancelled.
The ACF was a strike aircraft first and an interceptor second, while the Delta 2000 was exactly the reverse, but the single-engine Delta 2000 was much more affordable. At the same meeting, what was now redesignated as the Mirage 2000 was offered to the AdA and three prototypes were ordered. The AdA in March 1976 would issue a set of official requirements whose parameters matched that of Dassault's performance estimates of the new fighter. The aircraft's primary role was interception with a secondary ground-attack capability; the AdA had an commitment for 200 aircraft. The first aircraft was to be delivered in 1982. This was a return to the first generation Mirages, but with several important innovations that tried to solve their shortcomings.
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