leading edge wrote:
The concept behind the Cheetah was that the Mirage III fleet needed upgrading first.
The important point also being that the Mirage F1 was the premier combat aircraft in the SAAF.
Once the Cheetah had been inducted, the plan was to modernise the Mirage F1's.
I do know that a glass cockpit was looked at, and was fitted to one F1. I believe this was Project Neckwar.
Obviously, the SMR-95 re-engining was also considered, to a lesser or greater degree.
Any tweaked ATAR 9K50 from project Carver might also have.
Various EW bulges were fitted to the airframe, and the ventral fins modified to incorporate flares/chaff as part of the RIMS. (Radar and Infra red Misleading System)
I have been reading online, from a person who was peripherally part of Project Carver, who briefly mentions the F1 upgrade.
he states various proposals were looked at, and that he saw various project or concept drawings of these.
He intimates that the upgraded Mirage would probably have had a different nose, and that the verticle fin would probably have had a fairing at its base, like the later editions of the F-16.
Does anybody have any further information or thoughts on this, as well as any other potential/probable idea on the subject?
The avionic system which eventually went into the Cheetah C was originally defined as an upgrade for Mirage F1 in 1987 - I was part of the team that worked for 5 months on the avionics definition. One of the problems with this was that we still needed all the F1's for the border war, releasing them for a retrofit would be difficult.
Late in 1987 or early 1988 an unsolicited proposal was received for the supply of additional Mirage III airframes (allegedly ex-Israli Kfirs) complete with the avionics we had defined for the F1s - the proposed cost per aircraft of these airframes plus avionics (without engines) was only slightly more than Denel Aviation had proposed per aircraft for the F1 avionics upgrade on its own. It obviously made sense to do this (additional aircraft instead of updating the F1s, just about the same price) so the Cheetah C contract extension was signed. For the first year or two, the avionics design was carefully kept compatible with Cheetah C airframes and Mirage F1, so the F1s would eventually get their upgrade once the Cheetah C's were in service, but once peace broke out and the border war stopped, the Mirage F1 upgrade option was dropped.
In terms of airframe modifications to make place for the avionics, the only idea I remember from 1987 was to add a hump behind the cockpit (similar to the Israeli A4 hump) but eventually it was decided that if the fuel tank behind the cockpit on the F1CZ was removed, the avionics would fit in an avionics bay behind the cockpit, with only radar in the nose (similar to the F1CZ fit). I think the autopilot, which was HUGE, was also going to be dumped. I was not involved once the Cheetah C development work started in 1988 / 1989, so I don't know what weird ideas those guys came up with.
I thought that modifying the ventral fins for chaff and flare had been implemented - I remember that the original composite design had problems with delamination at high altitude (low temperatures, maybe) so they changed to an all-metal design.
So that's the ancient history. Project Nekwar (originally at ATE) and the SMR-95 re-engining came later.
Oh, and there was also Project Pastor (Denel Aviation, Teklogic / ADS, and Kentron, I think), which started in 1986 or so by reverse-engineering Cheetah D avionic functionality, then moved on to proposing an avionic fit which we wanted to fly in a Mirage F1. But it never went that far - the Avionics department at Denel Aviation was shut down / moved to Kentron in early 2001, with most of the Rooivalk team moving to ATE.