{"id":37405,"date":"2026-05-31T13:11:33","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T20:11:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=37405"},"modified":"2026-05-31T13:11:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T20:11:33","slug":"air-minded-seeing-mirages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=37405","title":{"rendered":"Air-Minded: Seeing Mirages"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve always thought the French design beautiful jets. These are Dassault Mirages from the 1960s, both still in front-line service in the early 1980s when I flew in Europe: the smaller one, the single-seater, is a Mirage III fighter\/interceptor; the big two-seater is a Mirage IV, a nuclear bomber and reconnaissance aircraft.<\/p>\n

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Mirage III & Mirage IV at a French military airfield (photo credit unknown)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

France, though officially a NATO member nation, went its own way militarily in the mid-1960s, and during my NATO flying days, from 1979-1982, never played with us in exercises or combined operations. I was based in the Netherlands, where my squadron operated under two commands: as part of United States Air Forces Europe, we exercised with USAF units based in the UK, Germany, Spain, and Italy; under NATO, we defended European airspace from Soviet and Warsaw Pact incursions, and frequently trained with the air forces of other NATO nations … never France, but everyone else.<\/p>\n

Pretty much our only interaction with the French was when we had to overfly their country on our way to and from our bases in Spain. There was an agreement with the French that we would overfly their country at the highest altitude we could maintain so as to stay above commercial traffic, and otherwise inconvenience them as little as possible. Typically, we’d check in with French air traffic control as we entered their airspace, straight and level at FL500 (50,000 feet) and Mach 0.9, then check out as we departed. Otherwise it was radio silence the entire time we were over France.<\/p>\n

I’ve only ever seen the Mirage IV, the big bomber, in photos, but I saw plenty of Belgian Mirage IIIs during my time in NATO, and once had a semi-close encounter with a pair of French ones while on a cross-country to Spain, a story worth sharing here.<\/p>\n

I was number four of a flight of F-15 Eagles flying from Soesterberg Air Base in the Netherlands to Torrejon Air Base in Spain. Somewhere over the middle of France, flying in a straight line south at FL500 and Mach 0.9, I glanced to my left and saw two contrails several nautical miles away, paralleling our course and climbing up through FL400, clearly on an intercept vector toward us. I called out the traffic and we all watched as they slowly gained but then began to drift behind and arc back down toward the clouds below. I don’t think they ever got above FL420. They did, however, get close enough for us to make out delta-shaped dots at the tips of the contrails … Mirage IIIs without a doubt.<\/p>\n

Assuming the program still exists, when military aircraft of one NATO nation plan to fly into the airspace of other NATO nations, the aircrew can designate their aircraft as an “enhanced target” on the flight plan, meaning that they’re willing to be intercepted and visually ID’d by military fighters of other NATO nations. It’s good training all around: for ground radar controllers and intercepting fighter aircrews, it’s a pop-up opportunity to practice intercepting unknown (but known to be friendly) aircraft crossing your airspace; for the intercepted “enchanced target” aircrew, it’s a reason to stay alert and maintain a good visual lookout. Don’t get the wrong idea: hot-dogging, terminal maneuvering, positioning for simulated weapons shots, and dogfighting are strict no-nos: the program allows only for intercepts to visual ID parameters, usually considered to be a loose formation position, slightly behind the intercepted aircraft.<\/p>\n

Even though France, in those days, didn’t play with NATO, I believe our flight plan designating us as “enhanced targets” registered with the French, and those two Mirage pilots were doing what any German\/Belgian\/Norwegian\/British fighter pilot would have been doing in their place, taking an opportunity to add a live intercept and visual ID to whatever training mission they were flying that day.<\/p>\n

I shared a short version of this story on social media a few days back. I didn’t set out to wound national pride but apparently that’s what I did, judging by responses from French aviation enthusiasts and Mirage III fans. Sure, a Mirage III would have been more than capable of intercepting an F-15 Eagle flying at Mach 0.9 and 50,000 feet. It would have been cool with us if those two Mirage pilots had joined up alongside to take a hero photo with our four-ship. I wish they had, and if they’d pulled it off, I’d still be sharing the story.<\/p>\n

But high altitude intercepts are difficult, and that’s why you train to do them. I’m not talking about a head-to-head pass with 1,200 knots of combined closure and a momentary glimpse of your target; I’m talking about pulling up alongside or slightly behind, co-speed and co-altitude, for a leisurely photo op, the way we do with Soviet bombers over the Arctic Ocean. The setup geometry has to be just right; you have to point your jet toward the spot in the sky where the target will be at the point of intercept, ten minutes from now and miles ahead, otherwise you’ll wind up stagnating in a tail-chase; you have to maintain a precise Mach number while you cruise\/climb to the target’s altitude, because if you get a little slow you’ll never get there; everything has to be executed perfectly or it won’t work. Hey, if I ever tried to intercept and VID a Mirage III cruising at 50,000 feet and close to the Mach, I’d probably fuck it up myself. I would never dis the French, or their beautiful jets … I just want to share a fun memory.<\/p>\n

I never got to fly against Belgian Mirage IIIs during my NATO posting, but years later, while based at Kadena Air Base in Japan, I got a dogfight a few down in Australia; most worthy opponents. I will always regret never getting to see a Mirage IV, which has become an almost mythical aircraft to me, sort of like my own country’s B-58 Hustler, which I never got to see either, even though the USAF flew them during the years I was in high school and college.<\/p>\n

Here’s one more photo of the Mirage III and IV together. Love ’em both, but the IV? Damn!<\/p>\n

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Mirage III & Mirage IV (photo credit unknown)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2014 back to the Air-Minded Index<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… I saw plenty of Belgian Mirage IIIs during my time in NATO, and once had a semi-close encounter with a pair of French ones while on a cross-country to Spain, a story worth sharing here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1960,3,14],"tags":[3324,4507,2141,4906,4907,874],"class_list":["post-37405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-air-minded","category-flying","category-military","tag-warstories","tag-airminded-2","tag-france","tag-mirage-iii","tag-mirage-iv","tag-nato"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37405"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37416,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37405\/revisions\/37416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}