Dassault Mirage F1

The Dassault Mirage F1 is a French fighter and attack aircraft that Dassault Aviation developed as a successor to the Mirage III family. Dassault began it in the 1960s as a private venture alongside the larger Mirage F2, and work on the F1 took precedence over the costlier F2, which was cancelled. The first prototype flew on 23 December 1966. The French Air Force wanted an all-weather interceptor, so early production aircraft carried the Thomson-CSF Cyrano IV radar, and the type entered French service in 1974 as the main interceptor until the Mirage 2000 arrived, later moving to reconnaissance. A single SNECMA Atar 9K-50 turbojet powered it. About 726 were built between 1966 and 1992, it was exported to around a dozen nations, and the last French examples were retired in July 2014.