On Saturday, April 7, 1962, the IAF started its Mach 2 era when the first two Mirage IIICJs ("J" stands for Juif, which means Jewish in French) landed in Hatzor AFB. They were flown by Maj. Danny Shapira, then the Chief Test Pilot of the IAF, and Maj. Le Nun of the French Air Force. The next day, in the presence of Israel's national leaders and other VIPs, Maj. Shapira demonstrated how this aircraft should be flown, this being the maiden flight of the Mirage IIICJ in the skies of Israel. This was also the beginning of a 24 aircraft contract, which ended with the procurement of a total of 76 aircraft, as detailed below:

70 Mirage IIICJ single-seat fighters, delivered between April 1962 and July 1964;

2 Mirage IIIRJ photoreconnaissance aircraft;

4 Mirage IIIBJ two-seat combat trainers, three of them received in 1966 and the fourth in 1968.

The fighters were allocated numbers 01 - 85 (not obligingly in sequel!); the two seaters were numbered 86 - 89, and the photoreconnaissance aircraft 98 and 99 (a third digit was later added in front of the original number). The type was given the Hebrew name "Shahak", meaning, "Sky blazer". After the Six-Day War, the aircraft were painted in camouflage. In the second half of the seventies, the IAF put some order in the Mirage fleet numbering system - the first digit of the single-seaters was changed to 1, the two-seaters were given 2, and the photoreconnaissance aircraft 4.The Israeli Mirages did not carry JATO rocket engines, and were all armed with two Deffa 30mm cannons. During the first period of operation in IAF, the Mirage suffered from various "infancy illnesses". The Snecma Atar 9B engine proved to be problematic, causing four aircraft losses. The failure was located by IAF in 1963 (see "Dates and Events", November 11, 1963). Consequently, the Atar 9B was replaced by the improved 9C model.Another problem was the adjustment (zero-in) of the cannons. It was an inadmissible failure, because the bullet dispersion made them miss the target! Pilot Maj. Efraim Ashkenazi, together with three weapons technicians, traced down the failure of the CSF-95 firing sight and corrected it. They received the prestigious "Israel's Defence Prize" for 1968.The Cyrano LBIS radar proved to be of very low reliability, and most of the times it was inactive. After the Six-Day War it was phased out, together with the Matra R530 radar-guided air-to-air missile (IAF code-named "Yahalom", diamond in Hebrew). The aircraft were equipped with the Israeli-made Shafrir 1, and later Shafrir 2 infrared missiles, which proved to be quite successful. The many other improvements introduced in Israel increased the performances and the reliability of the Mirage, enabling the IAF to make good use of it for twenty years.

Color Profiles ©Amos Dor