Dassault Ouragan
The Dassault M.D.450 Ouragan was France's first production jet fighter, a straight-wing fighter-bomber designed by Dassault Aviation as a private venture and first flown in 1949. It served briefly at the front line in France, was bought new by India as the Toofani, fought with Israel in 1956 and 1967, and ended its career with El Salvador in the 1980s.
Why It Mattered
The Ouragan was the first French-designed jet combat aircraft to enter production, and it came from an industry still rebuilding after wartime occupation. Dassault began the design as a private venture, when no government order existed, betting that France could field a jet fighter of its own. The wager succeeded: the type gave the French Air Force its first French-designed jet fighter in squadron service and re-established Dassault as a front-line fighter maker. Its reach extended abroad, first through India's purchase of new aircraft and later through second-hand sales that armed Israel and El Salvador.
Design Notes
The layout was deliberately conventional: a single divided intake in the nose carried air around either side of the cockpit to an engine mounted directly behind the pilot. Its thin wing followed the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star's example, and the overall configuration resembled the Republic F-84 Thunderjet. Power came from a single Rolls-Royce Nene centrifugal turbojet, built under licence in France by Hispano-Suiza. Wingtip fuel tanks, first fitted during prototype testing in December 1949, became a standard feature of the type. Armament was four 20 mm Hispano cannon beneath the intake, with bombs or rockets on underwing hardpoints. The aircraft was reported stable when firing its guns and rockets, but it had a tendency to snap into a flat spin in tight turns.
Operational History
The first prototype flew on 28 February 1949, with Dassault's chief test pilot Kostia Rozanoff at the controls. France ordered 150 production aircraft in August 1950 and added two further batches of 100; a third additional batch was cancelled in January 1952 in favour of the Mystère IIC. The first production aircraft flew in December 1951, and the Ouragan entered French squadron service in 1952, replacing British-built Vampires. For two years it was also the display aircraft of the Patrouille de France aerobatic team. French front-line service was brief: the Mystère IV began replacing it in May 1955, and the last Ouragans left operational units in 1961, though some flew on as trainers into the mid-1960s. India ordered 71 new aircraft in June 1953, delivered by mid-1954, and bought 33 second-hand aircraft in 1957, procuring 104 in all and naming the type Toofani. Indian Toofanis reportedly carried out airstrikes around Diu in December 1961 and flew reconnaissance missions during the 1962 war with China. Israel received at least 75 Ouragans by 1955, a mix of new aircraft and retired French examples bought as a stopgap. In the 1956 Suez fighting they flew mainly ground-attack and escort missions; a pair of Ouragans was credited with shooting down four Egyptian Vampires, and rocket-armed aircraft strafed the destroyer Ibrahim el Awal before its capture. Israeli Ouragans fought again in the Six-Day War of 1967, when the type still equipped two close-support units. In 1975 Israel sold 18 Ouragans to El Salvador, where they flew strike missions during the civil war and remained in service until the late 1980s.
Afterlife
El Salvador was the last operator, keeping its Ouragans in service into the late 1980s. Surviving aircraft are held by museums in several of the countries that flew the type. The Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace at Le Bourget displays one aircraft; another is held in Brussels, at the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History. Two combat-veteran aircraft are on outdoor display at the Israeli Air Force Museum, and an Indian Toofani is displayed at the Indian Air Force Museum in New Delhi. Two more are on display at the Museo Nacional de Aviación at Ilopango Air Base.