Dassault Super Mystère B.2
The Super Mystère B.2 was a single-seat supersonic fighter-bomber built by Dassault Aviation, the final development of the line that began with the Ouragan and ran through the Mystère family. A thin wing swept at 45° and an afterburning SNECMA Atar let it exceed the speed of sound in level flight, making it Western Europe's first supersonic aircraft to enter mass production. Dassault built 180 production aircraft. It served with the French Air Force from 1958 to 1977, fought in Israeli hands in the Six-Day and Yom Kippur wars — later re-engined there as the IAI Sa'ar — and finished its service career with Honduras in 1996.
Why It Mattered
The Super Mystère was Western Europe's first supersonic aircraft to enter mass production. It was the final form of Dassault's first jet-fighter line, which began with the Ouragan and passed through the Mystère II/III and the Mystère IV. The earlier aircraft in that line had needed a dive to go supersonic; the Super Mystère could pass the sound barrier in level flight. For the French Air Force it was, as the Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace puts it, the transition fighter between the Mystère IVA and the Mirage IIIC. Dassault built 180 production aircraft, and combat service with Israel carried the type's reputation well beyond France.
Design Notes
Dassault developed the Super Mystère from the Mystère IV, giving it a new thin wing swept at 45°, where the Mystère IV's had been swept at 41°. An afterburner-equipped turbojet supplied the extra thrust the new wing needed. The B.1 prototype flew with a Rolls-Royce Avon RA.7R, but production B.2s switched to the more powerful SNECMA Atar 101G. The Atar gave the production aircraft a maximum speed of Mach 1.12. Armament was two 30 mm DEFA 552 cannon, with a bomb load of up to 5,000 lb carried on four external hardpoints. Two B.4 prototypes of 1958, with a wing swept at 48° and the Atar 9B, reached Mach 1.4, but no production followed: the faster Mirage III was already entering service.
Operational History
The B.1 prototype took to the air on 2 March 1955 and broke the sound barrier in level flight the following day. Production of the B.2 followed in 1957, and from May 1958 the type was assigned to three French fighter wings, the 5th, 10th and 12th. Of the 180 production aircraft, 144 flew under French colours. Israel acquired 24 Super Mystères in 1958. In Israeli service the type was used for ground attack in the Six-Day War of 1967 and again in the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Its pilots generally liked it, rating it a good match for the MiG-19 in air-to-air combat. In 1973 Israel and Honduras re-engined their aircraft with a non-afterburning Pratt & Whitney J52-P8A, an extended tailpipe and new avionics; in Israel the result was named the IAI Sa'ar. France retired the Super Mystère in November 1977, when the last aircraft of the 1/12 Cambrésis squadron made its final flight, closing 19 years of service. Honduras had bought 12 aircraft from Israel in 1976 and four more in 1979, and flew them in border skirmishes with Nicaragua.
Afterlife
Retirement from French service in 1977 was not the end of the type: Honduras kept its Super Mystères flying until 1996, when Northrop F-5Es replaced them. About fifteen of the French squadron aircraft passed to the air technician school at Rochefort as instructional airframes. Of the Honduran aircraft, one went to the Honduras Air Museum and the remaining eleven were offered for sale as surplus. An example is displayed by the Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace at Le Bourget, in its Hall de la Cocarde. Others are held by the Israeli Air Force Museum at Hatzerim and the German Air Force Museum at Gatow.