IAF Atar 9B Mirage IIIBJ with Camo?

[thierry laurent]

Hello,

 

Does anyone know if such a configuration ever existed? IAF Mirage normally got sand-tan-green camo paints some years before replacing their engines with the Atar 9C. Some Shahak single seater pictures demonstrate it. It looks repainting occured from 1969. However, all pictures of two-seater airframes painted with camo paints I have seen up to now always show Atar 9C re-engined Mirages! This possibly means the repainting of two-seaters was somewhat delayed but I'm not fully convinced as typically the IAF used to rely on their two-seaters as well in combat and this was still the case with the Ahit, the Netz or the Baz.

 

Thanks in advance for any info 

 

BR

 

Thierry 

 

[thierry laurent]

I forgot to add another element that makes me questioning the possible delaying of the repainting process: the IAF only used FOUR Mirage IIIBJ. 

[thierry laurent]

Hi guys,

 

If you have a look at the linked picture, you will see what I meant. That picture really intrigues me. It MAY demonstrate that an ATAR 9B Mirage IIIBJ had been repainted with camo colors and modified later without a full repaint. HOWEVER, it may also simply show a plane that already got the engine change, was damaged (e.g. during the so-called "attrition war") and repaired with the rear end of another plane!

That second option makes sense as the two-seaters were used on the front line as well. The 286 even became a true fighter with 4.5 kills!

By the way even if there were just a handful of them such Mirage IIIBJ airframes had an interesting fate as the 288 was the first Mirage that got a J79 engine with canards. So, it is actually the initial Kfir prototype (named "Technolog")! It is still in Hatzerim but in a less aggressive dark blue livery.

 

I'm still digging...

[Furie]

Hello Thierry, really interesting this photo. 
These MIR III B that went into combat, flew on a war mission with a pilot or a pilot + backseat? (knowing that the MIR III B had no Radar, it would have made a pair of eyes to scan the sky!).
I remember that in Colmar, at 1/13, the pilots preferred to «fight» in dogfight with a MIR III B than with a MIR III E because the III B was lighter and accelerated much better than the III E.

 

Denis who rejuvenates 40 years by seeing these photos of "pointu".  (Pointu = sharp = fighter plane in Armée de l'Air language)

Edited November 21, 2023 by Furie

[TBC]

It's interesting that the brake chute housing is painted but the aft fuselage metal isn't. IIIBJ #88 had the same unpainted aft fuselage area when it was used as the Kfir/J79 test-bed and yet the rest of the aircraft was camouflaged. If #88 was modified and left unpainted, maybe it's a simple matter that #87 was too.

 

Also of interest is that the photo has been censored, mostly covering up the squadron badge on the vertical fin.

[thierry laurent]

Looking at the picture I think the rear section was painted. You clearly see the mid-height demarcation line between the colours and this nearly corresponds to the fuselage one. So it simply looks the rear fuselage was replaced. The question is: was it because of a repair or because of the engine change upgrade? The 288 was a fully different beast. It was deeply modified when she became the Technolog testbed. So she was everything but standard. I have a picture of her as 988 and the rear was normally painted in sand. Unfortunately the pictures of 286 or 289 I found when they had been repainted do not show the rear clearly. So it is quite difficult to draw conclusions without more information...

[thierry laurent]

47 minutes ago, Furie said:

Hello Thierry, really interesting this photo. 
These MIR III B that went into combat, flew on a war mission with a pilot or a pilot + backseat? (knowing that the MIR III B had no Radar, it would have made a pair of eyes to scan the sky!).
I remember that in Colmar, at 1/13, the pilots preferred to «fight» in dogfight with a MIR III B than with a MIR III E because the III B was lighter and accelerated much better than the III E.

 

Denis who rejuvenates 40 years by seeing these photos of "pointu".  (Pointu = sharp = fighter plane in Armée de l'Air language)

Well I should check but out of my memory pilots were alone. According to the Israeli pilots the Cyrano radar was not terribly appreciated, the Atar9B was not exceptional, the Matra missiles were useless and the guns lacked punch! However, thanks to the pilots experience, use of the best flight features of the Mirage and good coordination with the ground control they did it more than well!

[Furie]

11 minutes ago, thierry laurent said:

Looking at the picture I think the rear section was painted. You clearly see the mid-height demarcation line between the colours and this nearly corresponds to the fuselage one. So it simply looks the rear fuselage was replaced. The question is: was it because of a repair or because of the engine change upgrade? 

 

Thierry, if you compare the photos of MIR III B and BE, you will see that the rear «rump» (rear section) of a III B possessed a probe that the MIR III BE does not have.
So effectively, change ATAR 9 B for an ATAR 9 C => change of the rear «rump» (rear section).

 

 

[thierry laurent]

2 minutes ago, Furie said:

 

Thierry, if you compare the photos of MIR III B and BE, you will see that the rear «rump» (rear section) of a III B possessed a probe that the MIR III BE does not have.
So effectively, change ATAR 9 B for an ATAR 9 C => change of the rear «rump» (rear section).

 

 

Thanks for the pictures. I know that but the problem is that I do not know if the rear fuselage was replaced because of the engine change or because it was damaged. In the first case the plane was possibly repainted with camo paint before the engine change whereas in the second case the plane was possibly already upgraded with the new engine and repainted at the same time when the rear section was replaced!

[thierry laurent]

Here's the picture of the Technolog in camo paint:

An earlier one when the new rear was added to test the American engine:

 

And the one of the best MiG killers out of the IIIBJ group:

 

 

[thierry laurent]

And here is a flight simulator view of the configuration I questioned:

 

 

I'm still looking after a picture of such a IIIBJ with the early engine AND camo...

[Furie]

Well maybe a MIR III BJ + ATAR 9B + camo doesn’t exist?
After all, it seems logical: the retrofit 9B => 9C was done several years after the delivery of the III BJ.
They took advantage of the retrofit and engine change to apply a new paint…
…or not!

 

[thierry laurent]

4 minutes ago, Furie said:

Well maybe a MIR III BJ + ATAR 9B + camo doesn’t exist?
After all, it seems logical: the retrofit 9B => 9C was done several years after the delivery of the III BJ.
They took advantage of the retrofit and engine change to apply a new paint…
…or not!

 

What is really questioning is the fact the first single seaters were repainted years before the engine upgrade. Possibly the two seaters were put at the end of the queue as the war of attrition was not anymore a high intensity conflict and finally the repainting occured only when the engine was replaced. The problem is really the lack of existing pictures. It is quite difficult to assess the actual events timeline with such limited sources... I don't think I know 20 pictures of the Israeli BJ, including the bare metal ones!

[thierry laurent]

Case closed! I did not find anything yesterday in my Mirage or IAF color scheme books. However, I did not look in my books about the Kippur war or the squadron histories. I checked various other books and finally found one side picture of 789 in the Isra book about the Yom Kippur war as well as another one showing 786 in the 1st jet squadron history publication! Both of them are clearly showing that the ATAR9B IIIBJ with camo scheme were used right before and during the 1973 war! Consequently it is strange no known kit or decal set is proposing that configuration!  I also found a picture of 786 that seems to indicate they got the yellow triangles and victory markings at that time...

[thierry laurent]

Finally, it looks the engine change took a lot of time to be extended to the full fleet. As an example nine of the twelve single seaters used mid-1977 by the first jet squadron were still using the ATAR9B!