The Dassault Aviation Mirage V was an aircraft developed from the Mirage III at the request of the Israeli Air Force to fill the role of a fast fighter-bomber, needed at the time. It was intended to be better suited to combat in the Middle East, with simplified avionics, better suited to the environment of the theatre. Israel was very impressed with Dassault’s proposal, and paid for 50 aircraft before the aircraft even got off the drawing board, in September 1966. However, in 1967, France placed an arms embargo on Israel, meaning the aircraft couldn’t be delivered for obvious reasons. Some political shenanigans later, Israel accepted a refund for the aircraft they purchased. However, in 1971, the IAI Nesher first flew, which was a blatant copy of the Mirage V, with Israel saying they did it by obtaining blueprints for the aircraft, but this has been disputed (Story for another day). The Mirage V and the Nesher have seen combat all over the world, and have been exported to a number of countries, and is still in use today with some Air Forces.

This was fun replica to make, I decided to do more simple wings than the Mirage III, allowing to add ordinance, which, while it looks at little wonky, I think it looks alright. You have an Exocet missile on the centre pylon, and 2 Sidewinders on the outer pylons. The flight performance is….interesting…lets just leave it at that. I plan on making a couple more members of the Mirage family, as I love all of it’s members (Except the Mirage IV it’s fugly).

I made a variant with bombs and sidewinders