Dassault Mirage III Australian procurement
The French manufacturing company Dassault won the bid over the American Lockheed when the Australian government agreed to buy over 100 Mirages at an estimated cost of AUS$193.7 million in the early 1960s.
[citation needed] On 4 April 1957 the Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies said in his defence statement: "Our present planning and preparations are proceeding on the basis of an operational contribution to allied strategy of highly trained men armed with the most modern conventional weapons and equipment.
However, the aeronautical research laboratories of Fisherman's Bend extended the fleet's life cycle by designing fibre repair patches, which prevented wing cracks from spreading.
After it was retired on 31 March 1987, the aircraft was moved to the Fighter World aviation heritage centre where it is on permanent display with dual-seat Mirage III/D A3-102, also known as "Daphne De Dual".
Talbot to Europe and the United States in 1959 before the official agreement to the deal to make an assessment of 5 aircraft, the Republic F-105, English Electric Lightning, Northrop N-156, Lockheed F-104G and the Dassault Mirage III.
[2] Problems arose in the translation of technical jargon, particularly in regards to the new electronics that were built into the Mirage such as three dimensional trigonometry based resolvers, transistors and printed circuit boards.
[16] Differences in French technical drawings and the use of the metric system, which had not yet been adopted in Australia, also increased the time and cost of the production of designs that were usable by Australian tradesmen.
[18] This was not unfounded, as Sweden and Switzerland had already restricted the Australian use of their technology in the war, so when a rumour spread that France had instructions that no RAAF Mirages be sent to Vietnam, threatening a cessation of ammunition provision, the idea of an embargo was made more believable by the circumstances.
When this was discovered it started a dispute concerning royalty payments of the Australian production of French Direction des Études et Fabrications d'Armement (DEFA) ammunition and parts and served to feed the rumours further.
[19] The Mirage III was chosen over the Lockheed F-104G primarily for reasons of the American fighters being unsuitable for RAAF purposes in areas of aircraft handling, engine reliability, ferry range as well as being too expensive, too few and requiring higher quality airfields not yet constructed by Australia.
[20] These companies would help with the manufacturing side of the customisation process of the Mirage III as an Australian contribution and were tasked with cooperating with Dassault, receiving production drawings, technical data, aircraft parts, materials and equipment from GAMID.
According to the two senior Australian engineers on the project Ted Bennet and Pierce Talbot, "the opportunity to become involved in the production of a supersonic fighter was received with great enthusiasm.
"[2] Specific parts were carefully chosen to be entirely manufactured in Australia in a strategic manner to save on costs judging by the competitive market at the time.
Many of these were selected with a long term vision in mind, being the more disposable and consumable materials that would otherwise need to be purchased continually throughout the service lifetime of the aircraft.
Two completed aircraft packages were sent to GAF for assembly and saw the first Australian flight test in November 1963 in the A3-3 by Squadron leader Bill Collings at Avalon.
