ENSICA’s Mirage III A10 joins the ISAE-SUPAERO campus

The Mirage prototype belonging to the Institute and located on the Jolimont campus will be transferred to the Rangueil campus for renovation and display.

The Mirage III program, which began in 1953, was designed to provide the French Air Force with a supersonic light interceptor. More than 1,400 of these aircraft were sold in 20 countries, making it one of the greatest successes of post-war French aviation.

A precursor to this success, the Mirage on the Jolimont campus has a double historical value.

The tenth and last pre-production aircraft of the Mirage III program, released in December 1959, it took part in development tests. It complements the A02 on display in front of the restaurant, the first of this pre-series, which is in a different version (the A01 is in the Le Bourget museum).

Given to the school and then used for many years for ENSICA courses, it was cleaned and repainted for the first time in 2005 as part of a second-year engineering project led by Antoine Triboulet.

The entireoperation to transfer the aircraft, costing 15,000 euros, will be handled by the Conservatoire de l’Air et de L’Espace d’Aquitaine (CAEA) based at BA106 in Mérignac, an association that includes retired Dassault Aviation personnel.

The complex process will follow the following steps:

• positioning of a wheeled trolley under the fuselage, then contact with the latter,
• removal of the half-wings, retraction of the landing gear, and removal of the support struts,
• the carriage carrying the fuselage is “rolled” outside in the yard by passing under a porch,
• at the exit of the porch: lifting by a crane to put the fuselage on truck,
• lifting of the wings,
• road transport.

Upon its arrival on the Rangueil campus, the Mirage will be placed on a trolley at the end of building 38 (mechanics pole) for a refurbishment according to its original paint job, through a project led by students, and tutored by Stéphane Juaneda (DCAS).

At the end of this phase, the Mirage II A10 will be installed at the entrance to the Mechanics Centre (building 38) to the left of the central access road, where a stele is already waiting for it, as planned at the beginning of the RGI 1 - Mechanics Centre project.