The Dassault Étendard II was a French prototype
fighter aircraft initially developed as a follow-on project to the
Dassault Mystère
The Dassault MD.452 Mystère is a 1950s French fighter-bomber.
Development
After the success of the Ouragan, Dassault was working on a more advanced machine which would take to the air in early 1951 as the MD.452 Mystère I.
The first proto ...
series. It was presented to the
French Air Force for evaluation but was rejected in favour of the
Dassault Mirage III
The Dassault Mirage III () is a family of single/dual-seat, single-engine, fighter aircraft developed and manufactured by French aircraft company Dassault Aviation. It was the first Western European combat aircraft to exceed Mach number, Mach 2 ...
.
Originally designated Mystère XXII, the aircraft was developed in response to a French Air Force requirement for a light, jet-powered fighter-bomber. At around the same time, the
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
NBMR-1
NATO Basic Military Requirement 1 (NBMR-1) was a document produced by a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) committee in the 1950s detailing the specification of future combat aircraft designs. The requirement was for a "light weight tactic ...
requirement was circulated, also calling for a light strike-fighter, and Dassault developed a very similar aircraft in parallel for that competition (the
Étendard VI).
The sole prototype of the Étendard II flew on July 23, 1956 but proved to be somewhat underpowered and showed nothing like the promise of the Mirage series and was quickly abandoned.
A further development of the Étendard concept, the
Étendard IV was successfully developed for
French Navy
The French Navy (french: Marine nationale, lit=National Navy), informally , is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the five military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in t ...
service.
Specifications (Étendard II)
See also
References
Bibliography
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Dassault Etendard Ii
Twinjets
Etendard II
1950s French fighter aircraft
Low-wing aircraft
Cruciform tail aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1956