Did FD2 become the Mirage?
 

I understand that Fairey did much of the Fairey Delta 2 development in France (something to do with UK Gov restrictions on supersonic overland flight?). One wonders how much it influenced the design of the Mirage?

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I think the Mirage design was complete by the time the FD2 went to France, but there is no doubt Dassault took a very good look at it. They couldn't really understand why we hadn't built a Mirage of our own.

Delta aerodynamics was booty from Germany, disseminated by RAE, NACA/US, ONÉRA/France. M.Dassault taunted: “If it were not for the clumsy way (UK) tackle things, you could have made (it.)” J.Gee, Mirage, 1971, MacDonald: he alluded to FD.2, flown 10/54, seen at Cazaux 10/56, departing 2 days before rollout of Mirage III No.1 prototype.

UK flew FD.2 supersonically from sunny SW France, because that was less painful than over the Irish Sea. AMD crawled all over it...but nothing was unknown to them because NATO Allies exchanged basic data. Convair had Lippisch, XF-92A flown 9/48, leading to F-102/106. AMD first schemed delta Mysteres c.1951: M.D.550, flown 6/55, and (schemed) Mirage II had rocket-boost. It was the availability of SNECMA ATAR that made Mirage III what it became.

So, let's settle for: FD.2 as a paper project modestly, slowly funded 1950-52, may have encouraged the design direction taken towards Mirage III.

The FD2 may have been restricted to 'banging' overwater, but it's 'development', the BAC221, WAS allowed to go supersonic over the UK. There was a supersonic corridor notified over the Bedford Levels until at least 1980; it was in the RAE Bedford Flying Order Book.
To develop the original question (tongue in cheek) did the VTOL version of the Mirage, the Dassault Balzac, become the Scott-Furlong Predator?

You ought to ask The Plane Makers about that, if anyone knows, they do

Quite a lot happened this month 50 years ago:

• XS341, the 'Scott-Furlong Predator' appeared in Flight - and bore quite a resemblance both to the Balzac and Fairey Delta 2.
• The P1127 became the Kestrel F(GA) Mk 1 for the Tripartite Evaluation Squadron at RAF West Raynham.
• The last flight of an Avro York took place (to Staverton).
• Production of about 160 Transall C-160s began - and the droning old beasts are still staggering along today!

Didn't the York fly on to Lasham eventually? It was there in the late 60s.

Different York. The Lasham one is at Duxford. The Staverton one is at Cosford.

There was a lot of work done on various tail-less swept-wing configurations by many companies in the immediate post war period, mostly inspired by what was found in Germany.
Initially simple swept wings were researched, but deltas soon appeared with the Avro 707 (1949) and Fairey FD1 (1951).

Historically there have been many cases where similar looking aeroplanes have appeared as the direct result of nothing more sinister than the design teams of the day coming to similar conclusions about the configuration for the job in hand.

Chevron

The Bedford supersonic overland corridor was much used by the FD2 in the 60s.

J

Thanks John, bit before my time at RAE. I was told about it by one of my colleagues at Bedford and he gave the impression it was just for the '221 as it couldn't go far and go supersonic due to its limited endurance.
So why was it necessary to decamp the FD2 to France for some SS flights?

Dunno

Could be that the corridor was not set up until too late for wot they were doing in France.

Could be the corridor was set up because the decamping to France was seen as silly.

Could be that Fairey talked to France after finding no joy from somebody in the UK but RAE used their clout to set up the corridor after they got the aircraft

J

While I suspect there is quite a lot of fantasy in some of the 'might have been' reconstructions, I always thought there must have been potential to develop the FD2 into some sort of fighter, perhaps like these?

My sole connection with the FD2 was sharing a retrieve car at Lasham once with the late Peter Twiss. Being rather 'British', the subject of his career as a test pilot and having once been the fastest man alive never came up in our conversation.