Dassault Étendard IV
The Dassault Étendard IV was a French carrier-borne strike fighter, the Aéronautique Navale's first supersonic fighter. It was built in two versions, 69 Étendard IVM strike aircraft and 21 Étendard IVP reconnaissance aircraft, delivered between 1961 and 1965, and served aboard the carriers Clemenceau and Foch from 1962. The strike version retired in 1991, while the reconnaissance version, which flew the type's combat missions over Lebanon, Bosnia and Kosovo, remained in service until 2000. The design formed the basis of the Super Étendard.
Why It Mattered
The Étendard IV gave the Aéronautique Navale, France's naval air arm, its first supersonic fighter. It was designed for two jobs: protecting the French carrier fleet and attacking targets ashore from the carriers' decks. Production split into two specialised versions: 69 Étendard IVM strike aircraft, built from 1961 to 1965, and 21 Étendard IVP reconnaissance aircraft. The type mattered beyond its own career because the Étendard served as the basis for the more advanced Super Étendard. The strike version served until 1991 and the reconnaissance version until 2000, a working life of almost four decades from the type's entry into service in 1962.
Design Notes
The Étendard was a relatively lightweight, single-seat naval attack fighter built around one SNECMA Atar turbojet. The production engine, the Atar 8 C2 of the Musée de l'Air's specification, gave 4,400 kg of thrust and had no afterburner, so the aircraft was transonic and could pass the speed of sound only in a dive. Its highly swept wing carried double-slotted flaps, spoilers, powered ailerons and leading-edge droop flaps, and the wings folded to take up less room aboard the carriers. A compact Dassault-built Aida radar sat in the nose, joined by a Swedish-made SAAB bombing computer added to increase accuracy. Armament was two 30 mm DEFA cannon and up to 1,360 kg of stores on four wing hardpoints; the museum lists Sidewinder and AS 30 missiles among them. The IVP swapped the cannon for cameras: five OMERA cameras filled its lengthened nose, long-focus cameras could be carried in the ventral bay in place of the guns, and its refuelling probe, retractable on the IVM, was fixed because the nose had no room for the retraction gear.
Operational History
The Étendard grew out of NATO's 1954 Light Weight Tactical Strike Fighter programme, and a land-based prototype flew on 24 July 1956. NATO rejected the design over its engine and the French Air Force turned to the Mirage III, leaving the Navy as the only customer; it ordered five pre-production aircraft in May 1957. Dassault navalised the design with folding wings, a deck-landing hook and a reinforced fuselage, and the first Étendard IVM flew on 21 May 1958. After carrier trials aboard Clemenceau in late 1960, the first production aircraft flew in July 1961, and deliveries ran from December 1961 to May 1965. The type entered service in 1962 and deployed aboard both new Clemenceau-class carriers, Clemenceau and Foch, with Flottilles 11F, 15F, 16F and 17F. The reconnaissance prototype had flown in November 1960, and the IVP, not the strike version, flew the type's only real combat missions, its photo-reconnaissance flights. Over Lebanon in 1983–84, an IVP from Foch was hit in the tail by a Strela-2 surface-to-air missile on 23 September 1983; it reached the carrier, was repaired, and flew again four days later. On 15 April 1994, over Gorazde in Bosnia-Herzegovina, IVP No 115 was hit by a surface-to-air missile on a reconnaissance mission; deprived of its elevator, it was brought back aboard Clemenceau by its pilot, Capitaine de corvette Pierre Clary, and flew again six weeks later. The reconnaissance aircraft also flew over Kosovo in 1999. As the Super Étendard took over the strike role, the IVM was phased out of combat work in 1987 and its last aircraft were retired in September 1991, ending with the 59S training escadrille. The IVP, joined by four IVM airframes converted to the reconnaissance standard as IVPMs in the late 1970s, remained in service until 27 July 2000.
Afterlife
The Étendard's replacement was its own descendant: the Navy had first intended a navalised Jaguar, the Jaguar M, but that programme was terminated and the Super Étendard was ordered in its place. According to Dassault, by the reconnaissance version's retirement in 2000 the Étendard family had flown in excess of 200,000 hours. Survival in preservation is broad: preserved Étendards are listed at museums across France, and one IVM is displayed by the Pima Air and Space Museum in Arizona. The Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace at Le Bourget displays Étendard IVM No 56. At Rochefort, the naval aviation museum preserves the rear fuselage of IVP No 115, the aircraft damaged by a missile over Bosnia in 1994.