Mirage 2000 in IAF

IAF purchased 49 Mirage 2000s, including 42 single-seaters and 7 two-seaters in the 1980s. In 2004, the Indian government approved purchase of ten more Mirage 2000Hs, featuring improved avionics, particularly an upgraded RDM 7 radar. The IAF named the Mirage the "Vajra" (Sanskrit: वज्र, forThunderbolt). India also purchased appropriate stores along with the fighters, including ATLIS II pods and laser-guided weapons.

In 2006 it was reported that the Indian Air Force was close to finalizing a EUR 1.5 billion (about $2 billion) deal to upgrade its fleet of 51 Mirage-2000 ‘Vajra’ fighter jets. The aim was to give the aircraft more capabilities, bringing them to Mirage 2000-5 Mk 2 standard, and extending its useful life for another 20–25 years. The contract has been signed in 2011. India has assigned the nuclear strike role to its Mirage 2000 squadrons in service with theIndian Air Force (IAF) since 1985. In 1999 when the Kargil conflict broke out, the Mirage 2000 performed remarkably well during the whole conflict in the high Himalayas, even though the Mirages supplied to India had limited air interdiction capability and had to be heavily modified to drop laser-guided bombs as well as conventional unguided bombs. Two Mirage squadrons flew a total of 515 sorties, and in 240 strike missions dropped 55,000 kg (120,000 lb) of ordnance. Easy maintenance and a very high sortie rate made the Mirage 2000 one of the most efficient fighters of the IAF in the conflict. There are reports that the IAF qualified Soviet-designed missiles with the Mirage 2000, such as the R-27 (NATO AA-10 Alamo) AAM. In July 2011, India approved an $3 billion upgrade to its entire Mirage 2000 fleet and for over 400 MICA missiles.One of the two seat trainer versions crashed on 25 February 2012, another two seat version crashed on 5 March 2012. The plane was on a routine sortie.

Mirage 2000 project

Mirage 2000 C/B/D/N/5F

Dassault had been working on other fighter options in the meantime, partly because the export potential of the ACF was not promising. These alternatives were smaller, simpler, and cheaper than the ACF, and took the form of a number of "Mini-Mirage (Mimi)" concepts. These concepts congealed into an aircraft known at first as the "Super Mirage III", then the "Delta 1000", "Delta 2000", "Super Mirage 2000", and finally just "Mirage 2000".

The ACF was a strike aircraft first and an interceptor second, while the Mirage 2000 was exactly the reverse, but the Mirage 2000 was much more affordable. So When the ACF was cancelled, Dassault offered the single-engine Mirage 2000 as an alternative and was given approval to proceed by the French government on 18 December 1975. This was a return to the first generation Mirages, but with several important innovations that tried to solve their shortcomings. Project chiefs were B.C. Valliéres, J.Cabrière, J.C. Veber and B.Revellin-Falcoz.

There was another important reason for Dassault to push the Mirage 2000. Development of this small aircraft would also give the company a competitor to theGeneral Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon, which had defeated the Dassault Mirage F1 in a contest for a new fighter for the air forces of Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands and Norway. Small single-engined fighters were clearly the most appreciated by foreign customers, as experience with the larger, twin-enginedMirage 4000 would show.