[hyair]

You would ask what a mach 2.2 fighter has to do with a barely Supersonic mach 1.1 fighter !
Well the answer lays on the questions.
The Skyray recieved in 1955 the J57P20 engine with dry thrust of 5.2 - 7.25 ton in AB.The only drawbackwas the engine weight of almost 2 tons.
With this engine the Skyray had the top speed of 0.96 mach low and 1.08 mach at 12 km hight.
The mirage 3 first flight in 1957 had the Snecma atar 9B with 4.3 - 6.1 ton thrust in AB. Top speed at low level mach 1.15 - 2.15 at 12 km.
Why the lower spec engine has twice the Speed - how come ?
The answer can be seen when the two stand close to each other. The Skyray has a very Fat bat wing design with a lot of drag .We can call him the NAVY harmonious drag master. One pilot joked that the Skyray will do 1.1 mach straight up and down.
The mirage is the very opposit - area ruled shaped body and very thin but strong wings along with a streamed lined body with an execellent supersonic go !!!
The Skyray could climb faster but had a bad flying virtues such as nose tuck down and up when crossing mach 0.9 mach back and fourth - very bad and limitting feature of flight virteus.
All in all the mirage proved that with a slim fugelage and small frontal area drag You can achieve very high performance with a relatively low power engine.

Yair