Top 10: Best-looking French aircraft

The Mirage III was not the first delta-winged warplane to enter service: the British Gloster Javelin (a tailed delta) entered service in February 1956, followed, in the same year, by the pure delta Convair F-102 Delta Dagger and Douglas F4D Skyray in April and the Avro Vulcan bomber in September.

The sharp, sleek Mirage, with its muscular semi-circular shock-cone inlets, was a thing of beauty.  As well as being wonderful to look at, the Mirage repeatedly proved itself in combat. The III series grew with the 5 and 50, and proved a success with export customers.

7: Caudron racers

The Caudron C.450 and C.460 were race planes built for the Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe race of 1934, and they were very fast - and looked it… Replete in French Racing Blue with an almost obscenely elongated nose section, they certainly looked like racers.

The C.450 took first place in the race, piloted by Maurice Arnoux, with another a C.460 taking third, piloted by Albert Monville. Despite the effort to fit the aircraft with a retractable undercarriage, the 460s had technical issues, so it competed with the undercarriage in the down position.

Thanks to the supercharged Renault 456 six-cylinder inverted air-cooled engine, the Ratier two-position variable-pitch propeller, and a light, clean airframe of largely wooden (spruce and birch plywood) construction, the Caudrons were very successful, winning several races and snatching airspeed records. The aircraft reached speeds of around 300mph (482km/h).

This entry caused debate among those polled, as the C.460’s forebear, the Caudron C.362, had a spatted undercarriage. A spatted undercarriage is non-retractable, with streamlining coming from a fairing that covers part of the wheel. Some preferred the spatted aircraft, others the clean look of the 450/460. To some controversy, the 450/460 garnered considerably more votes, but to be fair any in this series of worthy of inclusion.

6: Sud Aviation SE 210 Caravelle

Unbearably beautiful, the Caravelle featured a wealth of innovations and there are many reasons why it was a technological masterpiece that inspired love in those that came close to the French jetliner.

Whereas competitors had engines in or under the wings, noisily close to most areas of the cabin, the Caravelle’s two engines were neatly tucked away in nacelles at the rear end of the aircraft. It was said that the noisiest seat on board the Caravelle was only as loud as the quietest seat in the quietest rival airliner.

To demonstrate this quietness, guitarist and singer Sacha Distel, accompanied by his orchestra, took a trip aboard the Caravelle III Alsace to record a single inside the aircraft on 17 April 1959. In addition to musical instruments - including a 200kg piano - a recording studio was installed.  The recording was started at an altitude of 34,450 feet (10,500 metres).

The distinctive windows were passenger pleasers: the higher section was narrow to limit the risks of glare due to the sun, and the lower wider part gave a better view down, allowing the travellers to more easily admire the often epic landscape visible from 10,000 metres in the sky.

5: Bugatti 100P

Bugatti is a name synonymous with dream-machine cars of the 1920s and 1930s. These gorgeous cars scorched a reputation for unbeatable performance and exceptional good looks. A less well-known fact is that Bugatti were also working on building the world’s fastest aeroplane.

Bugatti asked Belgian engineer Louis de Monge to design a beautiful, technologically advanced aeroplane of unique configuration. The aircraft was named the 100P, and it was the very smallest possible design you could fit the engines, undercarriage, pilot and enough fuel for a 1000-kilometre run.

Bugatti was keen to use his straight inline eight cylinder engine of approximately 4.7 litre capacity. Louis studied the engine, looked at all the latest aerodynamic advances and concluded that he could beat the existing speed record, which at this time was held by Macchi M.C.72 seaplane at 440 mph (708km/h).

This radical Art Deco masterpiece was as advanced as it was beautiful. Fate, in the form of the German invasion of France, conspired against it flying. It seemed that the Bugatti 100P was destined never to leave the ground. However, a replica flew in 2015, but crashed on its third flight, tragically killing pilot Scotty Wilson.

4: Dassault Mirage IV

Weighing in at 32,000 kg, capable of rocket-assisted take-offs, a top speed of Mach 2.2 — and the ability to deliver a nuclear holocaust — few aircraft were as exciting as the Mirage IV strategic bomber. Combining hideous lethality with graceful lines, and an excellent recce capability, this Cold War warrior served France from 1964-2005.

According to former Mirage IV pilot, Jean Copponnex, “The largest armed warplane in the French Air Force plane could not be more impressive! Twice the size of the Mirage III, an internal fuel capacity allowing for more than two hours of range, the possibility of flying at Mach 2 for several tens of minutes, and refuelling in flight.”

The Mirage IV was big, fast and very beautiful. It also had the potential and performance to be more than a bomber, according to Copponnex: “Rare, unofficial ‘confrontations’ with real fighters have shown that it probably would have been a potent fighter, especially with more powerful engines.”

He continued, “The finesse of its airframe allowed for fantastic performance... It was ideally suited to the missions for which it was designed: high altitude and high Mach speeds, and later very low altitude, high speed as well as being able to navigate anywhere on the planet autonomously.”

3: Dassault Rafale

Of the ‘Eurocanard’ fighters, the collaborative Typhoon, Swedish Gripen and French Rafale, the latter is generally considered the most beautiful. It is far curvier than the Typhoon, far more predatorial than the boxy-intaked Gripen and is overall more flowing in form than either.

The Rafale’s forward fuselage is a sculpture in its own right, somewhat like a boat hull, and sensuously feminine. The canard foreplanes are more aesthetically positioned than those of the Typhoon and more in proportion than those of the Gripen.

The kidney-shaped air intakes are delightful. The combination of t-shaped frontal fuselage and kidney shaped intake is like nothing else, other than perhaps the TF-102, which certainly lacked the Rafale’s beauty. The serrated zig-zag panel lines, there to aid stealth, are also a neat design feature.

Until the 1950s, France had a reputation for making either the ugliest or most beautiful aircraft. From the mid-1960s, France seemingly (almost) always made gorgeous aircraft. The Rafale is a strong heir to this legacy of attractive jet aircraft as well as being an extremely capable multi-role combat aircraft available in both land-and carrier-based variants.

2: Dassault Mirage F1

What makes a Mirage a Mirage? Seemingly, not the big delta wing, as the Mirage F1 of 1966 did not have one.  Unlike its earlier (and later) family members that entered service, the F1 had a swept wing mounted high on the fuselage.

The first Mirage to fly with such a wing was the IIIF2. The new cropped delta wing combined lower weight, short-field performance and pleasant handling. The Mirage F1 had an aggressive, uncluttered appearance with good proportions. It was swift at Mach 2.2+, and proved effective in service.

An attractive feature of the F1 was the 'dogtooth’ on the wing; in aerodynamics a dogtooth is a small, sharp break in the leading edge of a wing, used to prevent separated flow from progressing outboard when the aircraft is flying nose high to the direction of travel (known as a ‘high angle of attack’).

The Mirage F1 kept the variable geometry variable conical centre-body intakes of the III/5/50 series. The centre-body moves in and out of the intake as appropriate for different airspeeds. At low speeds, extra power can be achieved with the aid of ‘suck-in’ auxiliary doors on the side of the main intakes.

1: Dassault Mirage 2000

Superficially, the late seventies Mirage 2000 is similar to the Mirage III series, but it was an utterly different machine embodying some of the then latest innovations in aviation, including fly-by-wire and inherent instability (most modern fighter aircraft have reduced stability to increase manoeuvrability).

The Mirage 2000 had a twin-engine sibling, the massively impressive Mirage 4000, which failed to make it into the top ten. The 4000 failed to enter full series production or service but proved helpful in developing the Rafale. The 4000 also featured the world’s first carbon graphite tail