Dassault Balzac V

The Dassault Balzac V was a pioneering experimental aircraft built by Dassault Aviation in the early 1960s to explore vertical‑take‑off and landing (VTOL) technology for future combat jets. Developed from the earlier Balzac concept and first flown on 25 June 1965, the Balzac V used a conventional Mirage III‑type fuselage coupled with a single powerful SNECMA Atar 101 turbo‑jet that exhausted through a central nozzle equipped with a swiveling deflector. This arrangement allowed the aircraft to transition from vertical hover, powered by thrust‑vectoring, to conventional horizontal flight at speeds exceeding Mach 0.9. Key features included a reinforced airframe to withstand the high thrust stresses, a sophisticated flight‑control system that blended pilot inputs for both hover and forward flight, and a modular intake that could be adjusted for optimal airflow during different flight regimes. Although the Balzac V never entered production, its flight tests demonstrated the viability of thrust‑vectoring and provided critical data that influenced later Dassault projects, most notably the Mirage IIIV and, ultimately, the successful Mirage F1 and Rafale families. The program cemented Dassault’s reputation as an innovator in VTOL research and helped shape modern multi‑role combat aircraft design.