The fleet was fielded aboard FS Clemenceau and FS Foch who were commissioned at about the same time as the Etendard IV was adopted. The Etendard IV became Dassault's first foray into a carried-based fighting platform.Ī first-flight was recorded on May 21st, 1958 and service introduction began in 1962. The service contracted for ninety of the type to come in two forms, sixty-nine of a dedicated fighter model and twenty-one of a dedicated reconnaissance model. Even so, the French Navy was on the lookout for a jet-powered thoroughbred to field from a new generation of aircraft carrier (the Clemenceau-class) and partnered with Dassault to bring an offshoot of these projects to market - this becoming the "Etendard IV". In the early 1950s, NATO members - including France itself - were in the market for a lightweight aerial combat platform aircraft, influenced heavily by the air war of the recent Korean War (1950-1953), and development by Dassault Aviation of France began on a new transonic fighter aircraft.īoth the Dassault Etendard II and Etendard VI (Etendard = "Standard") were prototyped for this requirement though, in the end, neither was selected by any one party. This period (the "Cold War") coincided with the arrival of the jet age so French aeronautical engineers had a blank-canvas-of-sorts in which to develop all new fighting aircraft. After World War 2 (1939-1945), French aero-industry moved quickly to reestablish itself as a preeminent development center for advanced combat aircraft.
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