In 1961, NATO asked eleven design teams for one impossible aircraft: a fighter that could take off straight up and still fly at Mach 2. Its own technical board couldn't agree on a winner. Britain's Hawker Siddeley P.1154 was rated the stronger design and never flew once. France's Dassault Mirage IIIV, rated behind it, killed two test pilots on an early testbed before it ever got airborne, then went on to set a vertical-takeoff speed record that still stands today.

This video covers the full story of both aircraft: NATO's 1961 NBMR-3 requirement and its unresolved 1962 verdict, the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy split that doomed the P.1154's funding, its cancellation on the same day as the TSR-2, the fatal 1964 and 1965 Balzac V test-flight accidents, the Mirage IIIV's Mach 2.03 record flight and its own fatal transition-flight crash, and where the only surviving pieces of both programs sit today. Sources for every date, name, and figure are listed in the script's own validation notes. The exact cause of the 1965 Balzac V accident is flagged as investigators' private speculation, not an official finding, since the investigation results were never published.

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Mirage IIIV, Dassault Mirage, Hawker Siddeley P.1154, NBMR-3, NATO fighter competition, VTOL fighter jet, Balzac V, vertical takeoff jet, Jean-Marie Saget, Cold War aviation, military aviation history, fighter jet documentary, Cold War jets, Harrier jump jet, TSR-2, Royal Air Force history, French aviation history, military history documentary, declassified military history, VTOL speed record