Nord 1402 Gerfaut
Powered by an Atar 101C turbojet providing 2,800 kgs of thrust, the Gerfaut prototype made its first flight on January 15th, 1954 with André Turcat at the controls.
Overall, five Gerfaut were built from 1953 to 1957.
It is the Arsenal company, later becoming SFECMAS (that merged afterwards with North Aviation) and designer Jean Galtier, that was at the origin of this study for a compact delta wing plane, inaugurating a long French tradition in this domain (Dassault Mirage III and IV, Nord Griffon, SE Durandal, etc...).
Flown again by André Turcat, the Gerfaut was the first European aircraft to come accross the sound barrier in level flight (and without after burner) on August 3rd, 1954.
Two other prototypes were built:
- The 1402B Gerfaut 1 B, with a larger wing area and powered by an Atar 101 D. First flight happened on February 9th, 1955.
- The 1405 Gerfaut II, equipped with Atar 101 F giving 3,800 kgs of thust. First flight was made on April 17th, 1956. It is with this plane, that on February 23rd, 1957, André Turcat set a new climb record by reaching 15,000 m in 3 minutes and 35 seconds.
After the program's abandon, the plane, equipped with a 4,000 kgs of thrust Atar G21 was used for testing the new Aladin interception radar.
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