The French Join In

With the help of American dollars, the French have brought forth a first-class jet fighter plane. Last week a few of the wraps were taken off the Mystère MD-452, a swept-wing job more or less in the same league as the U.S.'s F-86 Sabre jets and Russia's MIG-15s. The Mystère was developed by French engineers using $5,000,000 worth of U.S. machine tools, furnished by the Mutual Security Agency.

The U.S. Air Force's Brigadier General Albert Boyd of the Wright Air Development Center, Dayton, Ohio, and Major "Chuck" Yeager took turns flying the Mystere over Marignane, France, checking its airspeed system by flying it alongside F-86 Sabres. "An excellent interceptor," they concluded, and recommended that the French put it into production. The Mystère will begin coming off assembly lines next month at Bordeaux's Dassault Aircraft plant. Target: a plane a day by the end of the year.