SNCASO SO.9000 Trident

what is it?

The SNCASO SO.9000 Trident is a French jet and rocket powered interceptor aircraft built by aircraft manufacturer SNCASO during the 1950s. As part of a wider effort to re-build French military power during the late 1940s and to furnish France with advanced, new domestically produced designs, a request for a supersonic-capable point-defence interceptor aircraft to equip the French Air Force was issued to SNCASO. In response, the firm designed the mixed-propulsion Trident, powered by a single SEPR rocket engine, which was augmented by wingtip-mounted turbojet engines, and the Air Force ordered two prototypes. The two SO.9000 Trident Is demonstrated the feasibility of the design concept despite the loss of one aircraft during flight testing and the Air Force ordered a batch of three prototype SO.9050 Trident II fighters in 1954, and a batch of six pre-production aircraft in 1956 to further

🔎How to recognise it: 3 jet engines · 7 m wingspan

base stats

• speed 2,092 km/htop speed
• size 5,900 kgmax take-off weight
• built 8made in total

Bars compare against all aircraft: 3,500 km/h, 20,000 km, 850 seats; size and number built on a log scale up to 640 t (An-225) and 45,000 built (Cessna 172).

fun facts

• 🎂First flew 73 years ago, in 1953.
• 🏎️Top speed is 16.1× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
• 💥Faster than sound: up to Mach 1.7 (sea-level speed of sound ≈ 1,235 km/h).
• 🏔️Can fly 2.7× higher than Mount Everest (8,849 m).

jet: Gas turbine pushing air out the back (turbofan or turbojet): fast and high-flying.

spec sheet

first flight

1953-03-02

number built

8

role

research interceptor aircraft

origin

🇫🇷 France

makers

Sud-Ouest

engines

3× Turbomeca Gabizo / SEPR 631

crew

1

length

12.7 m

wingspan

7 m

max take-off weight

5,900 kg

top speed

2,092 km/h

range

—

ceiling

24,000 m

Specs are for the version in the Wikipedia article's specification section. Blank means the sources don't say.