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Originally Posted by MarkB.
Comrades:
Here's another drawing. It's a little hard to say but it appears that the actual payload is the dotted line rather than the ogive.
So there were four launches, three successful between 1965 and 1968. The first, from Biscarosse, south of Bordeaux was a success. The remaining three were from Ile du Levant off the coast from Toulon, the first of these was a pad failure, but the remaining two were successful.
Blackshire's Picture 1 is also referred to as Tacite 903. At least three different rockets are shown in Blackshire's four pictures but I have no idea which pictures correspond to the four launch attempts.
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I just e-mailed an updated thread link to Jean-Jacques Serra, as he--as well as I--finds your new information and drawing useful, and fortuitous! (He said that he's seeking material on the smaller French rockets, and your attached drawing shows a couple of them.) Also:
As with the later Belier/Centaure/Dragon/Dauphin/Eridan/Pegase (planned but not built; Pegase was an Eridan topped by a Belier third stage, if memory serves) series vehicles, which were built "block-style" using three solid motor types and standard fin units, nose cones, and (where applicable) transition sections, the ONERA Tacite, Titus I, and Titus II also had common parts, making 3D printed plastic parts sets--from which customize-able scale models of them could be built--feasible. Plus:
Ile du Levant was also, if I recall correctly, the launch site for many Belier and especially Centaure sounding rockets (and possibly the Dragon, Dauphin, and/or Eridan, too). The Landes Test Centre (that's how I've seen it referred to in English, although it may have been changed over the years) at Biscarrosse has been mainly a ballistic missile test site (see:
http://www.landes.gouv.fr/dga-essai...osse-a3670.html ), although smaller missiles and sounding rockets have also been launched there, and:
With its facilities, the Landes site could also conduct orbital launches, although the usable azimuths (from ground launches, at least) would be limited--westerly inclined retrograde orbits (Israel conducts retrograde-orbit launches from Palmachim Airbase
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmachim_Airbase at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, also for geographic reasons), with "dog-leg"-accessed polar and/or Sun-synchronous orbits perhaps also being attainable, depending on the launch vehicle used. (Pegasus and/or Virgin Orbit LauncherOne air launches, based out of Biscarrosse, could of course easily reach such useful polar and near-polar orbits, and prograde [direct] orbits, from Biscarrosse-based Pegasus and/or LauncherOne air launches occurring over the western Mediterranean, could easily be reached as well.)