Breguet Atlantic

Br.1150 Atlantic Atlantique 2
Breguet Atlantic of the German Navy
Role	Maritime patrol aircraft
Manufacturer	Breguet Aviation
First flight	21 October 1961
Introduction	1965
Status	Active service
Primary users	French Navy German Navy Italian Air Force Royal Netherlands Navy
Produced	1961 – 1987
Number built	87 Atlantique 1 28 Atlantique 2
Unit cost	>$35 Million

The Breguet Br.1150 Atlantic is a long-range maritime patrol aircraft designed and manufactured by Breguet Aviation. Introduced to service in 1965, it has been operated by several NATO countries, commonly performing maritime roles such as reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare. The Atlantic is also capable of carrying air-to-ground missiles, and some German Navy aircraft were also equipped to perform ELINT duties. An updated version, the Atlantique 2 or ATL2, was produced by Dassault Aviation for the French Navy in the 1980s.

Design and development

In 1958 NATO produced a specification for a long-range maritime patrol aircraft to replace the Lockheed Neptune, with Breguet's design, the Br 1150, chosen as the winner of the competition at the end of the year. A multi-national consortium, Société d'Étude et de Construction de Breguet Atlantic (SECBAT) was set up to develop and build the Atlantic.

The first prototype made its maiden flight at Toulouse on 21 October 1961, with the second prototype flying on 25 February 1962, followed by two pre-production aircraft with a longer fuselage in February 1963 and September 1964.

The Atlantic is a twin-engined, mid-winged monoplane with a "double-bubble" fuselage, with the upper lobe comprising a pressurised crew compartment, and the lower lobe housing a 9 m (27 ft 6 in) long weapons bay, with sonobuoy tubes aft of the weapons bay. A radar scanner is housed in a retractable underfuselage radome, while a magnetic anomaly detector is housed in a tail boom. Power is by two Rolls-Royce Tyne turboprop engines.

The Breguet Br.1150 Atlantic has been designed for its purpose, instead of refitting or modifying existing designs. Though the primary mission of the Atlantic is anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare, its secondary role includes search and rescue, mine laying and detection, and long-range maritime surveillance.

The Atlantic can carry either eight guided ASW torpedoes such as Mk 46 Torpedo or 12 depth charges or two AM.39 Exocet anti-ship missiles in its internal bomb bay. German Atlantics usually carried Mk 46s only and flew unarmed during the last years of their service.

An initial order for 60 Atlantics, 40 for France and 20 for Germany, was placed in 1963, with deliveries starting in 1965 and continuing to 1968. The production line had shut down by the time that the Netherlands placed an order for nine Atlantics and Italy ordered 18. Aircraft from this second production batch were delivered from 1972 to 1974.

In 1978, the French Government authorised development of a new, updated version of the Atlantic, the Atlantic Nouvelle Generation (later known as the Atlantique 2 when orders from other nations did not occur). While airframe and engines of the new aircraft changed little, other equipment and avionics were considerably revised, with a new radar, a new sonar processor and tactical computer, with a FLIR turret under the nose. The ability to carry Exocet missiles was also added. Two prototype Atlantique 2s were produced by converting existing Atlantics, with the first flying on 8 May 1981, with production being authorised on 24 May 1984. Deliveries started in 1989, with 28 eventually built, from an original requirement for 42. By 2012 they had been rebranded as the ATL2 and France had 22 in service. 18 are to be upgraded in two stages, Phase I addressing obsolescence issues and Phase II adding new capabilities. There is a separate project to integrate the new MU90 Impact torpedo.

An Atlantique 3 was proposed in 1995 for the British competition won by the Nimrod MRA4. It would have had a two-man glass cockpit, uprated AE2100H turboprops and avionics upgrades.

Operational history

The Royal Netherlands Navy lost three Atlantics out of nine aircraft in a series of failures over the Atlantic Ocean, resulting in the grounding of the type in 1981 and its eventual replacement by the P-3 Orion. The German Marineflieger operated their fleet from 1963 to 2005, losing one in an accident. The German Atlantics were also replaced by former Dutch P-3 Orions.

In 1999, a Pakistan Navy Atlantic was shot down by Indian Air Force MiG-21s after they failed to force it to land at an Indian base, raising tensions in the region, in what was dubbed the Atlantique Incident. Disobeying instructions from the MiG pilots, the Atlantic maneuvered to escape from them and was shot down by a heat-seeking air-to-air missile over the Rann of Kutch region.

Several German Atlantics have been donated to museums, including the Luftwaffenmuseum and the Dutch Air Force Museum, Soesterberg, Netherlands.

French Atlantics flew search flights during efforts to find the location of the crashed Air France Flight 447. French Navy Atlantique-2s were employed as ground-strike aircraft during Operation Serval over Northern Mali in January 2013; a number of laser-guided GBU-12 bombs were dropped by the Atlantiques against Malian djihadist seeking to overthrow the Malian government.

Accidents and incidents

• 20 September 1968 – Six members of the French Air Force were killed when their Atlantic crashed while performing at the Farnborough Air Show (Hampshire, England).

• 15 January 1981 - The Dutch Marine Atlantic SP-13A reconnaissance plane was shadowing the Soviet Navy carrier Kiev in foul weather, with 30 ft waves and blizzard conditions. The Atlantic's crew transmitted a Mayday at 09:58. They were not able to maintain height. It was forced to ditch 113 miles west of the Inner Hebrides about half an hour later. The Atlantic had suffered control problems after the failure of a control rod in the horizontal stabilizer.Nine survivors were rescued by RAF Sea King helicopter about two hours after the crash.
• 18 May 1986 - While flying through a cloud-covered sky, a French Navy Atlantic crashed into a mountain in Djibouti, killing all 19 people on board.

• 10 August 1999 - At the Pakistani-Indian border, 16 Pakistani Naval airmen were killed in the Atlantique Incident, just a month after the Kargil War.

Variants

Br.1150 Atlantic

Long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft.

Atlantique 2

Updated variant.

Operators

Breguet Atlantic Br.1150 of the Italian Navy

France

• French Navy
  • French Naval Aviation - The original model was retired in 1996. Second generation Atlantique 2 in service.

Italy

• Italian Air Force - Flown by pilots from the Italian Air Force and navy, but commanded by the navy.^{[citation needed]}

Pakistan

• Pakistan Navy
  • Pakistan Naval Air Arm

Former Operators

Germany

• German Navy - Received 20 Atlantics, with five converted as ELINT aircraft. Replaced all ASW aircraft by ex-Dutch P-3 Orion in 2005, while the remaining ELINT version were planned to be replaced by EuroHawks.

Netherlands

• Royal Netherlands Navy
  • Dutch Naval Aviation Service - Replaced by the P-3 Orion.

Specifications (Atlantique 2)

Another view of the above Breguet Atlantic Br.1150 of the German Navy

Weapons bay with two torpedos

Data from Jane's All The World's Aircraft 1988-89

General characteristics

• Crew: 12
• Capacity: 12 passengers or relief crew
• Length: 31.62 m (103 ft 9 in)
• Wingspan: 37.42 m (122 ft 9¼ in )
• Height: 10.89 m (35 ft 8¾ in)
• Wing area: 120.34 m² (1,295.3 sq ft)
• Empty weight: 25,700 kg (56,659 lb)
• Loaded weight: 45,000 kg (99,200 lb)
• Max. takeoff weight: 46,200 kg (101,850 lb)
• Powerplant: 2 × Rolls-Royce Tyne RTy.20 Mk 21 2-shaft turboprops, 6,100 ehp (4,549 kW) each

Performance

• Maximum speed: 648 km/h (350 knots, 402 mph)
• Cruise speed: 315 km/h (170 knots, 195 mph) (patrol speed)
• Stall speed: 167 km/h (90 knots, 104 mph) flaps down
• Ferry range: 9,075 km(4,900 nmi, 5,635 mi)
• Endurance: 18 hours
• Service ceiling: 9,145 m (30,000 ft)
• Rate of climb: 14.7 m/s (2,900 ft/min) at 30,000 kg (66,140 lb)

Armament

Up to 3,500 kg (7,700 lb), including torpedoes, depth charges, mines, anti-ship missiles, bombs and/or buoys

See also

• Avro Shackleton
• Boeing P-8 Poseidon
• Canadair Argus
• Hawker Siddeley Nimrod
• Kawasaki XP-1
• Lockheed P-3 Orion
• A319 MMA/MPA
• Bombardier Aerospace DHC-8-MPA-D8
• Ilyushin Il-38
• List of military aircraft of France
• List of military aircraft of Germany

References

Citations

Bibliography

• Eden, Paul, ed. The Encyclopedia of Modern Military Aircraft. London, UK: Amber Books, 2004. ISBN 1-904687-84-9CITEREFEden2004. 
• Donald, David and Jon Lake. (editors). Encyclopedia of World Military Aircraft. London:Aerospace Publishing, Single Volume edition, 1996. ISBN 1-874023-95-6.
• Lambert, Mark. (editor). Jane's All The World's Aircraft 1993-94. Coulsdon, UK:Jane's Data Division, 1993. ISBN 0-7106-1066-1.
• "The New Generation Atlantics". Air International, November 1981, Vol. 21 No. 5. pp. 213–218, 252–253.
• Taylor, John W. R. (editor). Jane's All the Worlds Aircraft 1988-89. Coulsdon, Surrey, UK: Jane's Information Group, 1988. ISBN 0-7106-0867-5.
• Wilson, Stewart. Combat Aircraft since 1945. London: Aerospace Publications, 2000. ISBN 1-875671-50-1CITEREFWilson2000. 

External links

• Présentation des Atlantique 2 Site de la Marine nationale
• Un ATL2 en jungle guyanaise Site de la Marine nationale
• Industrie Konsortium SECBAT in der Betreuungsphase
• Beschreibung bei EADS
• Beschreibung der BR 1150 bei der Deutschen Marine
• Französische Seite mit Beschreibung der SECBAT
• http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/atlantique/index.html