Airborne Tactical Advantage Company (ATAC), a part of Textron’s Airborne Solutions division, has taken delivery of the last of 63 ordered Mirage F1 aircraft from France, according to the company.
On 2 April, ATAC announced that the company has delivery of the last of 63 Mirage F1 aircraft to its Adversary Center of Excellence facility at the Fort Worth Alliance Airport in Texas.
“This logistics achievement is the culmination of months of hard work from multi-disciplined professionals on both sides of the Atlantic. Our Mirage F1 inventory represents the single largest common fleet of privately-owned ADAIR aircraft in the world and we look forward to their years of upcoming service and support to our U.S. military customers,” said announced on ATAC Facebook page.
According to several media reports, ATAC has ordered 63 planes in total, plus more than 150 spare engines and millions of spare parts. Eventually all 45 of the F1s that ATAC plans to restore to flying condition, plus the remaining F1s in that French Air Force batch and all the added spare parts and engines, will be based at Alliance Airport in what the company is calling its Adversary Center of Excellence.
That facility also will become the work home of 200 or more maintainers, pilots and administrators.
For the last 20 years, Airborne Tactical Advantage Company, or ATAC, has trained Navy, Marine, Air Force and Army air-crews, ship-crews, and Combat Controllers in the air-to-ship, air-to-air, and air-to-ground arenas. From five bases worldwide, including the Continental US, Hawaii and the Pacific, ATAC has trained the finest warfighters with over 42,000 hours of tactical flying support. ATAC is the only civilian organization approved to train the U.S. Navy’s elite Fighter Weapons School, also known as “TOPGUN”, and is the only civilian organization to train the USAF’s F-22 Raptors.
