Dassault Breguet Br1150 Atlantiqes

[McColm]

The French Navy stands alone in flying 22 of the 28 Atlantique 2s. These are based on the Breguet Atlantic 1 (ATL 1) twin turboprop engined maritime patrol aircraft with a retractable search radar and rear ladder crew access.
Most of the original customers for the Atlantic 1 have replaced them with the Lockheed P-3 Orion or use them in the ELINT role.
With the withdrawal of the Transall C-160 from service, spares for the Rolls-Royce Tyne engines have become available.
There has been some interest by other countries in buying the Atlantic and upgrading them to the ATL2 standard but so far no confirmed orders.
By 2012 France had reduced it's fleet from 22 aircraft to 15 to receive a mid-life upgrade with further updates as the role in counter-terrorism flying missions over land.
Proposals for the Atlantique 3 and Atlantique 4 have been circulated to include a mix of piloted and unpiloted assets.
In the early days France was keen to have the Royal Air Force as a customer. The Air Ministry was concerned about the transit speed. A committee was set up to explore the options which included a pair of Rolls-Royce Spey turbofan engines instead of the Tyne engines and the addition of a third engine in the tail. A pair of auxiliary turbojets in a similar layout to that of the Lockheed Neptune was also considered.
The French also offered Britain parts of the fuselage to construct as they had the experience. An unconfirmed report of buying the Atlantic under licence and changing the name to the Atlantique to avoid confusion.
Britain pulled out of purchasing the Atlantic at the 11th hour in favour of the HS Nimrod.

Kits
There is a rare Heller model in 1/128 scale. Mach2 1/72 lacks interior details and has the usual problems associated with their kits. The 1/72 Revell kit is a much better example but it too has it's faults. Prices have been rising.
There is a resin Atlantique 2 conversion set available which is a bit pricey.

[McColm]

As mentioned in another topic the Atlantic was considered by the Air Staff as a platform for a AEW to include the fore and aft system or the Grumman Hawkeye rotodome both using the twin Rolls-Royce Tyne turboprop or a pair of Spey turbofan engines.
The Atlantique 3 was to have the Nimrod 2000 package and engine options with an
in-flight refueling probe.

Falcon Triple vacform conversion sets do the EP-3A which could be used to make the ELINT variant.
Cammett/ MasterCast do the resin 1/72 BAe Nimrod AEW.3 conversion set. This fits the Revell kit but you do lose quite a lot of detail in the cockpit area.

[McColm]

The Atlantique would make a great gun ship with the mini-guns housed in the weapons bay.
I did experiment with a solid nose and a Gatling gun fitted in the gap where the retractable radome normal goes.
Attack Squadron do a 1/72 resin set of the Harvest Hawk used by the US marines on the KC-130J(  who are fitting the Harvest Hawk sensors to H-1 helicopters,C-130J s and V-22s ) which would work well if you want to build a COIN variant.
Other Whiffers have converted the Atlantic to the transport version for military and civil use.
Breguet took the unusual step and drew up a flying boat , the Br1250. This didn't get passed the concept stage.
A FireCat version might be another option.
An alternative to the AEW proposal could be to use the Erieye phase array system mounted to the upper fuselage.