Peter Boschert in Mont de Marsan for the LAST MIRAGE F1
The last flying Mirage F.1 in Europe.
In the near future (June 2014), France will retire the last Mirage F.1CR.
At the moment ER02.033 is the last active unit based at BA118 Mont-de-Marsan and it has 20 Mirage F.1 on strength, 17 F.1CR and 3 F.1B.
The unit is active and intergrated in NATO till its end. In the beginning of the year it had its duty in Baltic Air Policing from March to July 2013 and it played a vital role in the Lybia conflict.
730 Mirage F.1 were built between 1973 – 1989, 251 of them for France. These were active in a lot of conflicts (Iran-Iraq, the border conflict between Equador and Peru, the South-African fight against SWAPO in Namibia and the Chad-conflict.
The F.1 was sold to France, Equador, Grecce, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lybia, Marocco, Qatar and Spain. The last country had negotiations with Argentina about a further use of their retired Mirage F.1Ms.
France had the following versions in use:
– F.1B ca. 30 cm longer dualseat-version for pilot training
– F.1C fighter version with Cyrano-IV radar
– F.1C-200 same as F.1C but with refueling probe
– F.1CT modified F.1C-200 with advanced radar and avionics, head-up display and laser-range finder.
