ATAC to perform chase flights

Airborne Tactical Advantage Company (ATAC), part of the Textron Systems segment of Textron Inc. announced on 10 August 2022 that it has been awarded a five-year indefinite delivery indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract by the U.S. Navy to provide chase flight services for the F-35 program.

ATAC will provide three Mirage F1 aircraft for approximately 600 flight hours per year from Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base (NAS JRB) in Fort Worth (TX). Flight operations are expected to commence late in 2022 or in early 2023.

ATAC crews will support new F-35 aircraft during their first flights, along with product assurance flights. Mirage F1s will be used to fly specific profiles and provide airspace clearance and aircraft systems checks.

ATAC is the global leader of tactical airborne training and has previous experience conducting F-35 chase services, having successfully performed missions in 2019 and 2020 from the ATAC Adversary Center of Excellence (ACE) in Fort Worth, Texas. ATAC currently has a fleet of over 100 aircraft, and has logged over 70,000 flight hours during 25 years of operations.

Photo (just illustrative) by Robin Guess via http://www.the-art-of-motion.com/