France has passed a significant milestone in its development of a new airborne electronic warfare capability, with the Dassault Aviation Falcon 8X-based Archange having performed its debut flight.

Announced by the nation’s DGA defence procurement body on 29 July, the event saw the long-range business jet get airborne for the first time with a large new fairing installed beneath its forward fuselage.

Paris in December 2019 signed a contract covering the Archange development activity and procurement of two Falcon 8Xs modified for signals intelligence (SIGINT) duties. It planned to subsequently increase its fleet size to three of the adapted trijets, with Dassault responsible for the airframe modifications.

To be equipped with Thales’s CUGE mission system, the platforms will be “capable of [simultaneously] detecting and analysing radar and communications signals”, and are to “contribute to France’s ability to collect and analyse strategic information”, the DGA says.

Thales has previously detailed the system’s capabilities as to involve the use of “multi-polarisation antennas and artificial intelligence technologies to automate data processing”.

At the time of its contract announcement, the DGA said the Archange system would enter service in 2025, as a replacement for two C160G Gabriel SIGINT assets. Those aged Transall-based special mission aircraft were then retired from service in 2022.

According to its current schedule, the procurement body says three Archange aircraft will be fielded before the end of France’s 2024-2030 Military Planning Act period.