“CASA” for the Air and Space Forces should continue (at least) until 2040!

less legendary than a C 160 Transal and less popular than a A400M Atlas Yet it is one of the most important devices in the Air and Space Force’s arsenal. Tactical air carrier House CN-235M It is currently the backbone of French projection ability, but it is also an ancient machine. That is why the Ministry of Armed Forces decided a month ago to update it in depth. A project that should allow us to wait for Airbus DS to develop the FCTM.

To date, twenty-seven Casas fly under the French tricolor cockade. They provide tactical and logistical day trips as well as general service missions. Whether from the 105th Evreux Air Base in Normandy, the 181st Air Detachment Saint-Denis in Reunion, the 186th Air Base La Tontouta in New Caledonia, the 188th Air Base Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, the 190th Air Detachment in Tahiti in French Polynesia, or the Air Force Base 367 Cayenne in Guyana fly not counting their hours. For the outer specimens, the marine outgrowths are almost regular, with erosion necessarily accelerated by salt spray.

In order to allow the correct implementation of the FCTM program, For future tactical cargo media, which some are already calling the Airbus DS A200M, the Ministry of the Armed Forces chose a redesign solution. The private companies Sabina Technics and Thales should therefore share a ministerial envelope of one hundred and seven million euros aimed at modernizing the twenty-seven French CN-235Ms.
Despite what one might lead to believe, Sabena Technics is not a Belgian company but rather a French company since 2005. She will be the Project Manager for the site at Breton Workshops in Dinard. Its role is also to refurbish the electrical, hydraulic, mechanical and structural components of military aircraft. For its part, Thales will have to provide modern avionics with, in particular, an inertial navigation unit coupled with a global positioning system (GPS). top star. All avionics will be integrated into the wing Toppedic Adapted to 5G technology.

In addition to keeping the Casa CN-235M at a high level of operational capabilities, this redesign project must also ensure that they can continue to fly according to French and especially European civil standards. Otherwise, it could simply be established by decision of Brussels.
The Air Force and Aerospace Forces have two versions of the CN-235M. These are the CN-235M-200 and CN-235M-300, nineteen and eight, respectively. that is the last one relatively newcompared to the original obtained in 1992.
A modern prototype of each will be released by the end of next year as a technology demonstration. Then the site can really start and will continue until 2031. The Air and Aerospace Forces intend to be able to abandon their CN-235M-200 by 2040, and then retain and fly only CN-235M-300 aircraft in tandem with the future (virtual?) Airbus DS A200M.
case to follow.

Images © Air and Space Force.