On Friday, July 25, 2025, French Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu announced on social media that domestic company Dassault Aviation had completed the maiden flight of the first of three ARCHANGE strategic reconnaissance and electronic warfare aircraft (Avion de Renseignement à CHArge utile de Nouvelle GEnération – “next-generation payload reconnaissance aircraft”), built on the airframe of the long-range business jet Falcon 8X.
Photos: Sébastien Lecornu via X
According to aviation spotters, the aircraft with the temporary registration number F-WWVS took to the skies on Thursday, July 17 of this year from Bordeaux-Mérignac Airport, located in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region and the Gironde department.
The construction of the three SIGINT-class specialized aircraft was announced on November 21, 2019, by then-Minister of the Armed Forces Florence Parly. The purchase was funded under the Military Programming Law (Loi de programmation militaire, LPM) for the years 2019–2025.
ARCHANGE will be equipped with the CUGE (Capacité Universelle de Guerre Électronique) universal electronic warfare package, developed by Thales DMS and Thales SIX GTS France. This system will enhance France’s electromagnetic intelligence capabilities, including the interception of radio and radar signal emissions.
The system will be complemented by a ground-based training and mission planning platform, to be established at Évreux-Fauville Air Base 105 (Base aérienne 105), named after Commandant Viot, located in the Eure department. This base will also be home to the three new aircraft, assigned to the 1/54 Dunkerque Electronic Warfare Squadron (Escadron électronique aéroporté).
The CUGE package includes multi-polarized antennas, machine learning algorithms (artificial intelligence) to enhance the automatic processing of collected data, as well as onboard systems for detecting and analyzing radar and communication signals. Thales has been developing the technical components for this capability since the Epicure R&D phase, which began in 2009 (renamed ARCHANGE in June 2019).
The ARCHANGE aircraft will replace two modified Transall C-160G Gabriel electronic reconnaissance aircraft, tail numbers F221 GS (serial no. 224) and F216 GT (serial no. 219), which were retired from service in 2022, a year after the rest of the C-160 fleet was phased out. Since entering service in 1989, the Gabriels had flown SIGINT missions over the Baltic States, the Persian Gulf, and Kosovo.
Originally, deliveries of the ARCHANGE aircraft were scheduled to begin in 2025, but in 2023, the timeline was pushed back to 2028.
L'Archange a réalisé son premier vol.
Construit sur la base d'un Falcon 8X de @Dassault_OnAir, modifié pour y intégrer des systèmes de pointes développés par @thalesgroup, notre futur avion de renseignement sera doté de capacités au plus haut standard pour la détection de… pic.twitter.com/i9qX46GBYB
— Sébastien Lecornu (@SebLecornu) July 25, 2025
