"Red Air": two French companies in the niche

ARES (ex-SDTS) had widely communicated in the spring about its desire to occupy the red air segment (air combat training, JTAC training, ground-to-air units, etc.) with Mirage 2000s. More discreetly, a second French company, Procor, is also working in this niche. It came out of the shadows by presenting (on the ground) one of its aircraft, a Mirage 2000C, at the Luxeuil airshow this weekend. This aircraft is part of a batch that Procor bought among the 12 that had been sold to Brazil in the 2000s by the air force (in the hope of initiating the sale of Rafale, which did not succeed). Its name was then mentioned in spring 2019, before falling back into the shadows.

Procor bought lots of Mirage 2000Cs

Procor does not detail the number of aircraft actually obtained at the time (less than a dozen), but admits to having a two-seater. Much more recently, the company has also bought lots of Mirage 2000Cs from the Châteaudun surplus, which should make it possible to build a resilient offer for the French market, obviously, but also for Europe. The European Defence Agency (EDA) conducted a consultation in late spring and the company's CEO, Xavier Janny, announced the first flight of a Mirage 2000 in the first quarter of 2022, with operations to be carried out from Luxeuil Air Base 116. "All the signals are green," he says.

Xavier Janny: a career in MCO

Fourteen technicians are already part of the company's workforce (of which there are about twenty): until now it has worked (still in the shadows) in the support of combat jets, since... 2003. The development of a red air offer started "three years ago". Xavier Janny, a professional engineer, has spent his entire career in MCO.