Mirage 2000N - 100 years of the La Fayette fighter squadron

Reduced diecast model scale 1/72 with very high precision delivered with landing gears and presentation base. This model can be assembled without any tools nor glue within a few minutes.Invisible assembly. 3 possible presentation (take-off - landing, in flight, on the taxi way). This model is presented in a designed packaging. (21.5 * 21.5 / 7 cm). Model dimensions: 20.28 cm of length - 12.68 cm of span - 7.22 cm of height.

The livery presented was produced in 2016 to mark the centenary of the EC 2/4 La Fayette fighter squadron, which at the time was operating out of Airbase 125 at Istres-Le Tubé. It was created by Régis Rocca and commemorated the 100 years of Franco-American friendship and the engagement by American aviators in the First World War.

The Mirage 2000N is the variant of the Mirage 2000 designed for nuclear strikes, and carries the ASMP medium-range air-to-surface missile which later became the ASMP-A (improved version). Initial test flights of both prototypes were carried out in 1983 and the Mirage 2000N became operational in 1988.
Its fuselage is similar to that of the Mirage 2000B, a two-seat trainer aircraft designed to fly over long distances at low altitude. The specific demands of nuclear strike missions meant that this aircraft had to be a two-seater: a weapons systems officer (NOSA in French) is in charge of commanding the navigation system, counter-measures and triggering of the nuclear missile.
Dassault Aviation produced 75 of these aircraft.
They were operated by squadrons of the Strategic Air Force - Fighter Squadron 1/4 "Dauphiny" and Fighter Squadron 2/4 "La Fayette" based at Air Base 116 Luxeuil Saint-Sauveur – as well as Fighter Squadron 3/4 "Limousin" stationed at Air Base 125 Istres Le Tubé. In the early 1990s, the Fighter Squadron 2/3 "Champagne" also operated this aircraft within the Nancy 3rd fighter squadron.
In addition to operating in a permanent state of alert inherent to the nuclear mission since 1988, these squadrons won renown for their contribution to the air campaign waged in former Yugoslavia (Operation Deny Flight - 1994) from Cervia in Italy.
They repeated this feat in 2011, during operation Harmattan in Libya, when Mirage 2000N aircraft took off from Souda in Crete to carry out ground strike missions.
As early as August 2015, during operation Chammal, crews from Fighter Squadron 2/4 "La Fayette," the last squadron to fly the Mirage 2000N, operated out of Jordan to combat terrorists in Iraq and Syria. These aircraft and their crews bid farewell to the theater of operations on August 25, 2016 after nearly 500 sorties.
Mirage 2000N aircraft went on to contribute to operations in the Sahel-Saharan strip alongside their Mirage 2000D counterparts. This marked the last international operation performed by Fighter Squadron 2/4 "La Fayette."
The Mirage 2000N will definitively be withdrawn from service in summer 2018, after 30 years at the core of France's nuclear deterrent.