The Falcon in maritime surveillance operations... October 2013 in Djibouti in East Africa, a French Navy Falcon 50M is preparing to take off for a surveillance mission over the Gulf of Aden as part of a mission to fight piracy. Since the early 2000’s, this type of aircraft has conducted maritime surveillance missions, unarmed missions... October 2013, Djibouti in East Africa : a French Navy Falcon 50-M is preparing to take off for a surveillance mission over the Gulf of Aden as part of a mission in the fight against piracy. This type of aircraft has conducted maritime surveillance missions, since the early 2000’s; unarmed missions of search and rescue at sea, fishing control, the fight against pollution and illicit trafficking, piracy and drug trafficking for the most part. There are five crew on-board : two pilots, one radar console operator and two observers. When the operator detects the target by radar, he transmits its co-ordinates to the pilots. Once in the area, the observers can identify it. Frigate Captain Henri d' Alençon / General Staff of the Navy - Maritime Surveillance Aircraft Programme Officer: "The first task is to locate. At sea there are no landmarks, so we begin from quite a vague position and it’s up to the aircraft to find something. After that it depends on how we intervene. Either a surface vessel is guided to the target sought, or, especially for sea rescue, we can intervene directly with the aircraft, by dropping life rafts and equipment." In 2009, 10 of the 19 aircraft used by the Navy in their maritime surveillance operations were retired. To replace them, it will soon have four new Falcon 50-M’s. Chief Armament Engineer Patrick Aufort / Directorate General of Armaments - Manager : Maritime Surveillance Aircraft: "We wanted to achieve the greatest possible homogeneity between the existing and new aircraft in order to maximise the savings in terms of support costs together with ease of use." And it's at Dassault Aviation in Bordeaux, where the conversion of the Falcon, hitherto used mainly for the transportation of V.I.P.’s, is done, and there’s a lot of work to do. Because these governmental Falcon’s require many adaptations to be able to perform the execution of their new mission, some even involve major structural changes, such as piercing the cabin walls for the installation of two observation windows. In the nose, the maritime surveillance radar, capable of detecting all that is to be found at sea level, replaces that for the weather,. It is complemented in the rear by an infrared camera to identify targets detected by day and night. To treat the information obtained thanks to these two pieces of equipment, a console operator’s post had to be installed on board. Being the nerve centre of the aircraft, in particular it allows detected targets to be classified according to their level of hostility. Jean- Louis Montel / Dassault Aviation - Deputy Manager : Technology: "From this console, the operator manages and distributes the information to the pilots so that they can select a flight path to the target/s, all of which is disseminated and stored into the on-board flight recorders." Two years are needed to carry out these conversions, plus six months of flight testing, all at a cost of € 15 million per ‘plane. The first of four converted aircraft will enter service early next year.