Airbus A321 Airliners To Be Modified Into “Flying Frigate” Patrol Jets By France

Airbus Defense and Space has begun a risk-assessment study for France’s future maritime patrol aircraft (MPA), to be based on an Airbus A321 airliner platform. Billed as a “flying frigate” by the company, the new MPA is intended to replace the French Navy’s Dassault Atlantique 2 fleet but emerges at a time when NATO nations are increasingly adopting the in-production Boeing P-8 Poseidon for their maritime patrol requirements.

Airbus yesterday announced a contract for further risk-reduction studies of the new maritime patrol aircraft. The contract was awarded by the Direction Générale de l’Armement (DGA), France’s defense procurement agency, with Airbus Defense and Space as prime contractor, in partnership with European defense corporation Thales. The contract runs for two years and follows a previous architecture and feasibility study launched at the end of 2022.

The latest contract is intended to prepare for the full-scale development of a new MPA that could start at the end of 2026, followed by the production launch. It will involve the first wind tunnel tests as well as work out technical specifications, so the various onboard systems can be chosen. It will also look at the economic and industrial conditions involved in the program.

Significantly, the latest study specifies a maritime patrol variant of the A321XLR airliner, known as the A321 MPA. The earlier study had looked at building an MPA version of either an unspecified version of the A320 family or the Dassault Falcon 10X business jet

While Airbus had considered the shorter A320neo as a potential platform for a new MPA, the longer fuselage of the A321 means that it can accommodate additional fuel and a larger payload bay, as well as having an increased capacity for sensors and other mission systems. The basic A321XLR airliner has a range of 4,700 nautical miles (around 5,400 miles).

“The A321 MPA has all the assets to become a true flying frigate capable of responding to the wide range of missions entrusted to the French maritime patrol,” said Jean-Brice Dumont, executive vice president, Head of Air Power at Airbus Defense and Space, in a company statement. “Airbus offers a sovereign solution that provides the autonomy, availability, and reliability required to contribute to the oceanic component of the nuclear deterrence.”

Interestingly, Dumont referred specifically to one of the current Atlantique 2’s missions, namely protecting the French Navy’s nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) fleet as it heads out on patrol, or returns to its base, as a cornerstone of France’s strategic deterrent.

Other missions outlined for the A321 MPA at this stage include anti-submarine and anti-ship warfare, “from low to high intensity,” as well as intelligence gathering.

The turboprop-powered Atlantique 2 in service today was originally developed with anti-submarine warfare as its primary mission, but subsequently increasingly took on an anti-surface warfare role against enemy warships.

More recently, it’s been mainly used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and even strike missions overland. Indeed, embracing operations overland, including taking part in counter-insurgency campaigns in the Middle East and in West Africa, has been the most remarkable change in the Atlantique 2’s mission profile.

At this stage, however, the A321 MPA is being developed primarily for the overwater role, reflecting the return to prominence of anti-submarine warfare, as well as maritime patrol more generally, especially to counter Russian activities, conventional or otherwise.

The mission equipment for the A321 MPA will be provided, to a significant degree, by Thales, and will have an active electronically scanned array (AESA) search radar and acoustic system, including passive and active sonobuoys, for anti-submarine warfare. Like the Atlantique 2, it will also have a magnetic anomaly detector for acquiring submerged submarines. It will be fitted with self-protection equipment and satellite communications and will almost certainly also feature electronic support measures (ESM) to intercept radio-frequency transmissions. Triangular-shaped fairings scabbed on the side of the A321 MPA in the artist’s rendering at the top of this story may well contain ESM.

The same rendering of the A321 MPA also shows a sensor turret below the forward fuselage. After various upgrades, the Atlantique 2 has two separate sensor turrets: a forward-looking infrared (FLIR) camera under the nose and an MX-20 turret that contains four different cameras and is primarily employed during overland missions, including for ISR.

“The aircraft’s large cargo bay and the open architecture of its mission system give it a great capacity to evolve throughout its lifecycle to meet the emergence of new threats,” Airbus says of the A321 MPA.

The weapons for the A321 MPA will include anti-submarine torpedoes as well as anti-ship missiles, some of which will be carried in the bay behind the wing, although wing pylons will likely also be provided.

In particular, the aircraft is expected to be armed with the new anti-ship missile that’s being developed under the Future Cruise/Anti-Ship Weapon (FC/ASW) program, which is run jointly by France, the United Kingdom, and Italy. FC/ASW plans to field two different missiles: a low-observable cruise missile and a highly maneuverable supersonic missile. While the former will replace the Storm Shadow/SCALP air-launched cruise missiles, the latter will be the successor to the Exocet and Harpoon anti-ship missiles and will arm the A321 MPA.

The Anti-Ship Weapon component of FC/ASW is expected to be a ramjet-powered missile, which will be much faster and more agile than previous-generation Western air-launched anti-ship missiles. Although being optimized to engage heavily defended naval targets, it’s also expected to have a secondary defense-suppression capability and there have even been indications it could have an air-to-air role for use against high-value airborne assets (HVAAs) at long ranges.

At the same time, there may be potential for the A321 MPA to be armed with the new land-attack missile, too. The potential of aircraft in this class to provide useful additional long-range strike capacity, especially in the context of adversaries’ anti-access capabilities, is something TWZ has considered in the past.

Notably, Airbus also points to the A321 MPA having a “high-maneuverability capability, including at low altitude.” This seems to point to traditional concerns around using jet-powered aircraft for the MPA mission, rather than their slower- and lower-flying turboprop brethren, which are more efficient in this regime. The same issue applies to the P-8, which was also planned to prosecute underwater targets from high altitude. Previously, the P-8 had to drop down to release a standard Mk 54 torpedo, but it has now added the High-Altitude Anti-Submarine Warfare Weapon Capability (HAAWC) folding-wing kit to the same weapon, meaning it can also launch them from higher levels. It’s not clear if a similar solution will be developed for the A321 MPA.

Current plans call for the MPA to replace the French Navy’s fleet of aging Atlantique 2s sometime in the 2030s or 2040s. Currently, the French Navy has 18 Atlantique 2s upgraded to the latest Standard 6 configuration and, in the past, the service has said it will retain these until 2035. They are stationed at Lann-Bihoué naval air base in northern France.

As for the A321, this has, so far, seen limited uptake for special-mission military applications.

At one time, the A321 was envisaged as the platform for NATO’s Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) system, which provides the alliance with reconnaissance capabilities, including synthetic aperture radar. However, this capability was eventually fielded on NATO’s fleet of five RQ-4D Phoenix uncrewed aerial vehicles, specialized versions of the Global Hawk.

Since then, India has selected the A321 as the platform for its future airborne early warning and control aircraft, the Netra Mk 2. Originally, it appeared that A320s would be chosen for this program, as you can read about here, but New Delhi eventually settled on the stretched fuselage, longer-range A321, buying six former Air India airframes for conversion.

Returning to the MPA mission, the A321 MPA continues the French tradition of locally developing aircraft to meet this requirement. Ultimately, France pursued the Atlantique 2 alone and the aircraft failed to secure any export orders.

Should full-scale development and production of the A321 MPA follow as planned, the aircraft will enter a very competitive marketplace in which the U.S.-made P-8 Poseidon appears to have already secured most of the obvious orders.

In terms of NATO forces alone, the P-8 has been ordered by Canada, Germany, Norway, and the United Kingdom, and close ally Australia has been operating the Poseidon for years now. The fact that the German Navy opted for the U.S. product is a particular blow for France, which had previously been working with Germany on a joint program to develop a new MPA — the Maritime Airborne Warfare System (MAWS). Only yesterday, the German Ministry of Defense published photos of its first P-8 taking shape with Boeing in Seattle.

The P-8 has also been ordered by India, New Zealand, and South Korea further reducing the potential MPA market share for the A321 MPA, which looks like it will offer a very similar set of capabilities.

Perhaps France might have better luck offering the A321 MPA to potential customers in the Middle East, where it has traditionally had a strong footprint. Meanwhile, there is a growing demand for maritime surveillance in the Asia Pacific region, particularly around the South China Sea. This strategically important waterway links the Indian and Pacific oceans and China claims large swathes of it, leading to frequent tensions and standoffs. Here, Chinese submarine activity is a particular concern, as you can read about here.

While the A320 family has been an undoubted success as an airliner, it remains to be seen whether the A321 MPA will achieve positive results. However, unless France also decides to buy the P-8 — which seems politically highly unlikely — there are few other obvious options to replace its hard-worked Atlantique 2 fleet.

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