Draken International Mirage F1Ms "change" identity
Five Dassault Mirage F1Ms owned by Draken International, Lakeland (FL) have "suddenly" received a new identities.
The jets are part of a batch of twenty F1s that Draken acquired from the Ejército del Aire (EdA, Spanish Air Force) to be refurbished and used in the company’s Red Air activities. The five Mirages involved were registered since September 2018 as N561EM to N565EM.
By the end of January 2021, these five Mirages were however cancelled from the US civil register.
But almost immediately they were reregistered. According to the latests FAA information they received a new serial number, but retained the same civil registration (N561EM etc). In the FAA Registry, this so-called serial number represents in most cases the construction number of the aircraft.
The newly assigned serial numbers have been taken from the last two digits of the Mirages’ EdA C.14- serial. In all modesty, Scramble Magazine know that these new serial numbers are definitely not the construction number of the F1s involved. However, it does make life easier as the tie-up with the original airframe is now evident in case of an unknown real construction number.
The first number in the below overview is the new FAA serial number.
Photos: Phil Adkin