A few days ago, on May 17, our famous Patrouille de France (PAF) celebrated her 70th birthday.

As this week takes place the International Paris Airshow @Le Bourget near Paris, I decided a few days ago to re-design in CATIA, thanks to our Mechanical&Shape  roles, the AMB-DA/Dornier AlphaJet trainer plane used by our PAF.

The AlphaJet was one of the first airplanes which wings shape  has been calculated by a software, which was in fact an ancestor of CATIA.

I first choose to redesign this plane with its 2017 painting, for the Patrouille de France 2017 USA Tour, using some drawings and pictures available on the web.

It was for me a good opportunity to test the new 3DConnexion SpaceMouse and CADMouse Pro I have received a few days ago. I still need to customize them to enhance my productivity when using CATIA, but the "default" capabilities are just amazing for navigating "around" my virtual product.

Many thanks @LS and @MS - More to come :-)

Thanks to 3DEXCITE apps, I then virtually made fly this plane over the Grand Canyon.

Coming back to the PAF 70th birthday, I slightly modified my design to create the 2023 / 70ans painting.

And I used this last one to recreate a "Virtual Patrouille de France" over the sea.

Do not hesitate to tell me what you think of my design, and to share with us in this community your own ones.