A French Navy (Marine Nationale) Rafale Marine fired a Meteor long range air-to-air missile. The firing, which took place on 18 June, was the first one conducted from an aircraft belonging to an operational airwing: Flottille 11F.
The firing was first announced on social media by French defense minister, Sebastien Lecornu:
A Rafale Marine from the air wing of the Charles de Gaulle successfully conducted a training Meteor missile launch for the first time at the DGA test center in the Landes. Milestone achieved by the Marine Nationale in its operational preparation for high intensity.
Un Rafale Marine du groupe aérien embarqué du Charles de Gaulle a conduit pour la première fois avec succès un tir d'entraînement de missile Meteor au centre d'essai @DGA des Landes.
— Sébastien Lecornu (@SebLecornu) June 19, 2025
Étape franchie par la @MarineNationale dans sa préparation opérationnelle à la haute intensité. pic.twitter.com/D4HSea9vWZ
The wasn’t the “first ever” Metero firing by a Rafale M. As reported at the time by Naval News, the first firing took place in February 2019. Contacted by Naval News for more information, a French Navy spokesperson explained:
The 2019 missile firing was known as an “ETO” (Technical and Operational Evaluation). It corresponds to the experimental phase conducted by the Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (CEPA in this case) after the weapons qualification, which allows the development of technical and operational recommendations for the flottilles
It was therefore launched by the CEPA by an experimental pilot in a non-operational scenario.
The launch announced last week is the first one carried out by an operational flottille and by an operational pilot (non-experimental), with operational preparation processes resulting from the preliminary work carried out by the CEPA in 2019.
About Meteor long range missile
According to MBDA (its designer and producer), METEOR is the next generation of Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missile (BVRAAM) system designed to revolutionise air-to-air combat in the 21st Century. The weapon brings together six nations with a common need to defeat the threats of today as well as the future emerging ones.
Guided by an advanced active radar seeker, Meteor provides all weather capability to engage a wide variety of targets from agile fast jets to small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and cruise missiles. Meteor offers a multi-shot capability against long range maneuvering targets in a heavy electronic countermeasures (ECM) environment with range well in excess of 100 kilometres (62 mi).
The weapon is also equipped with data link communication. Aimed at meeting the needs of a network centric environment, Meteor can be operated using third party data, enabling the Meteor user – the pilot – to have the most flexible weapon system.
