Bréguet was the winner of a NATO competition to develop a maritime patrol aircraft to be the successor of the Lockheed Neptune. Model Br1150, with popular name Atlantic (or Atlantique in French), is a clean sheat design, not based on an existing transport aircraft. It has a typical 'double-bubble' or eight shaped fuselage cross section. The straight wings go through the fuselage just below the waist, where the two 'bubbles' connect. Both long engine nacelles are in the wings' leading edges and have ring shaped intakes and an exhaust above the wings. Observations are done through the glass nose, a radome underneath the forward fuselage and with the MAD boom extending from the tail cone. The Br1150 has a trapezium vertical stabiliser with a triangular dorsal fin in front.

The different versions of the Atlantic/Atlantique can be distinguished by looking at

• the top of the vertical stabiliser
• the presence of a long dorsal fin extension
• the presence of a turret sensor under the glass nose
• the size of cooler intakes at the side of the nose
• the shape of the end of the MAD boom

The recognition features of the original Atlantic slash Atlantique are the long dorsal spine (an extension of the dorsal fin), small cooler intakes at the side of the nose, a droplet shaped pod on top of the vertical stabiliser with a pitot tube in front and small strakes at the end of the MAD boom. The wing tips can have sensors, but not all aircraft have them.

Only France got a significantly updated Atlantique, that they call Atlantique 2, abbreviated to ATL2. It has larger cooling intakes at the side of the fuselage, no radome and no tube antenna on top of the vertical fin and a clean end of the MAD boom. The ATL2 has a chin turret with a FLIR camera though. A full view photo of this version is at the top of this page.