Rank 73 in the Aviation Heroes collection, this print treats the Mirage 2000-9 as the Gulf strike backbone it became for the UAE Air Force — not as a generic French fighter silhouette on white. The 71st Wing at Al Dhafra Air Base operates the Mirage 2000-9EAD export variant alongside the 76th Wing, fielding a pure delta-wing design Dassault tailored with upgraded avionics, Black Shaheen stand-off weapons, and desert camouflage suited to Western Air Command operations south of Abu Dhabi. Deliveries crested in 1989, the year stamped in faded numerals beside the airframe here, when roughly sixty upgraded Mirage 2000-9 airframes anchored UAE air defence and precision strike through a defining decade before the F-16E Desert Falcon and incoming Rafale F4 expanded the fleet.