The Alizé is an anti-submarine warfare aircraft of French origin. It was developed by Breguet in the 1950's and was based on an earlier design for a fighter that did not go into production. As with many French aircraft the Alizé is named after type of wind, the tradewind in this case. The Alizé was to be used from aircraft carriers while the contemporarty Atlantic carried out its missions from bases near the shore. Although the anti-submarine warfare capabilities were a bit lacking, it proved to be very capable as a maritime patrol aircraft. During several conflicts Indian Alizé's were very effective against small surface vessels.

The Alizé is a turboprop powered aircraft. It has a conventional design with a single low mounted wing and a single Rolls-Royce Dart engine in the nose. The crew of three consists of a pilot and radar operator seated side by side, with the sensor operator behind them. The wings can be folded to save space during storage on the aircaft carrier. Landing on the carrier deck is achieved by a hook at the tail of the plane which catches a wire on the landing deck. Weapons can be carried in the internal bay or on wing pylons.

For use against submarines a single lightweight torpedo or two depth charges can be carried in the internal weapons bay. Free fall bombs, 68mm SNEB unguided rockets and AS.12 guided rockets can be carried on the wing pylons. There is no internal cannon or machine gun.

The Alizé is fitted with a retractable radar for surface search and sonobueys for detecting submarines. In the early 1980's a batch of French aircraft received an upgrade with a better radar, improved navigations and ESM systems. A second upgraded in the 1990's included a datalink, improved avionics and FLIR. Even though the upgrades were major improvements over the original equipment, the capabilities remained a bit limited compared to contemporary aircraft in the same role.

As a turboprop aircraft the speed is rather limited with a 518 km/h maximum at altitude and 460 km/h at sea level. The limited speed makes the Alizé an easy target for fighter aircraft and anti-aircraft guns. On the other hand speed is not a major requirement in maritime patrol. Endurance and range are of greater importance and both are good with an endurance of over 5 hours.

The Alizé was only acquired by France and India, with France being the major user. Both nations used the Alizé on aircraft carriers and to a lesser extent from shore bases. During several conflicts the Alizé proved to be very useful, even though its effectiveness against submarines was limited. The last Alizé retired in the year 2000 and none remains in service.