The French Aéronavale will embark for the first time on an American aircraft carrier. Without a second aircraft carrier, while Charles stopped for maintenance for eighteen months, pilots of Rafale and Hawkeye are going to train in July 2008 aboard the USS Roosevelt off Norfolk, in the Atlantic. “We are setting up this operation with the American Navy” said the French Navy Office. A dozen airplanes are to be deployed on Roosevelt: six to eight Rafales of the flotilla 12 F and two Hawkeyes of the flotilla 4F.
For the Navy, it is a simple “technical exchanges”. So far, FN aircraft could not land on Americans carriers. But since last July, as we announced then on this blog (see photo), the Rafale F2 have the capacity to do so after validating their alignment system. There are very few technical obstacles, since Charles is equipped with catapults and arresting wires made in the United States. Since the nineties, French navy pilots are trained in the United States, in the absence of trainer aircraft for learning carrier landing techniques.
The newsletter TTU, which reveals information this week, sees in this case “evidence of warming in Franco-American relations and the willingness of President Nicolas Sarkozy to ensure that France regains its place in the “Otan”. TTU said that this “initiative is strongly encouraged by Craig Stapleton, the United States Ambassador to France.” Boarding a dozen planes french aboard an American is indeed never seen before!
This operation will backfire against the interests of the French Navy. It gives arguments to the opponents of the construction of a second aircraft carrier (PA2), many in the upper héirarchy of the military. If the French can operate their Flotillas from the large American carriers in the event of an international crisis and non-availability of Charles, France can possibly save three billion euros, the cost of PA2. As for national independence …
http://secretdefense.blogs.liberatio…ilotes-de.html
Ah yes, national ‘independence’. The French have worshipped at that particular altar oftentimes, even at the sacrifice of many other, some would say more desirable objectives.
French aircraft operating from a US carrier? How times have changed! The good general would be turning in his grave at this cohabitation with ‘les anglo-saxons’.
It looks like we’re going to have to charge the French with that entirely unFrench quality: pragmatism.
Plus ca change…
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