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| A French Rafale M performs a catapult-assisted launch from the flight deck of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN 65). The Rafale is the only non-US fighter capable of launching from and recovering on an American carrier. Enterprise and embarked Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 1 are currently underway on a scheduled six-month deployment in the Med. © Marine Nationale |
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French Navy Rafales
trap onboard the USS Enterprise
By the Editor
in Nice, France
The US aircraft-carrier USS Enterprise (CVN 65) became part of history on July 23, when two French Rafale M/F2 multi-role combat fighters trapped and launched aboard a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier for the first time. The event occurred just off the French Riviera in the Mediterranean sea, a few miles south from Cannes.
More than 30 US and French diplomats came aboard the US nuclear carrier to witness the event, including the Commander US 6th Fleet Vice Admiral John Stufflebeem, US Ambassador to France Craig Stapleton, Chief of French Naval Staff Admiral Alain Oudot de Dainville, and the owner of Dassault Aviation (builder of Rafale) retired-CEO Serge Dassault.
According to Stapleton, this was a momentous occasion in cooperation between the US. and French navies. “Being that this is the first time a US aircraft carrier has been in France in six years, it’s important. And also I believe it’s the first time French fighter pilots have been able to land onboard the deck of an American aircraft-carrier, this is an important moment in US History,” said Stapleton.
After the Rafales landed, the fighter pilots and guests joined Carrier Strike Group 12/Enterprise Strike Group Commander Rear Admiral Daniel Holloway and Enterprise Commanding Officer Captain Ron Horton in the flag mess for refreshments as this region of the world is experiencing these days an exceptional heat wave with temperatures well over the 100° F.
This well-publicized engagement was “a large step for the Enterprise and a step in the right direction for the Chief of Naval Operation’s vision of a 1,000-ship navy. This certainly projected the importance of naval power and hopefully will increase cooperation between the French navy and the American navy,” said Stapleton.
Enterprise is currently on a regularly scheduled six-month deployment as the flag ship for Carrier Strike Group 12 in the Mediterranean.
Such a highlighted cooperation at sea between the French and US Navies is the direct consequence of the election, last May, of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the young restless successor of the late Jacques Chirac. A strong supporter of a closer diplomatic and military relationship with the United States of America, Sarkozy insists that the two only countries in the world to operate nuclear and straight-deck carriers train together in the future.
Already and for the past decade, all French ‘Aéronavale’ carrier pilots have been getting their ‘wings’ in the USA, within one of Training Air Wing One’s two T-45 Goshawk squadrons : VT-9 ‘Tigers’ at NAS Meridian, Mississippi.
In recent years, contrary to what US Ambassador to France Craig Stapleton maybe too enthusiasticaly said, French Navy Rafales and Hawkeyes from the French nuclear aircraft-carrier Charles-de-Gaulle have made several low-keyed traps and touch-and-goes on US carriers on station in the Indian Ocean. Essentially during lulls in Allied naval operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom, of which France is part of). Also, in the 1970s and 80s, Aéronavale F-8 Crusaders performed traps and launches from US carriers in the Mediterranean.
As France is today without its only aircraft-carrier until January 2009, the opportunity for the French pilots to train onboard visiting US carrier is a real bonus. While decision for a second carrier to be industrialised in common with the UK is pending — a conventional 70,000-tonne class ship —, the 44,000-tonne Charles-de-Gaulle is currently in dry-dock at Toulon undergoing overhaul and a Servive Life Extension Programme of her two K15 150 megawatt-nuclear reactors and the replacement of her two old propellers, inherited from the former ‘Clemenceau’, by a brand new 20-tonne high profile pair made in the USA by Rolls Royce Naval Marine (the ex-Bird-Johnson Co.).
As both the US and the French aircraft-carriers use the same US-designed type of catapult, cross-operations of French Navy and US Navy aircraft is made simple. Already such types as USN F-18 Hornets or E-2C Hawkeyes have made arrested landings onboard the Charles-de-Gaulle, while French Navy Rafales and Hawkeyes have landed on US carriers, i.e. the USS John Stennis, Harry Truman or Enterprise, to name a few.
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| A Rafale M/F2 about to launch from one of the 'Big-E's angled-deck catapult, south of Cannes on July 23rd © Marine Nationale |
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