These are flight deck ops. French style.
This cool video filmed with GoPro cameras, shows launches and recoveries aboard the 38,000-ton, nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle.
The footage not only lets you observe blue water operations of French Navy aircraft from the privileged eye of flight deck operators, but also brings you inside the cockpit of a Dassault-Breguet Super Étendard (also shown firing an AS-30 missile) as well as aboard a Dassault Rafale M for a high-speed, ultra low-level flight.
As the footage shows, the French aircraft carrier uses the same kind of catapult of the American flattops, although the Super Étendards are launched with a wire attached to the bottom of the fuselage instead of a cat shuttle attached to the nose gear (which actually is the same way the F-4 Phantoms were launched from an aircraft carrier). That’s why, in the past French Rafale combat aircraft have operated from USS Truman and F/A-18E Super Hornet and C-2A COD (Carrier On Board Delivery) planes have operated from Charles De Gaulle demonstrating interoperability between allied navies.
would have been nice to cite source (“chasse embarquée”) ;)
Nice vid! Great images quality. Good action. Too bad they haven’t included footage of Hornet’s visit on the CDG and SEM and Rafale’s visit on the Vinson last summer, as it would a bit of exotism and underline their great interoperability with US Navy.
Aeronaval ops definitly include huge amount of coolness.
Keep them coming please!
the Super Étendards are launched with a wire attached to the bottom of the fuselage instead of a cat shuttle attached to the nose gear
In the US Navy, that cable is referred to as a “bridle”. I think several of the older naval aircraft used those prior to the nose gear shuttle bar.
One of those shots (@2:15) looked like the cockpit of a US Navy MH-60 (can’t tell if it was an R or an S).
It’s a Dauphin Pedro’s cockpit. :)