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 Trumanand 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.
Footage from aboard aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, cruising towards the Indian Ocean.
Before it crossed the Suez Canal on Jan. 26 the carrier battle group “Arromanches,” built around the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, has conducted operations and exercises with allied forces in the Mediterranean sea.
France decided to deploy Charles De Gaulle aircraft carrier before the terrorist attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo which claimed 12 victims.
The news that the 38,000-ton nuclear-powered aircraft carrier would be about to join the war on Islamic State widely spread through social media on Jan. 7, after the Paris shooting, but the decision to deploy the battle group was taken well before the deadly attack on Charlie Hebdo.
According to the AFP, the aircraft carrier would operate in the Gulf on its way to India, where the French Navy’s flagship is scheduled to take part in drills in mid-April and the deployment is set to be announced by President Francois Hollande on Jan. 14, during the annual New Year’s speech to the armed forces.
French Navy Dassault-Breguet Super Étendard, Dassault Rafale M and E‑2C Hawkeye aircraft operating from the Charles De Gaulle would reinforce the current French contingent made of 9 Rafale, 6 Mirage 2000 jets, 1 C-135FR tanker, 1 E-3F Airborne Early Warning aircraft and an Atlantique 2 maritime patrol aircraft already deployed to airbases in UAE and Jordan.
After reading our article, many readers pointed us to the video below, which shows, more or less, the same kind of operations aboard the 38,000 ton, nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle.
The clip lets you observe blue water operations of French Navy Dassault-Breguet Super Étendard, Dassault Rafale M and E‑2C Hawkeye aircraft from the privileged eye of flight deck operators.
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