A great memory of mine was the opportunity to fly from a French Aircraft carrier-and get to experience the way they do business. Over at another blog, about three years ago, I wrote about the experience. I thought the story might use a retelling over here. The article was written with the presumption that the reader was familar with carrier aviation. If a term is unclear to you-ask away in the comments. I will do my best to explain.
During my seagoing days I had the opportunity to visit and stay aboard 3 French ships-two cruisers and the aircraft carrier Foch. ( I also got to see Clemanceau, inport in Toulon). I am far from being an expert on such matters, but I thought I would pass on a few of my observations from my time with the Francois. I am proud of the fact that I have one trap in my log book that was logged aboard a French CV.
The Foch was 2/3 as big as a Nimitz class, weighing in at 45,000 tons.Take a look:
I visted her during the mid 90’s as the senior guy from the air wing with a herd of JO’s (7 to be precise). We had been invited by the French Navy in reciprocation for the fact that we were allowing the French Crusaders and Entendards to do touch and go’s on USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. There was a reason that we did not have them do traps-all of the bridle arrestors had long since been removed. The fighter guys got to do some ACM with them, and as I recall the boys from VA-75 led a combined US /French strike into one of the ranges somewhere. (Opposed by Mirage-3?s from the French Air Force…..remember the good old days when CV’s went some place else besides the gulf?).
Anyway. We had come over in the morning on board a helicopter from HS-7. We were greeted quite nicely and then brought straight to lunch. French ships have more messes than American ones do. They had two wardrooms, a chief’s mess, a petty officer’s mess and a seaman’s mess. I presume having more kitchens meant smaller meals to prepare-and better food. At least that was how it seemed. We opted for the JO wardroom since the Senior officer mess was a sit down meal and was not going to do so for over an hour. Plus , I don’t speak French.
The food, in my opinion was quite good and the bread was great. As Americans aboard a European ship, of course we tried the wine from the big bottle sitting in the middle of the table. I learned later that the French normally diluted it with water-they alway kept two big bottles on either side of the wine flask. However being freed prisoners from the world Josephus Daniels created-we drank our wine straight.
Afterwards, we were given a quick tour of the ship. As we finished, an officer came up to me and asked me if I wanted to go flying with one of the late afternoon events. Now since I had had wine with lunch, the ghost of Grampa Pettibone was leering over me telling me no. However when in Rome-eh? I immediately said yes. O merciful God of 3710-please accept my humble apologies. But when was an opportunity like this ever going to come my way again? ( Besides the French put wine in their box lunches-must be something to that!)
As a poor, humble E-2 NFO there were not a lot of options to fly with the French-save one. The Alize.
Used for ASW and surface search, the Alize carried a crew of 3 and had room for 4 people aboard. I was given the great privlege of riding in the front right seat for the flight. Since I did not speak French and had no idea how to work the nav system, or the comms-it was a great honor for me. The right seat had a laptop built into the console. This, at a time when the E-2 community was still arguing about having one for the co-pilot. It displayed navigational data and they told me that with the right modifications it could display track data from the carrier.
After a brief that I did not understand much of (in French), I was given a safety brief in English and off to the aircraft we went. Manup, start up, and taxi to the waist were the same as one would expect on a US carrier. Except-the canopy was open the whole time. It was like being in a World War II aircraft. The Alize did not launch with the bridle as did the jets-it did a deck run. Run-up and the salute-we were off the brakes and rolling down the angled deck. Airborne with out the slighest hint of a settle off the deck. Here is a graphic showing what the inside of the cockpit looked like:
We drove on out to station. I swapped places with the proper occupant of the right seat, Â so I could look over the shoulder of the radar operator. Who sat backwards staring at a HUGE PPI scope. He was down in the aircraft and really did not have a good view outside. I always wondered how he would have gotten out in a ditching situation. Having closed up the canopy during the climbout, the pilot advised us all to make sure we were strapped in. Oh boy, I know where this is going to lead!
Next, these fine Frenchman proceeded to show me that the aircraft did have some aerobatic characteristics-albeit mild ones. We did a roll and some sharp turns. A pass down close to the water followed by a steep climb till we ran out of airspeed. Kick on the rudder, and over the nose went. (Nothing like the fun one could ride through in the back of a Hornet!). They asked me please not to say anything about it when we got back to the ship. I can only presume that le NATOPS did not look fondly on such things.
A few more sweeps with the radar-I really think we were launched as an airborne respot….(something that NEVER happens on a US carrier right?), back we purred into marshall. EXCEPT, marshall was not at 4000 or 5000 feet over head the ship. No, we were parked at 800 feet off the bow at 10 o’clock relative- at about a mile ahead of the ship. The Crusaders were in a similar place at the 7-8 oclock relative and the Entendards were off the starboard side. We all seemed to be at 800 feet waiting our turn to come aboard.
It was later explained to me that there was a method to this. Because the Crusaders were usually lowest on gas, it gave them a short straight shot to the break , downwind, and the trap. Next came the Entendards. Having plenty of gas, we came last. To my unedcuated brain it seemed as if ”deck spotting” must not be such a great sin in the French Navy. Having been allowed to resume the right seat, the lens looked like we were half a ball low the whole way. And once we came across the round down the power came back, we sank like a rock. But we caught a wire.
This was cool. The sun was low in the sky, it now being about 6pm. Taxi out of the landing area-shutdown and I got out of the aircraft. Thanking my hosts again and again, since all I did was take up space, cost them gas, and generally contribute nothing to the mission. Down to the ready room and soon after to eat again.
Later that night I prowled the ship alone, after findng where my bunk was. I went to the bridge, to the tower, then I got the damnfool idea to go out to the flight deck through the island.
As I exited the hatch, having borrowed a cranial from somewhere, I was shocked at how dark it was. No sodium lights at all. I had to literally stand still for a few minutes and let my eyes night adapt. I walked to the front of the island, found a place to stand out of the way and watched the night operations. Only the Entendards were flying.
Because of the lack of illumination in general, all one could see was the wands of the flight directors. They taxied the aircraft up to the catapult and then the damndest thing happened. Once stopped over the shuttle, a white light on the bottom of the aircraft was turned on. I was astonished, since it quickly killed my night vision, but did allow me to see the bridle hook up sequence. It was a bright light! I was stunned by how many people were on deck compared to what I thought were there, all illuminated by this bright light. Then once the bridle was hooked up the light came off. Then, just like our carriers, tension signals were given, the power came up , a control wipe out was performed. Then, the damned light came on again-along with the aircraft running lights. The wand touched the deck, the cat fired, and off Le Entendard went. Probably a half mile or so ahead of the bow, the white light went out. Really weird!
Returning inside the ship, I wandered into the French version of CATTC. (Air traffic control). French Controllers appeared to do business like US controllers-only in French, a language I do not speak. Went on up to the tower when the recovery started so I could watch the aircraft trap.
From looking at their grease boards, two things were apparent. The French did not fly a lot of aircraft at night, and those that did- came back with a lot less gas then I would have expected. On average the Entendrards were coming back with around 1200 pounds. For a US carrier guy-that was a shock.
Later, talking to the US exchange pilot, himself from A-6?s, in the ships “bar”-he told me that the French used a concept of designated night players and only the really experienced guys flew at night. He said that as an American, he was automatically in that category once his French mentors were satisfied that he knew his way around the aircraft. He flew Entendards. He said they no longer had exchange pilots with the Crusaders-sad I would think. I’ll bet there are more than a couple of Hornet pilots who would give a lot of money to be able to fly a Crusader:
Once the last recovery was over, going to the bar that adjoined the wardroom seemed the right thing to do. In fact our French hosts seemed to have been anticipating that, because the exchange pilot told me that they normally did not leave it open as long as they did that night. Being Americans and away from our “dry” ship, we of course accepted their beer and hospitality. The US guy told me that it was kind of nice being able to have a beer after a night trap!
Soon there after, we “stumbled” off to bed. In the morning, the helo for some reason was late, so we were put aboard a French helicopter and flown back to the Eisenhower. For some strange reason it was very quiet among the crowd going back.
There are a lot of other things to tell. I’ve also spent time with the French Air Force-at both Hyres and Djoubuti. Those stories will have to wait for another time. Taken all together though-some great memories. And-its in my log book!