Right: F/A-18E
pilot LT Brandon
Rodgers.
Below: Brothers
in arms — US and
French Navy E-2
Hawkeyes at rest
on the Bush.TOPGUN and here, and ght something
that’s not an F/A-18 and suddenly, they
surprise you — they do something you
didn’t even know was possible.’
While the ghters were busy working
up at Oceana, the sole E-2 was ying
from Norfolk, hosted by VAW-124 ‘Bear
Aces’ of CVW-8. They also integrated
into the tactical missions during this
period. The Hawkeyes operated by 4F of
the French Navy are almost identical to
their American counterparts, the only
minor di erences being the displays
for the naval ight o cers (NFOs). With
the Super Hornet and Rafale being
completely compatible thanks to the
Link 16 datalink, and the procedures for
handling them with the E-2C being the
same, the NFOs had no real hurdles when
it came to ying tactical missions with a
mix of types. In addition, the French naval
ight o cer training curriculum is based
on the American one, which further
facilitates interoperability.On the carrier
After about a month of busy work-ups on
land, the aircraft began arriving on the
USS George H. W. Bush on May 10, delayed
a few days by bad weather. The ship by
then had sailed o the Virginia coast and
into the Atlantic Ocean.
On the rst day, ve Rafales landed on
board, as well as about 15 aircraft from
CVW-8 which included F/A-18Es from
VFA-31 ‘Tomcatters’ and VFA-87, F/A-18Fs
from VFA-213 ‘Blacklions’, EA-18Gs
from VAQ-131 ‘Lancers’, and E-2Cs from
VAW-124. The only CVW-8 squadron
missing was VFA-37 ‘Ragin’ Bulls’.
CAPT Sean Bailey, the carrier’s
commanding o cer, talked about the
expectations at the outset: ‘Now that we’re
out here the rst step is to get everyone
carrier-quali ed, which only takes about
four days. Once we do that we start to
progress into the tactical missions. The
number-one goal is safe and e ective
operations. So, we start there — that’s
our bar of accepting that we don’t have
any sort of injuries or mishaps or damage
any equipment — and then we look at
those things that demonstrate that we can
operate well together. Essentially [it’s] the
same way that we de ne success when we
have a squadron join the air wing, allowing
and enabling them to be e ective and
conduct missions o the carrier.
‘Carrier quali cation is the number-one
priority behind safety. Then we moveseeing the results of the preparation
than working out kinks on the y.’Fast-paced training
Once all the French aircraft arrived in
Virginia, work-ups began immediately
to get ready for carrier quali cations
on board the Bush. Initially these were
familiarization ights, ying from
Virginia Beach to North Carolina and
taking a look at the local ranges. There
was heavy utilization of the nearby
auxiliary landing eld at Fentress, which
has a carrier deck mock-up complete
with a landing system and LSO platform
that can be used for eld carrier landing
practice. This helped the French crews
get used to landing on a ship again.
There were also opportunities for
tactical missions such as dissimilar air
combat training sorties. LT Brandon
‘Barf ’ Rodgers, an F/A-18E pilot with
VFA-87 ‘Golden Warriors’, elaborates:
‘We start out about a mile away from
each other, so it’s all in the visual arena.
The maneuverability [for both types] is
about the same — both are limited once
you start putting on pylons and all the
air-to-surface stores, so it comes down
to who knows how to y the jet better.
‘Think of it kind of like a sparring
partner. If you always ght the same guy
you always know the same moves, the
same general things they are going to do.
By ghting dissimilar aircraft like we do athttp://www.combataircraft.net // August 2018 69
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