Above: A VFA-213
F/A-18F crew folds
the jet’s wings
and taxies quickly
off the landing
area.
Top: A Rafale M
below deck for
maintenance.short time. CDR Stephane remarked that
when his E-2C was down for several hours,
his pilot was able to hop into a VAW-124
aircraft and continue training, the French
pilot ying with American plane and
mission commanders sitting in the back.
Although there were no ights with joint
US/French NFO crews, he mentioned
that this had happened before, during
Operation ‘Enduring Freedom’.Common purpose
Given that both the Charles de Gaulle
and the Bush use the same catapult
and landing system and identical hand
signals, as well as ight deck vest colors,
the lessons learned boiled down to the
smaller things. In particular, this meant
details relating to marshalling and taxiing
aircraft on a bigger deck and taking
into consideration the size di erence
between the Super Hornet and Rafale.
As far as safety is concerned, one of the
key things that US ight deck personnel
learned is how to deal with the French
ghter’s jet exhaust. Trained to duck
under the Super Hornet’s exhaust, which
is horizontal, they had to deal with
the Rafale’s exhaust, which is angled
downwards due to the aircraft’s inherent
‘nose-up’ rest position. Pilots and the air
boss, meanwhile, had to bear in mind the
di erent speeds at which the Rafale ies
in the landing pattern.
Procedures for refueling di ered as well.
The Super Hornets often did a ‘hot refuel’,
while the Rafales shut down. CDR Marc,learns as they transition from shore-
based to carrier cyclic operations is fuel
management. It’s one thing to train
and ght alongside somebody when
we’re landing on 8,000ft runways, but
when we’re managing the intricacies of
ying from the carrier, that introduces a
whole new set of lessons to be learned.
When you have a dedicated time to
take o and land, which is dictated by
the cycles that the team y, you have
to understand how much fuel you can
use on your mission, whether there’s
airborne fuel available to you, and how
you’re going to sequence yourself back
in to landing on the ship.’Maintenance is key to supporting the
tempo of operations. The French brought
spare parts and tools, in case something
needed to be changed. Flottille 4F had
the additional luxury of being able to rely
on VAW-124 for anything relating to its
E-2C. As it turned out, this even meant
using one of the US Navy’s aircraft for ahttp://www.combataircraft.net // August 2018 71
66-72 Rafales on Bush C.indd 71 21/06/2018 13:54