the French CAG, remarked, ‘The aim is
not to see who is best, but to see how
di erently we work. The next step is to
take the good parts from their training
— maybe they take some parts from
our training — and improve the training
overall of everybody. Our di erences in
carrier operations are mainly linked to
the size of our ship. We also have ‘safety
aircraft’ [Rafales using buddy-buddy
air refueling pods] ying over the ship
in case someone doesn’t succeed in
trapping.’
Another key point was the language
barrier. With everything conducted
and communicated in English, there
were concerns about the pro ciency of
the French. According to CAPT Bailey,‘On the ight deck so much of what
we do is with hand signals and color-
coding, and everyone understands
their role and mission that language
just doesn’t play much of a factor. Those
key elements where we need to have
radio communications, we either do it
with a US crew member next to them to
help make sure they are able to convey
the information, or likewise they have
their own ability to communicate with
their maintainers o the ight deck. The
system has worked well.’Until the next time
The ‘Chesapeake’ deployment
concluded with the French contingent
having own almost 500 sorties over
the course of seven weeks. Continuing
military operations in the Middle East
could again open the door for possible
future co-operation between the
nations. Both sides maximized the value
of this opportunity to train together,
and for many of the people involved it
was the rst time they had experienced
such a degree of integration with
another country.
There was de nitely a strategic aspect
to this valuable period of Franco-
American training, as RADM Stephen
Evans, the commander of Carrier Strike
Group 2 (CSG-2), re ected. ‘As we
operate with the French Navy at sea,
this has been the culmination of several
weeks of work together, operating not
just side-by-side but actually integrated
together. Eventually this will give more
options when it comes to dealing with
global problems.’Above: The
exercise served
to underline the
long-standing
friendship
between the
US and French
navies.
Right: RADM
Stephen Evans,
commander of
Carrier Strike
Group Two.
Below: A ‘Bear
Aces’ Hawkeye
with hook down
on short fi nals to
land.though, there weren’t many issues.
‘Sometimes we had to slow down,
sometimes we had to ensure we were
using standard terminology, or we
may have had to explain some of the
acronyms we were using. But once we’d
gone through that we had no issues.OPS REPORT // US/FRENCH NAVY CARRIER TRAINING
72 August 2018 //^ http://www.combataircraft.net
66-72 Rafales on Bush C.indd 72 21/06/2018 13:54