The Rafale better be able to take off from the deck of the Charles DeGaulle considering that she is smaller than any of the Nimitz-class carriers currently operational. And since the French and the US use catapults to launch their planes the relative shorter deck (50m) of the DeGaulle is irrelevant but the length of the deck of the new ships would work if the French are able to persuade the British to use flat decks. Jets wear out faster on the shorter decks because the catapult has to use more force to launch and similarly the retrieval of the jet puts more stress on the airframe from the more abrupt stop. But again the Rafale will not be operational on the British carriers as currently envisioned as it doesn't develop enough thrust to launch itself up the ski ramp type deck. On the positive side both versions will have a range of 10,000 miles and be able to carry the Hawkeye.

But the logical solution would have been for the Eurofighter, which can be configured for sea duty, to be tasked to the new carriers. But in order to keep Dassault from going bankrupt in the 80's the French, understandably, withdrew from the project and the naval version of the Eurofighter is now considered too expensive. This is an example, and is certainly not confined to France considering the Eurofighter is some three times over budget, that local political concerns trump national interest.


The part that is confusing to me is that France has always had at least one operational nuclear powered air craft carrier of the heavier class. Maybe this explains the wisdom of the editorially challenged new naval base France in the UAE. Though the described base of 500 mixed personnel seems small I'm sure that if needed France's first permanent base in the Gulf can be expanded to resupply a French carrier strike group (I couldn't find the proper name currently in use by the French Navy so I used US and British terminology here).

The choices are quite stark in that unless the French can persuade the RN to use a catapult system, which the F-35 is compatible, the decks will simply be useless for launching the Rafale. And unless the French can convince the British to switch to the Rafale then they will have spent billions of Euros on a national and export aircraft that is now neither. And their is the minor problem in that the RN has been planning on having two carrier strike groups, one in the Med and the Gulf and the other group available for the Atlantic and in extreme cases the Pacific.

OK, the simple version. The French Rafale cannot launch off of STOVL deck nor can it land on one. British carriers currently designed for STOVL. Therefore French Rafale cannot launch off of or land on a Queen Elizabeth class carrier.

Cool pictures are from the catapult assisted launch of Rafale off of the FLAT deck of the USS Truman. Not a STOVL, Short Take Off Vertical Landing. The only time a Rafale can make a vertical landing is right after the pilot goes, "Oops!"

I had always thought that one of the main advantages to NATO was, at the very least, compatibility between the different designs of each country's defense industries. Ammunition, radio frequency skipping, IDD, fuel, etc. However over the years it now appears that there is less compatibility then I had assumed. For example some of the ground-to-air radios that were in use by the British in Iraq and especially in Afghanistan are unable to directly call in US air assets. The request must go back to the British liason and in some cases then has to go to Britain and then Brussels for retransmission. Or the RA uses the Canadian channels who then can make direct contact with whatever US asset is required. Though I believe that new frequencies have been made available and that problem is solved.

I think Zyme is the closest in that reduced spending simply creates more fierce national defense contracts plus cries for maintaining a national defense infrastructure. This leads to what little money that is budgeted being spent disproportionatly on smaller and more expensive local contracts.