A number of Marine Nationale Rafale-M multi-role fighter jets and E-2C Hawkeye airborne early warning and control aircraft, along with 350 support personnel and aircrew, will deploy aboard the USS George H.W. Bush this Spring. Not only will the multi-national operation work to give Rafale-M aircrews much needed carrier qualifications—France's only carrier has been undergoing a mid-life refit—but it also aims to expand the two countries' abilities to operate fighter aircraft cooperatively from the sea for prolonged periods of time.

Captain Jean-Emmanuel Roux de Luze, the French Naval Attaché to the U.S. Navy, recently told USNI News the following: “We want to demonstrate our ability to integrate with U.S. military services... We want to show we do maintenance, demonstrate we can load weapons." Under the plan, French Rafale-Ms and E-2C Hawkeyes will fly to NAS Oceana in Virginia and train out of that location for a period of time. Then some of the aircraft, aircrews, and support personnel will fly out to the USS George H.W. Bush to operate as an integrated component of the carrier's air wing.

USN

The U.S. and French are in a very exclusive club, they are the only two countries in the entire world that maintain an operational catapult assisted take-off and barrier arrested recovery (CATOBAR) fixed-wing aircraft carrier capability. For a long period of time this wasn't the case, with a handful of other countries around the globe fielding these types of ships. They are the most capable type of aircraft carriers given the aircraft that were able to fly off their decks. Since the waning days of the Cold War this club has shrunken dramatically, leaving just France and the U.S. with such a capability. But that is about to change as India and China march toward a CATOBAR capability of their own.

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