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French to deploy on US Carrier


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Pretty cool, a detachment of Rafales and E-2's will deploy this spring aboard the USS George H Bush.   Will surely make for some nice photo ops.    The interesting part is that instead of just cross-decking (which as been done before), the French contingent will be integrated into the Bush's air wing.  

 

 

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/17648/french-rafale-fighters-will-deploy-aboard-an-american-supercarrier-this-april

Edited by 11bee
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18 hours ago, Collin said:

Sounds/ reads like they will participate in work ups (C2X?) but not be part of the airwing for an entire deployment. 

 

Going to make for some great pics, Rafales are super cool. 

 

Collin

Correct.    I've got a friend assigned to one of the Bush's fighter squadrons.   He said they are only going out for a short time (few weeks?) and then the Bush is back in VA for an extended period.    Given the fact that these carriers aren't deploying with anything close to the maximum number of jets they can support, I wonder if down the road, we might see a Rafale squadron integrated into the carrier's airwing?

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2 hours ago, 11bee said:

Given the fact that these carriers aren't deploying with anything close to the maximum number of jets they can support,.......

I'm curious as to why you would say that, all the official reports I've seen show that our carriers are deploying with full Airwings (80-90 aircraft).

 

Just how many aircraft do you think a carrier can support?

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12 minutes ago, riffraff said:

Not

X2.  

 

With regard to capacity on the boat, they have a full air wing but from what I’ve read, due to the reduction in squadron size  and elimination of S-3’s, they typically only deploy with around 65 aircraft.  Back in the 80’s, 90 or more was the norm. 

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1 hour ago, 11bee said:

With regard to capacity on the boat, they have a full air wing but from what I’ve read, due to the reduction in squadron size  and elimination of S-3’s, they typically only deploy with around 65 aircraft.  Back in the 80’s, 90 or more was the norm. 

Not sure what you are reading but I read the aircraft status reports from all the carriers, it lists the number of aircraft assigned to each squadron and they are deploying with between 80 to 90 aircraft.

Edited by GW8345
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1 hour ago, GW8345 said:

Not sure what you are reading but I read the aircraft status reports from all the carriers, it lists the number of aircraft assigned to each squadron and they are deploying with between 80 to 90 aircraft.

 

 

Not sure what to say...  My friend worked on the flight deck of the Bush during it's last cruise.  Said they had around 70 aircraft assigned to it's air wing during that cruise.  His squadron had 12 jets assigned. 

 

From the ever-reliable wiki:
 

The carriers can accommodate a maximum of 130 F/A-18 Hornets[32] or 85–90 aircraft of different types, but current numbers are typically 64 aircraft. 

 

I believe the linked article also mentions a total of 65 aircraft is standard these days. 

 

Lastly, from another wiki article:

 

A Strike Fighter Squadron consists of either ten F/A-18C Hornets, twelve F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, and in future, ten F-35C Lightning IIs.  

 

It's not that they are cutting squadrons, just the number of jets those squadrons deploy with, hence the reduced number of aircraft on carrier decks. 

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http://cimsec.org/the-evolution-of-the-modern-carrier-air-wing/18860

 

Early 80’s typically they had 2 F-14 tomcat squadrons, 1 E-2C squadron, 1 A-6 squadron, 1 EA-6B squadron, 1 S-3 squadron, 2 A-7 squadrons and a helicopter squadron. Total of 9 squadrons and around 90ish aircraft. 

 

Today CVW-8 has 2 legacy hornet squadrons, 2 superhornet squadrons, 1 growler squadron, 1 E-2 squadron and 2ish (not sure if full squadrons or just a det) Of helicopter squadrons. For around 65 to 70 aircraft. 

 

Note I didn’t include the C-2 det for COD. 

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1 minute ago, achterkirch said:

http://cimsec.org/the-evolution-of-the-modern-carrier-air-wing/18860

 

Early 80’s typically they had 2 F-14 tomcat squadrons, 1 E-2C squadron, 1 A-6 squadron, 1 EA-6B squadron, 1 S-3 squadron, 2 A-7 squadrons and a helicopter squadron. Total of 9 squadrons and around 90ish aircraft. 

 

Today CVW-8 has 2 legacy hornet squadrons, 2 superhornet squadrons, 1 growler squadron, 1 E-2 squadron and 2ish (not sure if full squadrons or just a det) Of helicopter squadrons. For around 65 to 70 aircraft. 

 

Note I didn’t include the C-2 det for COD. 

That’s pretty much what I thought.   Thank you!

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46 minutes ago, 11bee said:

 

 

Not sure what to say...  My friend worked on the flight deck of the Bush during it's last cruise.  Said they had around 70 aircraft assigned to it's air wing during that cruise.  His squadron had 12 jets assigned. 

 

From the ever-reliable wiki:
 

The carriers can accommodate a maximum of 130 F/A-18 Hornets[32] or 85–90 aircraft of different types, but current numbers are typically 64 aircraft. 

 

I believe the linked article also mentions a total of 65 aircraft is standard these days. 

 

Lastly, from another wiki article:

 

A Strike Fighter Squadron consists of either ten F/A-18C Hornets, twelve F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, and in future, ten F-35C Lightning IIs.  

 

It's not that they are cutting squadrons, just the number of jets those squadrons deploy with, hence the reduced number of aircraft on carrier decks. 

Airwings have been deploying with about 4 squadrons of Hornet/Super Hornet's with 12 aircraft per squadron, that's 48 aircraft. Throw in 5 to 6 EA-18Gs's, 5 E-2C/D, and about 20 MH-60R/S helo's, that's a minimum of 78 aircraft. The legacy Hornet squadron usually has more than 12 aircraft so that pushes the number past 80 and occasionally one or two of the Super Hornet squadrons will have more than 12 aircraft, not to mention that C-2's are being attached to the Airwing and that bring the number up to around the mid 80's.

 

Oh, and wikipedia, there's a real reliable source........not. If you put a hundred and thirty F-18's on a carrier good luck on moving any of them around let alone on being able to do cyclic ops with that many aircraft on board.

 

Like I said, I get the daily aircraft status reports (messages) in my message feed, I see who has what on a daily basis. So who are you going to believe, someone who reads the actual naval messages from the carriers or some internet website, your choice.

 

Edited by GW8345
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30 minutes ago, rightwinger26 said:

So CVW-8, on the 17 deployment had 65 aircraft on board, 10 C's, 34 E/F, 5 G's, 4 E2-C, and 12 embarked helo's.  I worked in Flight Deck Control for work-ups and the whole deployment.

Well I guess PMA-265 and NavAir are wrong, because according to one of the aircraft status reports from May 2017 you guys had 14 C's with a total of aircraft assigned above 70.

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those reports also account for aircraft that are assigned too, but not in custody off, i.e. PMI 1 or PMI 2, depot, ect.  Also not accounting for helo's that are detached to small boys in the battle group, but are still reported up-line by the ACC.  Try looking at AMSRR.  I'm done, I'll post again in another year or two :wave:

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16 minutes ago, rightwinger26 said:

those reports also account for aircraft that are assigned too, but not in custody off, i.e. PMI 1 or PMI 2, depot, ect.  Also not accounting for helo's that are detached to small boys in the battle group, but are still reported up-line by the ACC.  Try looking at AMSRR.  I'm done, I'll post again in another year or two :wave:

The small boys send out their own aircraft status reports since their helos are never assigned to the Airwing, the carrier only sends out the status of the aircraft assigned to the ship/Airwing.

 

The aircraft status reports are part of the AMSRR.

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GW- Not gonna take this any further.   I’ll take the word of a guy that was on the Bush flight deck last cruise, along with the other ARC’ers who posted on the subject.   Thanks for your input though and have a good night!    

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1 hour ago, 11bee said:

GW- Not gonna take this any further.   I’ll take the word of a guy that was on the Bush flight deck last cruise, along with the other ARC’ers who posted on the subject.   Thanks for your input though and have a good night!    

Suit yourself.

 

RW, what did you do in Flight Deck Control?

 

But just remember, people who post here who are supposedly in the know haven't always been right, remember the SU-22 shot down back in June, boy were a lot of members (and websites) wrong.

 

Also, RW hasn't always been right;

 

"Ok, well, if the plane is prep'd for launch, the landing gear and seat pins are in a bag that hangs on the support for the boarding ladder, so the pilot can see and count the pins, there would be a pin for the nose gear, one for each main, the tail hook pin, two wing fold pins, a pin for the seat and the pin for the canopy Jett handle. It looks like you are using 9M, so in the middle of the LAU-127, there is an L shaped pin with the RBF tag hanging off. The 120's have a small key like thing towards the center that have the tag. The GBU's have a foam ring that keeps the head from swinging around that has a tag on it. Hope this helps.

Bill
 

You can not put a LAU-7 Detent Wrench in a LAU-127 and the AIM-120 does not even have an arming key so there would not be any RBF for those items. Besides the fact that an aircraft that is ready to be manned will have it's tail hook pin removed (if on the flight deck the pin is removed before it comes up from the hanger). And I won't even mentioned that he misspelled ordnance.

 

Don't discount the information just because you don't like who's providing it.

 

http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?/topic/270980-super-hornet-rbf-placement/&tab=comments#comment-2568451

 

GW out

 

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The Marine Nationale has done this kind of training before. I attended an exercise debrief at NAS Oceana some years back. The aircraft of the Marine Nationale are now fully compatible for operations from US carriers. The French developed a smart cart that allows them to spin up and synch the avionics on the Rafale so it can deploy on a US carrier. Previously they could only plug in to CDG for the synch, so they were limited in operations from US CVNs in that they could not shut down. The E-2s do not have that issue since they are US built. I am not sure about the helos. Because the Marine Nationale uses US catapult and arresting technology, the landing gear are compatible as well. CDG has a really cool hangar spotting dolly that is remote controlled and the USN has been buying it. Saves people and space. WRT the capacity of US CVNs for aircraft is not the size of the current air wings, but how much hangar space is lost to other functions such has logistics and exercise equipment. So while the air wings are smaller, the available deck space is too. That said, the GW Bush should have no issues accommodating the CDGs air wing.

 

 

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