Back at sea

French carrier air wing

After an 18-month break, the French carrier air wing was reunited with the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle which came out of refit last September. Henri-Pierre Grolleau joined them.

The complex refit and mid-life upgrade will help keep the Charles de Gaulle relevant until retirement in around 20 years. The vessel’s sensor suite and combat information centre have been modernised with stateof- the-art technology to provide improved detection, tracking and dataprocessing capabilities while increasing resistance to potential cyber threats. The carrier’s nuclear reactors were refuelled, providing an extra ten years of endurance, meaning the process will have to be repeated only once before the carrier is retired around 2038-40.

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