Feb 7, 2007
By Christina Mackenzie/DTI
There was a sense of urgency in early December at the offices of MO-PA2, the temporary company formed by French shipbuilder DCN and electronics giant Thales to handle France's second full-deck aircraft carrier (PA2) project, as a design submission deadline of Dec. 25 loomed.
The U.K. and France are collaborating on the design and planned construction of three aircraft carriers to be delivered in 2013-15, the PA2 and two Queen Elizabeth-class Future Aircraft Carriers (CVFs) for the Royal Navy. An enormous amount of political pressure has been put on both the French and British aircraft carrier teams to get the strategic project signed and sealed before French elections this spring and expected political changes in Britain after Tony Blair steps down as prime minister.
The PA2 project is not only necessary to ensure that France has a carrier available when the Charles de Gaulle comes into dock for lengthy maintenance in 2015, but is also considered a vital step in consolidating Europe's naval industry.
Huddled in shirtsleeves around a large table strewn with paper and coffee cups at MO-PA2, French and British project directors strived to produce a common baseline design for the three ships, down to such details as the size of bunk beds and wet spaces. They ultimately met their target of turning in the final results to the French defense procurement agency (DGA) five days early.
"It may sound absurd to go into such details at this stage," explains Alex Fabarez, director of MO-PA2, "but accommodations aboard British and French ships are totally different, and we are talking about the environment for 1,720 people spending up to seven months at sea."
One of the differences is that there will be about 300 more sailors permanently berthed on the French PA2 than on the British CVF. The additional personnel have to be billeted comfortably and not on convertible sofa beds, as is planned on board the British carriers for accommodating extra personnel in times of crisis or combat.
The impact on shipbuilding costs of having commonly designed accommodations is not insignificant. "It could save us tens of millions of euros," Fabarez says.
The small team of about 40 people at MO-PA2 had to work flat out from the end of September to meet the deadline, because they had to make major modifications to the PA2 design after presenting it in July to DGA and the French navy. "The British reaction to the French design was spirited, because it diverged too far from the British one," says Fabarez. As a result, on Sept. 21, "a decision was made that the French PA2 would be 90% the same ship as the British CVF, and there is an expressed will to cooperate to the maximum with the British," Fabarez says.
Five major differences were taken into account in the joint baseline design, primarily to allow French conventional-takeoff-and-landing Rafale fighter jets to operate from the PA2. The French carrier must be fitted with catapults and arresting gear; the steam-powered catapults need boilers to produce the steam; the PA2 will have more space for fuel because the French navy does not refuel at sea as frequently as does the Royal Navy; the lifts from the aircraft hangar up to the flight deck will be slightly wider to accommodate the wider wingspan of the Rafales; and the ship will be fitted with the same list compensation system used on the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier.
The French navy, for its part, made concessions in the traditional layout of its ships. For example, the personnel on a French ship normally are accommodated by function--everyone in radio communications, from senior officer down to sailor, is billeted in the same area of the ship. On British ships, on the other hand, accommodations are by rank, so all officers reside at the back of the ship. On the PA2, the French officers will be at the back of the ship.
The French navy also agreed that the air wing operations room will be situated at the back of the ship away from carrier operations and the admiral's staff. On French carriers, they are all located in the same area of the ship.
The engine rooms and their command post will be the same on all three aircraft carriers, Fabarez says, "because the propulsion system is the same." It consists of two gas turbines, four electric propulsion engines, four diesel alternators and two propellers.
Michele Alliot-Marie, France's defense minister, said at the Euronaval show in Paris last October that her "ambition is to render this program as irreversible as possible." She not only sees the project as vital to "ensure that our overseas deployment capacity remains permanent," but also as a foundation for constructing "a consolidated European industry and a solid European defense." French naval chief of staff Adm. Alain Oudot de Dainville also has said, "If the European Union wants a defense capacity, it must do so around structuring programs such as the aircraft carrier."
Alliot-Marie sees the joint aircraft carrier program as an opportunity "to develop full and complete cooperation" between France and Britain and has made it clear she is "expecting from all industries involved an effort equal to the strategic importance of this project."
