Charles de Gaulle (R91) is the flagship of the French Navy (Marine Nationale) and the largest Western European warship. She is the tenth French aircraft carrier, the first French nuclear-powered surface vessel, and the first and so far only nuclear-powered carrier completed outside of the United States Navy. She is named after French statesman and general Charles de Gaulle.
The ship carries a complement of Dassault-Breguet Super Étendard, Dassault Rafale M and E‑2C Hawkeye aircraft, EC725 Caracal and AS532 Cougar helicopter for RESCO, as well as modern electronics and Aster missiles. She is a CATOBAR-type carrier that uses a shorter version of the catapult system installed on the U.S. Nimitz class carriers, the 75 m C13‑3 steam catapult.
Famous quotes containing the words french and/or carrier:
“French rhetorical models are too narrow for the English tradition. Most pernicious of French imports is the notion that there is no person behind a text. Is there anything more affected, aggressive, and relentlessly concrete than a Parisan intellectual behind his/her turgid text? The Parisian is a provincial when he pretends to speak for the universe.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
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—native American belief, quoted by D. Jenness in “The Carrier Indians of the Bulkley River,” Bulletin no. 133, Bureau of American Ethnology (1943)