Findlays Heller: Charles De Gaule

The story of the Charles de Gaulle began in 1974, when the oil crisis shook the industrialised countries. In this context, the French government decided to launch the construction of the Porte- Hélicoptères-75, a 16,400-ton helicopter carrier equipped with nuclear boilers, a project that was eventually abandoned. In 1982, the French Navy High Council requested that the studies carried out for the nuclear propulsion of the PH-75 project (which in the meantime had become Aircraft Carrier-75 and then PA-83) be used to define a new generation of aircraft carriers capable of replacing the Clemenceau and Foch before the end of the century. Nuclear propulsion gives the vessel the possibility of remaining at sea longer without the need to refuel. More than 10,000 plans were drawn up by the engineers of the Direction des Constructions Navales (DCN), and on 4 February 1986, the construction of the ship christened Charles de Gaulle was authorised. It was launched on 7 May 1994 and commissioned on 18 May 2001. A true technical feat, this aircraft carrier has a system of 12 mobile masses of 22 t which compensates for rolling movements and enables the ship to use its aircraft on board by sea at force 5 or 6. The Charles de Gaulle‘s shapes are „stealthy“ to reduce its radar signature to make it less easily identifiable. In 2020, France is the only country, apart from the United States, to have completed the construction of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.