NAe. Sao Paulo (ex-FS Foch)

Alas... next to zero chance of success... reminds me of its sistership Clemenceau horror story when it was to be scrapped...

And Turkey - WTH ? Oh, I see where this is going... THEY WANT TO PULL A CHINA.

Remember forty years ago when China bought Melbourne, tried to buy Clemenceau in 1996, and then started a collection of ex-Soviet carriers ?
"Amusement parks" my arse ! They got all the Kiev / Minsk minus the Indian one, then Varyag - and we all know how it ended.

Considering the present state of the Franco-Turkey relationship (Erdogan, cough, Charlie Hebdo, cough, Rafales to Greece, Lybia, cough) I think the chances Erdogan ever gets the Foch are zilch, zero, nada, nothing.
 
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Archibald said:
Alas... next to zero chance of success... reminds me of its sistership Clemenceau horror story when it was to be scrapped...

And Turkey - WTH ? Oh, I see where this is going... THEY WANT TO PULL A CHINA.

Remember forty years ago when China bought Melbourne, tried to buy Clemenceau in 1996, and then started a collection of ex-Soviet carriers ?
"Amusement parks" my arse ! They got all the Kiev / Minsk minus the Indian one, then Varyag - and we all know how it ended.

Considering the present state of the Franco-Turkey relationship (Erdogan, cough, Charlie Hebdo, cough, Rafales to Greece, Lybia, cough) I think the chances Erdogan ever gets the Foch are zilch, zero, nada, nothing.
Click to expand...

even if they bought it, not sure what they would fly off of it.
France wont sell the Rafales, the only other CATOBAR aircraft are Hornets (either version), and not sure if the US would even sell those
although maybe they can find some old model Hornets.
 
Don't be surprised to see them looking at Chinese/Russian types. No F-35 means there is little else.
 
helmutkohl said:
Archibald said:
Alas... next to zero chance of success... reminds me of its sistership Clemenceau horror story when it was to be scrapped...

And Turkey - WTH ? Oh, I see where this is going... THEY WANT TO PULL A CHINA.

Remember forty years ago when China bought Melbourne, tried to buy Clemenceau in 1996, and then started a collection of ex-Soviet carriers ?
"Amusement parks" my arse ! They got all the Kiev / Minsk minus the Indian one, then Varyag - and we all know how it ended.

Considering the present state of the Franco-Turkey relationship (Erdogan, cough, Charlie Hebdo, cough, Rafales to Greece, Lybia, cough) I think the chances Erdogan ever gets the Foch are zilch, zero, nada, nothing.
Click to expand...

even if they bought it, not sure what they would fly off of it.
France wont sell the Rafales, the only other CATOBAR aircraft are Hornets (either version), and not sure if the US would even sell those
although maybe they can find some old model Hornets.
Click to expand...

I don't think they would use it with fixed wing aircraft. The catapults and engines were already worn out in the late 80's... more than 30 years ago ! Although not as much ruined as Clemenceau, Foch had its share of issues between 1985 and 2000.
These problems grew much worse during its Brazilian service after 2000 and until 2018. Good luck to Turkey trying to achieve anything with that relic !

I can only see two uses for it
- a training ship that can't move, stuck to a pier (helicopters don't really care, BTW)
- dissecating the beast while scrapping it - to reverse-engineering a medium carrier out of it (what the chinese did with Melbourne and its catapults nearly 40 years) CdG is proof that the basic Clemenceau hull shape, while more than 60 years old, is still pertinent as a basis for a CVL (just like Forrestal to the last Nimitz, or Nimitz to Ford).

But no way they put a Liaoning or a Vikramâditya out of that relic ! the engines are toast and the catapults... better not to think about them.
 
slightly off topic but did China reverse engineer anything out of Melbourne?
i know they acquired it and likely investigated it, but it seems all their efforts on reverse engineering were on the Varyag.
 
I heard they examined the catapults, and it led to a ground-based catapult facility where they trained pilots for a decade or two.
Not sure about the details, citing from memory...
 
If the PLAN goes for electro magnetic cats then I suspect nothing of any value was learned from Melbourne outside basic layout. I also struggle to understand why the Turks would want Foche; there's no value in her at any level.
 
Electro magnetic didn't existed in 1984 when Melbourne was scrapped...
 
The Turks are known for their ship breaking companies, they already scrapped HMS Illustrious over there.

Regarding the Melbourne being sold to the Chinese, they did manage to launch a J-8II off of the deck, from some sources I've read. Even if they go to EMALS, they would still learn a lot from using the steam catapult. They would learn how to design and modify aircraft for use on carriers, and it is possible that they could have wanted a carrier at this point as well. Remember, EMALS is a rather new system, it still has its flaws, so steam catapults, although possibly at the twilight of their careers, are going to serve quite a while.

Also, the Turks are already building a carrier of sorts. It was supposed to use a ski-jump with F-35Bs......that went well. The catapults on Foch are worn, and the carrier is a 50 year old design, you'd be quite desperate if you wanted such a carrier, especially when you've got no suitable aircraft to operate from it.

Just my two cents :)
 
Archibald said:
Electro magnetic didn't existed in 1984 when Melbourne was scrapped...
Click to expand...
I'm not saying they didn't buy the ship to attempt to recover technical aspects, I'm just saying that in the end it probably wasn't that relevant.
 
1953-2023 - 70 years. R.I.P. I'm tempted to ask - how do you Americans scrap your carriers ? Why don't you send them to Bangladesh or India, but rather to Elon Musk playground of Brownsville, Texas ?
 
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