From September 18 to 30, 2025, the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle was deployed in the Mediterranean Sea, carrying on board the School of Embarked Aviation (EAé), the final stage in the training of fighter pilots for the French Navy.
This campaign, which mobilized ten Rafale Marine and one E2-C Hawkeye , aimed to qualify 9 new fighter pilots (3 day, 4 night and 2 day and night) and one pilot on the E2-C Hawkeye for landing, day and night.
The young pilots thus carried out their first catapult launches and landings, marking their symbolic entry into carrier-based aviation.
More than a technical step, this sequence plays a structuring role in building cohesion between the embarked air group and the aircraft carrier ‘s crew . The success of each landing, of each maneuver on the deck, depends on perfect synchronization between the pilots, technicians, deck personnel, air traffic controllers, nautical control teams and all those on board.
EAE 25.1 thus constituted much more than a training exercise: it was a true melting pot of integration, where the bonds of trust essential to the aircraft carrier’s strike power in operations were forged. Forged in the daily demands of the flight deck, this cohesion gives the carrier battle group a decisive capacity for action.