Trafalgar - Oh the Irony!
 

The Battle of Trafalgar

Royal Navy pilots forced to learn French - Telegraph

As it has been missed on another thread............ You can't make this up!

Seems to me a logical thing to do. It is a FRENCH Ship - or is Britain as arrogant as others think? We expect everyone else to speak English - you can do that if you are a world power.

We aren't!

I believe the French have a motto pertinent to this; "To the sea! It is the time!"


or... "A l'eau, c'est l'heure!"


:E

Is there a problem?

If you are living and working from A French ship, operating French aircraft then I don't think it's unreasonable to expect you might try and learn the lingo.

They should be grateful they have a boat to fly off at all.

Never mind learning French, it's the "sleeping ... alongside French fighter pilots" that would worry me...

US Navy pilots 'forced' to learn French too
 

And as you have started another thread, I say again...

Foreign officers on exchange with the Marine Nationale. How novel. :rolleyes:Note the RN officer in the photo.

Mon dieu!
 

It's good to see that humour is alive and kicking on Pprune as always.
A guy posts something to stimulate some witty banter and what does he get? A bunch of miserable old gits pointing out the stark reality that a guy serving on a French ship may just be required to speak the lingo.
Sacre bleu!
BV:rolleyes:

So what's the problem?

When US Navy officers do exchange tours in the RN they have to learn to speak English!

C'est la vie.....

And a fine wine cellar to boot.

I recall reading an exchange officer's end of tour report from the Jeanne d'Arc. It went in to fine detail on bunkerage, aircraft etc and concluded that the limiting factor on a cruise was the wine cellar.

Importance of languages and avoiding cultural errors
 

It is so easy to misunderstand a radio call in English or for that matter in any language and so many accidents have been caused by simple errors. Any language study with cultural awareness has to be positive and particularly so in the unforgiving environment of the air. These pilots will learn so much and it will give them an extra insight into French culture that I was lucky enough to experience flying in Jodels with French people many years ago.

I know there was a USN exchange officer on....
 

...Super Etendards at Landivisieau a few years back, and I'm pretty sure that at the height of the "cheese eating surrender monkeys" BS there was an E2C on a US carrier in the gulf.

Politicians,eh? What can we do about them?

The Ancient Mariner

Did a sortie aboard a Kriegsmarine Atlantique may years ago - all the herren spoke English throughout the trip, and I don't think it was for my benefit (and I could get by in Deutsch anyway).

Was there not a story aways back of a RN officer on exchange on a French ship, with one of his duties to give the daily news onboard in English to help the crew with their English....

Off to a rocky start in the beginning, until he did the English news in English with a French accent!

Who would have thought that more than 300 years after the American War of Independence, we would be asking the Americans to train our Army Apache pilots.

:rolleyes:

Happy to be proven wrong, but I thought the colonies were cut loose 235 years ago, Sid? Granted, they may have begun mangling the language prior to that...........

Yes, Marine Nationale does operate a big carrier (like the Ark Royal 40 from years ago, with nuclear propulsion added) on which they fly Rafale and Super-Etendard (you know, the one launching efficient Exocet missiles...)
They also have three helicopter-carrying ships, real warships (they are in the final process of selling three others to the Russians) - not cargo conversion like HMS Ocean ...
From one of them (the Tonnerre) nightly raids of Tigre and Gazelle helicopters are launched (total of 15 of them, compared with only 4 Apaches on board HMS Ocean)
So yes, within 12 years (or more) when British carriers are back, pilots on-board will be quite good in French procedures...
They don't expect the rest of the Charles de Gaulle crew to speak English because of their presence, don't they ?

I understand it might be difficult to swallow for some.

Anyway, they are welcome on board, away from any politician BS. Apart from our both nations, can you single out another really fighting country in that beautiful europe of ours ?

At least the showers won't be as busy as a British ship.

Its a great exchange system we learn French they learn to queue.

Well, historically-speaking..........

The original one, The Tuscarora War in 1711 ;)

Ok, if it makes you happy so early in the morning;

Who would have thought that more than 200 years after the American War of Independence, we would be asking the Americans to train our Army Apache pilots.

or

Who would have thought that more than 200 years after the American War of Independence, Americans would be training our Astronauts.

:E
Nighty, night!