France is considering joining with Britain to buy a new carrier of British design. Actually, the French had planned to built a second nuclear powered carrier, but they are having so many problems with the first one that they are quite reluctant about building a second like the troubled "Charles de Gaulle". Britain is building two 50,000 ton conventionally powered carriers, at a cost of $2.5 billion each. Under the proposed plan, France would order a third of this class, and bring down the cost of all three a bit. This project might not come off, because France wants a lot of the work to be done in French shipyards.

The new French nuclear carrier "Charles de Gaulle" has suffered from a seemingly endless string of problems since it was first conceived in 1986. The 40,000 ton ship has cost over four billion dollars so far and is slower than the diesel powered carrier it replaced. Flaws in the "de Gaulle" have led it to using the propellers from it predecessor, the "Foch," because the ones built for "de Gaulle" never worked right and the propeller manufacturer went out of business in 1999. Worse, the nuclear reactor installation was done poorly, exposing the engine crew to five times the allowable annual dose of radiation. There were also problems with the design of the deck, making it impossible to operate the E-2 radar aircraft that are essential to defending the ship and controlling offensive operations. Many other key components of the ship did not work correctly, including several key electronic systems. The carrier has been under constant repair and modification. The "de Gaulle" took eleven years to build (1988-99) and was not ready for service until late 2000. It's been downhill ever since. The de Gaulle is undergoing still more repairs and modifications. The government is being sued for exposing crew members to dangerous levels of radiation.

The cause of the problems can be traced to the decision to install nuclear reactors designed for French submarines, instead of spending more money and designing reactors specifically for the carrier. Construction started and stopped several times because to cuts to the defense budget and when construction did resume, there was enormous pressure on the builders to get on with it quickly, and cheaply, before the project was killed. The result was a carrier with a lot of expensive problems.

So the plan is to buy into the new British carrier building program and keep the "de Gaulle" in port and out of trouble as much as possible. The British have a lot more experience building carriers, and if there are any problems with the British designed ship, the French can blame the British.

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:__qun...;cd=3&gl=us

I bet that was the decision of some over-smart character from the govt.s end, who probably knew less about nuclear reactors than Pakistani politicians about stability

Totally man... if only these crazy politicians had the balls to throw selfish traitorous dictators in jail, there would be stability

Here's something interesting about the French nuclear carrier

you seem to have an awful amount of trust in floks that might not even be from the same genus as the rest of mankind.

I guess you are in for a very very rude awakening ...

enjoy the trip though

I don't trust them, but I know they can't possibly be worse than the 8 years of garbage that we've had :)

Once you hit rock bottom, only place to go is up!

sorry to tell you that we were still on some higher grounds, well you want to see rock bottom well wait and watch and in a period of maybe a year you would realize that the elected baboons have the capacity to dig in to rocks and we will find ourselves in deeper s#it

yea, thats exactly what happened on 12th October 99'.

After Nawaz & PPP had destroyed the country and brought it to the brink of bankcrupcy and are on their way to achive that again, this time only faster

In 99 conditions in Pakistan were nowhere near as bad as Mushy's govt has created.

In fact roads and dams were being built, we finally got our nuclear deterrant, and lasting peace with India was almost certainty.

Then of course Mushy decided to destablilize the country and make us all America's servants, while decorating his and his friends' living rooms with all the aid America sent. The rest of course is history. The gap between rich and poor in Pakistan is bigger now than in 99, and the pakistani rupee is also much more devalued. Its obvious that the last 8 years have been the worst for cancer on Pakistan.

Once the lingering elements of Mushy-supporters in the current govt are crushed, Pakistan will Insh'Allah finally get back on track towards progress and stable civilian rule, as the founding fathers intended.

Bhai ... again lack of knowledge and facts never produces half decent opinions. Kindly look up the economic forum on the details statistics and different indexes that measure such matters as poverty and difference between rich and poor. It has actually improved significantly.


Also, Rupee has been stable more less than 1999, and only now ... after the Tamasha or Zardari & Nawaz has the rupee devalued so much in past 3 months.

I kindly request you to check facts & figures before forming opinions and worse yet, shoving them down everyone else's throat


In 99' Pakistan could not meet its monthy debt payments to international crediters ... what could really be worse than that? and really ... waht damns have been built in 1988? and other than taking out Ayub's plan of Motorway (after royally screwing with it, so every minister's house had personal interchange on motorway to their no-name village), from the freezer? what did Nawaz really do?

The man went to Amarika to sell out Pakistan in return for a single photoshoot with Clinton

anyways, if you wana carry this disscussion further kindly start it in an existing thread in two other forums for general disscussuion.

stop watching geo, cnn, bbc and come to pakistan to see what has changed, well only comment if you were in Pakistan during 1989-1999 the dreaded decade, other wise comparing Canada to Pakistan you would still call it garbage if you did not know what s#ithole it had been before

Enough Trolling, I have put two posts in hide mode, with suggestion in them to repost this in either an existing thread or a new one w/o targetting indivisual posters.


I hope this helps.

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