No sooner has it entered service than the French Air Force's new tanker aircraft, the A330 MRTT Phoenix, demonstrates its full potential. So, a few days ago, a Phoenix carried out a 14-hour mission to support and refuel combat aircraft Rafale M of the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier deployed in the Eastern Mediterranean, off Syria. The combined use of the two French power vectors made it possible to demonstrate not only the excellent interoperability of the new aircraft, in the complex environment of the Middle Eastern sky, but also the coverage which France now has in terms of air power and naval aviation in the Mediterranean.
According to a press release from the General Staff of the Armed Forces, an A330 MRTT carried out, on February 15, a mission lasting 14 hours, to support the Rafales M of the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle as part of Operation Chammal, in Iraq and Syria. The aircraft thus traveled 3500 km over the Mediterranean to be able to resupply the fighters of the French naval aviation, thereby increasing their operational autonomy and their range of action. Once the mission was completed, the aircraft returned to the Istres air base from which it had taken off 14 hours earlier.
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