Gilbert Sedbon/PARIS
FOR A MAN WHO has just seen procurement of his air force's fourth-generation fighter delayed for five years, and its next-generation pre-production transport teeter on the brink of collapse, Gen Jean Rannou appears relatively sanguine.
The Dassault Rafale's entry into service with the French air force has been pushed back from 2000 to 2005, as a budgetary expediency. Fiscal adversity has also meant that the Government has cut all development funding for the European Future Large Aircraft (FLA), a move which is likely to result in the project's demise.
On top of this, Rannou must guide Armee de l'Air through its transition from a conscripted body to a recruited force, with personnel numbers due to tumble from 94,000 to 70,000. Rannou admits that the air force is "-living through a rowdy period".
The 53-year-old former Dassault Mirage 3 pilot was appointed Chief of Staff in September 1995 following four years at the defence ministry as chief military advisor to two successive defence ministers, Pierre Fox and Fran+ois Leotard.
For Rannou, the overriding priority in the near future is the "professionalisation" of the air force.
"My main task today is to rationalise costs and streamline the French air force and turn it from a conscripted into an all-professional force," says Rannou. "I am doing today what our British friends in the Royal Air Force had to do five years ago."
Several air bases will close down, including the Plateau d'Albion nuclear missile base, with up to 1,170 officers, predominantly aircrew, likely to be faced with compulsory redundancy because of the restructuring.
By the year 2015, the numbers of aircraft in the French air force will be down to 300 fourth-generation Rafales (from 405), 52 transport aircraft (from 86), 16 air tankers (from 11), and 84 helicopters (from 101).
Rannou is not worried by the five-year delay to the Rafale's entry into service. "The post-Cold War situation in Europe does not warrant any urgency, and we can afford to wait a few more years to have the best," he says.
The delay means that the air force will not take into service what was effectively an interim standard of the Rafale. Under the revised procurement plan, the aircraft will be delivered to the air force with a full air-to-air and air-to-surface capability.
The French air force, like the Royal Air Force, has a requirement to equip its air-superiority aircraft with an extended-range active-radar-guided air-to-air missile. Previously, it was unwilling to admit this, given the air force's purchase of the active variant of the Matra Mica.
What concerns Rannou about the Rafale is the air force's ability to procure the aircraft in the numbers he believes are required. The Rafale fly-away price is given as Fr300 million ($58.4 million) a unit, and the air force is worrying about its ability to finance the programme.
"I am not worried about the Rafale's technical performances - it's a very good aircraft," says Rannou. "I am worried about our ability to pay," he explains.
It is exactly this ability to pay which appears to have killed the FLA, or the Avions de Transport Futur as it is known in France. A French Governmental decision not to provide any development funding increasingly looks to be the final nail in the project's coffin. The FLA partners have already warned that the French moves place the project in jeopardy.
At a political level, Rannou would like to see the FLA go ahead. "Failure to build the FLA would be a major blow to the Europe defence industry," he says.
Rannou recognises, however, that, "-if the Armee de l'Air can't get the FLA, then we'll buy off the shelf". The probable purchase would be the Lockheed Martin C-130J, the FLA project's bete noir. Unlike the FLA, however, the C-130J is already flying. Its smaller payload may be a limitation, but this is for the most part offset by its lower price.
Europe is struggling at industrial level with the FLA, but Rannou is impressed by the collaboration between the French air force and the RAF within the "Euro-air group". This numerically small unit is based at RAF High Wycombe. Rannou considers this to be only the beginning of a potentially far-reaching collaboration which could even go as far as the nuclear arena, should the politicians deem it appropriate. He also does not rule out expanding the group to include the German air force and other NATO allies. Any nuclear element, says Rannou, would remain strictly bilateral between the UK and France, however.
Rannou will also oversee the air force's re-entry into the NATO command structure, although this is itself in a state of flux. "Of course we, the French, will have to learn to work together with our Atlantic allies inside NATO after such a long absence," he says.
Source: Flight International
