EYES ON THE FLIGHT DECK

6 June 1987: a young sailor, freshly qualified as a missile and gunnery specialist, boards the aircraft carrier Clémenceau on a port call at Brest.

10 June 2021: still a sailor at heart, the author finds himself aboard the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle as a photographer and embarks for a few days in the Mediterranean.

Tirelessly faithful to his passion for naval aviation, over the 34 years between these two dates (time changes nothing) he was given the opportunity to meet exceptional people. Among them, in a non-exhaustive list: carrier-based fighter pilots, landing signal officers, as well as active-duty and former naval aviation technicians. Their respective aeronautical careers led most of them to serve, like him, in the French Navy aboard the aircraft carriers they call, not without humour, the "flat-tops" (bateaux plats).

From these encounters — sometimes chance, sometimes fleeting, sometimes lasting friendships — this photographic book project was born. The will of a passionate man who had the incredible opportunity to re-embark and make his dream a reality.

Frédéric Bastoul, the author, offers us an immersion in this very closed microcosm, notably through images captured in the alert room during debriefings conducted by landing signal officers, and through the authentic vocabulary of the flight deck. A sea sortie rich in emotion, dedicated to the day and night carrier landing qualification of young pilots. A childhood dream and a life's goal for these sailors, rendered in images.

Beyond the desire to share, this book is above all a need for the author to give back to the institution that shaped him a part of what he has become — an institution he still serves. Royalties will be donated to ADOSM, Entraide Marine, the welfare organisation of the French Navy.

This book is dedicated to those who, one day, have set their eyes on a flight deck — or who simply dream of doing so!