[quote=defnews[PARIS - With a decision now even further away on whether to proceed with construction of the aircraft carrier Porte-Avions 2 (PA2), French naval shipbuilder DCNS is continuing efforts to keep its design team at work, an official said here Oct. 26.
"We recently redesigned the underbody to streamline the hull," said Thierry Lagauche, a senior DCNS manager with the PA2 program.
Other changes in the carrier design include a sleek, single-island layout, replacing the somewhat clunky two-island version displayed by earlier designs. Overall, the single island is smaller than the two-island scheme, and was aided by a reduction in the size of the propulsion plant.
The new engineering plant features three rather than four diesel-electric engines, and one gas turbine rather than two. The number of propeller shafts, however, has gone up, from two to three.
The ship's overall displacement has also been cut, Lagauche said, dropping to 60,000 tons from about 66,000.
The reductions in size did not affect the ship's aviation complement, Lagauche said, which remains at 28 jet strike fighters and five NH90 helicopters.
French Defense Minister Hervé Morin, in his morning remarks to open the Euronaval exposition here, noted that further design changes could take place in the carrier, possibly to bring the British Queen Elizabeth and PA2 more in line with each other.
Lagauche noted it was important to keep the DCNS carrier design team employed in order to maintain an industrial capability.
At the other end of the size scale, CNIM, a small shipbuilder from La Seyne-sur-Mer on the Mediterranean coast, proudly pointed to its L-Cat, or landing catamaran, now under construction for the French Navy./quote]