A French Air and Space Force team installed the weapon module on the carrier’s flight deck in approximately four hours. It included cameras, LIDAR, a laser-generation system, a cooling unit and an operator console.
The team comprised personnel from the service’s expertise centre at Mont-de-Marsan and an air defence squadron at Istres. Charles de Gaulle was expected to enter the Gulf of Oman during the experiment.
The trials took place during a deployment that ended on 11 July 2026, after the crew spent 166 days at sea. The account did not specify how many drones were engaged or provide detailed test results.
An unnamed French Air and Space Force non-commissioned officer told Cols Bleus that it was the system’s first trial aboard a naval vessel. That description remains uncertain because the photographed equipment reportedly resembles HELMA-P, which France had already tested at sea.
The French Navy tested HELMA-P aboard the Horizon-class frigate Forbin in June 2023 under the L2AD programme. The Ministry of the Armed Forces said the system demonstrated effectiveness and precision in neutralising drones at sea, following land-based trials in 2020–2021.
A laser of that type also remained available to the military during the Paris Olympic Games in 2024. The account does not establish whether the carrier trial involved the same system or a different configuration.
The report also described earlier testing of the 20–35 kW LOCUST laser aboard USS George H.W. Bush. Installed in a flight-deck container and powered by the carrier’s electrical network, that system reportedly completed trials in October 2025 before seeing combat use in the Gulf of Oman several months later.
