Oh wow. I didn't realize that. Just skimming over the Wikipedia entry, it looked like it had a lot of problems while in service and they just eventually decided to stop throwing money into it.
Looking into it, I guess they already have a replacement. A British Helicopter Land Ship HMS Ocean which they'll rename the Atlantico. Only twenty years old. Hopefully it doesn't have as many serviceability issues as their previous Carrier. Though this one only operates helicopters apparently.
I wonder if Brazil will actually want an aircraft carrier in the future they can operate jets off of. Preferably one they can buy new perhaps? Though $100 million for a helicopter landing ship ain't that bad of a deal I suppose, especially after seeing the money put into the Sao Paulo. And I guess Brazil doesn't exactly have many maritime threats unless it wants to conquer French Guyana. 😛
The big problem with the ex-
Foch was that she was in real bad condition when she was sold in 1997-8, with highlights being a propeller shaft that needed replacement, and heavily used steam systems(both catapult and propulsion) - France knew exactly what she was selling, and sold her cheap, hoping to make bank on maintaining her(the same thing they would do with the stop-gap Mirage 2000s the Air Force bought - I recall people cursing the French for having unloaded on Brazil the 'tiredest Mirage 2000s they could find in their boneyards' and charging for every single bolt as if they were made of platinum).
The Brazilian Navy knew what was going on and went for 'we'll do this by ourselves'... only to find out the Brazilian industries overpromised on their competence to provide the components to do maintenance on her(biggest example being the aforementioned propeller shaft). By 2014, the Navy was considering putting diesel engines on her and keeping 4 boilers for the steam catapults - when I heard that, I knew she was finished, and that was just a desperate proposal for keeping her. By 2016, the Navy gave up on her.
As for
Atlântico(EDIT: BTW, she's been operational in the Brazilian Navy since late 2018), she was supposed to be disposed of by the RN around 2020-22; the RN gave up on spending money for modernizations, so they build ships for 20-25 years of operational life. This time, however, Brazil is signing contracts with British companies to supply components for and maintain the ship, so there(hopefully) won't be as many problems with her as there were with
São Paulo.
BTW, someone mentioned the acquisition of F-35s for a possible future carrier. On this matter, I have this to say:
Hell will freeze over before the US sells F-35 to a South American country. The US only cleared the sale of supersonic aircraft (F-5s, in this case) to South America after Argentina and Brazil had bought Mirage IIIs - before that, the best offer they gave was selling used F-100s to Brazil in 1968-9. They only sold F-16s to Venezuela in the 1980s, because they were their main oil supplier. There is a reason why Brazilian plans for naval fighters look at a navalised Gripen - Brazil knows F-35 is off the table, and will never be on it.
