T
HE US NAVY aircraft carrier
USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) left
its home port of San Diego,
California, on August 22 last
year. Embarked was Carrier Air
Wing 17 (CVW-17) with nine
squadrons and 63 aircraft, honed and ready
for action. In their grueling and carefully
constructed pre-cruise work-up period the
squadrons and their dedicated men and
women had prepared for a range of scenarios,
but most expected Afghanistan to play a
signifi cant part in their time away from
home. As they left the sanctuary of southern
California, the battle in Iraq with the so-called
Islamic State (IS) was starting to make the
headlines.
Six months on, in February 2015, together
with four surface combatants — USS Bunker
Hill (CG 52), USS Dewey (DDG 105), USS
Gridley (DDG 101), and USS Sterett (DDG
104) — CVN 70 and the Carl Vinson Carrier
Strike Group 1 (CSG-1) were spearheading air
operations against IS militants. En route they
had participated in an under-sea warfare
exercise (USWEX) off the coast of Hawaii and
in ‘Valiant Shield 2014’ — a US-only exercise
involving two aircraft carriers and a total of
19 ships and more than 200 aircraft — before
the CSG reported for duty in the US 5th
Fleet area of responsibility (AOR) on October
15, 2014.Toting live GBU-38s and an AGM-65 infra-red
Maverick, a VFA-22 ‘Fighting Redcocks’ F/A-18F
prepares to launch from the Carl Vinson.http://www.combataircraft.net May 2015 9190-95 USS Vinson C.indd 91 20/03/2015 11:12