Navy’s first F‑35C deployment

ABOARD USS CARL VINSON, OFF THE COAST OF SAN DIEGO — Aircraft carrier Carl Vinson returned home Feb. 14 after a six-and-a-half-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific, in the U.S. Navy’s first deployment of the “air wing of the future.”The Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group and its Carrier Air Wing 2 brought along an F‑35C Joint Strike Fighter squadron in its first-ever operational deployment, and they worked with a detachment of CMV-22 Ospreys as the carrier onboard delivery aircraft.The “air wing of the future” also included two additional EA-18G Growlers and one additional E‑2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft, bolstering the air wing’s ability to sense the operating area and share data from those sensors across the CSG.In an unexpected twist, the carrier strike group began moving towards U.S. 5th Fleet in the Middle East, but then stopped and turned around, remaining in U.S. 7th Fleet and in the Indo-Pacific for the entire duration of its deployment, in what leaders are calling the start of a “shift” for the West Coast fleet’s operations.The ships of the Carl Vinson CSG sailed more th …

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