Mike,

That's a really interesting article - not only from the Tomcat
retirement point of view, but in general. Thank you for posting it!


The carrier came on
station on 5 October 2005, and its jets flew (almost) daily combat
missions on a 24-hour cycle.

Well, that is great they did not forget to add the word "almost". Is it
possible for a CVW to operate day and night at the same readiness
level? I guess the flight ops ran mostly one half of the day, with only
some CAS alert aicraft during the other...


During the deployment a small handful of between six and eight Hornets
and Prowlers were sent ashore to Al Asad air base.

Official Navy News said that was during the carrier's port call. I
wonder if it was made for the first time, or is it a common practice?


CVW-8 does
no organic tanking for its strike aircraft. The carrier's
tanker-configured S-3 Vikings are used as recovery tankers only.

That's interesting. How the Navy is going to provide organic tanking
with only about four of F/A-18E/F configured for that mission, whereas
they cannot do that with 6 or 8 Vikings?


The F-14Ds are also armed with a 20 mm M61 Vulcan cannon and,
extraordinarily, these guns were used for ground strafing on two
occasions by VF-213 (and also by F/A-18Cs).

Reportedly the gun is one of favourite air-to-ground weapons of USMC
Hornet drivers (no VMFA embarked for this cruise), but never before I
heard about Tomcats doing ground strafing. Was it too heavy?

Best regards,
Jacek Z.