The Vinson's carrier strike group is the first to deploy with F-35C Lightning II fighter aircraft aboard, as well as CMV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, USNI, KNSD-TV and The Times of San Diego reported.
Although details of the deployment were not announced, ships traveling from the West Coast often enter the Indo-Pacific theater of operations.
Escorts in its strike group include destroyers USS Higgins, USS O'Kane, USS Chafee, USS Dewey, USS Stockdale and USS Michael Murphy, as well as the guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Champlain.
The deployment was scheduled for 3:00pm on Monday.
In June, the USS Carl Vinson was in Hawaii for training purposes, after it completed a 17-month maintenance period Washington State, receiving upgrades to accommodate the F-35Cs.
The Nimitz-class, nuclear-powered vessel, commissioned in 1982, is 1,092 feet long, and carries a crew of 3,542, with another 2,460 comprising its air wing.
| The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, is Copyright 1995-2026 Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principles for news reporting and research purposes. |
