An EA-18G Growler lands aboard the aircraft carrier USS George Washington while underway in the Atlantic Ocean, June 26, 2023. (August Clawson/U.S. Navy)
The USS George Washington has completed its flight deck certification, one of the last steps before the aircraft carrier returns to normal operations after a lengthy refit period in Virginia.
The ship and its air wing over three days in late June launched and recovered aircraft 247 times during day and night sorties as part of the qualification, according to a carrier news release on June 30. It also carried out hangar bay drills, nighttime flight deck training and simulated emergency exercises before returning to Naval Station Norfolk.
"Flight deck certification was our first opportunity for the air wing and the ship team to work together in support of the ship's fundamental mission, launching and recovering aircraft at sea," said Capt. Brad Converse, commander of Carrier Air Wing 1, in the news release.
The certification is required before the George Washington can embark its air wing for at-sea operations. It comes just a month after the carrier completed an extended, six-year maintenance period at Huntington Ingalls’ Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia.
The George Washington arrived in Virginia in August 2017 for scheduled maintenance, including its midlife nuclear refueling and overhaul. The maintenance period was scheduled to last just four years, but complications from the COVID-19 pandemic and other setbacks delayed it significantly.
An F/A-18E Super Hornet taxis on the flight deck of the USS George Washington in the Atlantic Ocean, June 23, 2023. (Tyler Crowley/U.S. Navy)
The shipyard, which built the carrier in the 1980s, officially “redelivered” the vessel into Navy hands on May 25 following three days of sea trials.
The George Washington also met several other “momentous” milestones last week, including a fuel certification and its first underway replenishment in six years, its commander, Capt. Brent Gaut, said in the news release.
“As always, I am incredibly proud of our USS George Washington Warfighters, and the incredible support from the Carrier Air Wing One team,” he said.
The ship is slated for more training and operation in coming months, preliminary preparations for the George Washington’s upcoming homeport shift to Japan sometime next year.
The Navy on April 28 announced that the George Washington will return to Yokosuka Naval Base to replace the USS Ronald Reagan as the centerpiece of the U.S. 7th Fleet’s carrier strike group. The George Washington served as the 7th Fleet’s lead ship from 2008 to 2015 and was relieved by the Ronald Reagan.
Once the George Washington arrives in Yokosuka, the Ronald Reagan will relocate to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Wash., ending its eight-year tenure in Japan, just short of the 10-year limit for Navy ships deployed overseas.
Congress set the limit in the fiscal year 2019 Defense Department budget following the back-to-back collisions in 2017 of the destroyers USS Fitzgerald and USS John S. McCain. Both had been based at Yokosuka more than a decade when they collided with commercial vessels in separate incidents.
More than 240 Navy families moved to Yokosuka in the months ahead of the George Washington’s arrival in 2008. When the Ronald Reagan replaced the George Washington, they swapped nearly two-thirds of their respective crews.
The base will have a better understanding of how many sailors and their families will be moving this time around as the transition period draws closer, base spokesman Randall Baucom told Stars and Stripes by phone Thursday.
