After completing a maintenance period in Bremerton, Wash., this summer, Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) is returning to San Diego.
During the planned year-and-a-half incremental availability at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, the Navy is preparing Vinson to take F-35C Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters during its next deployment — expected to occur in 2021.
Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA 147), the Navy’s first operational F-35C squadron, is training at Naval Air Station Lemoore in California and expected to embark on Vinson.
Vinson is expected to also deploy with CMV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft in 2021, to use as the carrier onboard delivery aircraft – a first for a Navy aircraft carrier. The Navy is phasing out its old COD, the C-2A Greyhound, which first became operational in 1965.
“Exciting news – beginning Aug. 1, the USS CARL VINSON will be changing its homeport to San Diego! Thrilled to welcome CVN 70 and all her sailors and their families back to our city!” read a Wednesday tweet from Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), who represents much of San Diego.
Vinson’s administrative shift back to San Diego will occur Aug. 1, 2020, according to a statement from the Commander of Naval Air Forces. The Navy has not made a decision yet on whether another carrier will move into Bremerton after Vinson departs, Cmdr. Ron Flanders, the spokesman for the Commander of Naval Air Forces, told USNI News.
Commissioned in 1982, Vinson is the third-oldest carrier in the fleet. On the West Coast, Vinson is joined by USS Nimitz (CVN-68) in Bremerton, USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) in San Diego and USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) which is expected to within days complete a homeport shift to San Diego.
