Aircraft Carriers III

USS George Washington Arrives in San Diego for Japan Carrier Swap

Posted on July 11, 2024 by Richard R. Burgess, Senior Editor

NAVAL AIR STATION NORTH ISLAND (July 10, 2024) – Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73) arrives at Naval Air Station North Island, California, July 10, 2024. (U.S. Navy photo by MC1 Class Aron Montano)
By Richard R. Burgess, Senior Editor 

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73) arrived at Naval Air Station North Island, California, July 10, 2024, after its “round-the horn” voyage from Norfolk, Virginia, around Cape Horn to the Pacific Ocean. The carrier soon will succeed USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) as the forward-deployed U.S. Naval Forces Japan aircraft carrier at Fleet Activities Yokosuka, Japan.

The George Washington departed Norfolk on April 25, 2024, and completed a series of U.S. Southern Command exercises with Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Uruguay, and conducted port visits planned for Brazil, Chile, and Peru. Embarked in the George Washington were the Carrier Strike Group 10 staff and aircraft and personnel of Carrier Air Wing Seven (CVW-7). 

At North Island, the George Washington will embark Carrier Air Wing Five (CVW-5) from USS Ronald Reagan and replace that carrier as the one forward-deployed to the U.S. Seventh Fleet.

The George Washington was the forward-deployed carrier based in Japan from 2008 until 2015, when it was replaced in Japan by the Ronald Reagan. In 2017, the George Washington entered a Refueling and Complex Overhaul at the Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding yard in Virginia, an evolution that took six years, including the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic. The George Washington’s nuclear propulsion plant is fueled to run another 25 years.

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USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) Inbound San Diego​

Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md.
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The Navy recently installed the world’s first Unmanned Air Warfare Center (UAWC) aboard USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77), where Air Vehicle Pilots (AVPs) will control future MQ-25™ Stingray airborne operations.

This major installation was a multi-year effort coordinated across multiple ship availability periods and the ship’s deployment schedule.

The CVN-based control room, known as the UAWC, includes software and hardware systems that make up the first fully operational and integrated Unmanned Carrier Aviation Mission Control System (UMCS) MD-5E Ground Control Station (GCS). UMCS is the system-of-systems required for the MQ-25 air vehicle command and control and is critical to the unmanned aircraft refueler’s operations.
“CVN 77’s UAWC lays the foundation for how the U.S. Navy will operate and control unmanned aircraft, and perhaps other unmanned vehicles, with UMCS,” said Unmanned Carrier Aviation (PMA-268) Program Manager Capt. Daniel Fucito. “These systems will initially support the MQ-25 but also future unmanned systems such as Collaborative Combat Aircraft that comprise the Air Wing of the Future.”

The GCS, developed by the Navy, includes Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works® Multi Domain Combat System (MDCX™), the power behind the GCS, along with additional supporting equipment and hardware. The hardware installed in the racks and cockpits is the baseline for the production systems currently being fabricated for installation on CVNs 70, 71, and 76 beginning in fiscal year 2025.
“The support we received from all the organizations was incredible,” said Gordon Carlon, acting PMA-268 UMCS CVN installation lead. “Our program is accomplishing things on a much faster timeline than any other normal start-up program.”

PMA-268’s UMCS team worked with multiple program offices, systems commands and shipyards to integrate the UAWC into existing networks and the carrier architecture. The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division Webster Outlying Field Alteration Installation Team, AirWorks, and Lockheed Martin assisted with the coordination and physical installation of the UAWC while Naval Sea Systems Command, Norfolk Naval Shipyard, and CVN 77 organized schedules, equipment, and logistics.
Early next year, CVN 77 will lead the first at-sea testing of the UAWC’s operational networks, building on initial network testing with a simulated GCS that took place in January aboard USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72).

“This will be the first time the AVPs from Unmanned Carrier-Launched Multi-Role Squadron (VUQ) 10 will operate the MD-5 from an aircraft carrier. They will use the actual GCS hardware and software aboard CVN 77 to communicate with a simulated air vehicle in the lab in Pax River,” said Joe Nedeau, PMA-268 UMCS lead.

PMA-268 is the lead systems integrator for MQ-25, working closely with its two prime industry partners, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, to seamlessly integrate the MQ-25 into carrier operations, including deck handing, taxiing and launch and recovery. When operational, MQ-25 will provide an aerial refueling capability to extend the range and flexibility of the carrier air wing.

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USS George Washington (CVN 73) Outbound San Diego​

Explosive Fire Engulfs Former Soviet Carrier Minsk in China​

A former Soviet aircraft carrier burned in a waterway near Shanghai over the weekend, the latest setback for the decommissioned warship since its conversion into a Chinese tourist attraction.

The carrier Minsk, which has been anchored for the past eight years in a lagoon near the Yangtze River in Nantong, Jiangsu province, caught fire during renovations for it to become part of a military theme park, state-run China National Radio reported Saturday.

The blaze broke out Friday afternoon and was extinguished about 24 hours later, the report said.

Images on social media showed thick smoke and large flames burning on the deck of the carrier, with later pictures showing extensive damage to the ship’s superstructure and charred metal on its flank below the main deck.

“There are no casualties, and the cause of the accident is under investigation,” the report said, citing local fire officials.

The Minsk had previously been the main attraction for 16 years at a now defunct theme park in southern

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, according to the report.

Recently started renovation efforts to make the ship the centerpiece of another theme park are now in doubt, the report added.

“It’s a pity that a fire has made the prospects of this project full of too many uncertainties,” an official told China National Radio.

Once part of the mighty Soviet Pacific Fleet, the Minsk was the second of four Kiev-class aircraft carriers built by the Soviet Union between 1970 and 1987.

Conventionally powered and with a displacement of about 42,000 tons – less than half that of a US Navy Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier – the 896-feet (273 meter) ship could carry a dozen fighter jets and an equal number of helicopters.

Built at a shipyard in what is now Ukraine and named after what is now the capital of Belarus, it served in the Soviet Pacific Fleet after its commissioning in 1978 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, when it became property of the Russian Navy.

Russia retired the ship in 1993, selling it and a sister ship, the Novorossiysk, to a South Korean company for scrap.

While the Novorossiysk was dismantled in the South Korean port of Pohang, environmental groups opposed the presence of the Minsk in the country. The ship was then sold to a Chinese company, eventually being transferred to developers who made it the centerpiece of the Minsk World theme park in Shenzhen, which opened in 2000.

The park suffered financial troubles and eventually closed in 2016, with the Minsk moved to its current site in Nantong.

One of the Minsk’s other sister ships, the Kiev – named for the Ukrainian capital – is an attraction at the Binhai Aircraft Carrier Theme Park in Tianjin, on China’s northeastern coast.

Of the four Kiev-class carriers the Soviets built, only the final one, the Baku, remains in service. It was sold to India in 2004, refurbished and commissioned into the Indian Navy in 2013 as the

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and is now the service’s flagship.

CNN’s Isaac Yee and Hassan Tayir contributed to this report.

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