Aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson to change homeport back to San Diego this summer after completion of maintenance
by Commander, Naval Air Forces Public Affairs
SAN DIEGO – The U.S. Navy announced today that the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) will administratively shift its homeport to San Diego, on August 1, 2020.

The ship, which left San Diego in January 2019, will return after the completion of a docking-planned incremental availability (DPIA) at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, WA.

Carl Vinson, commissioned in 1982, completed its most recent deployment in April 2018.

The carrier was based at NAS North Island from October 2009 until it left for Washington in July 2018. The 38-year-old carrier — the third oldest in the fleet — entered dry dock in the Puget Sound area last February for planned repairs and modernization.

USS Carl Vinson was commissioned in 1082. In 2011, the body of Osama bin Laden was buried at sea from the Vinson’s deck. The ship’s deck also hosted the first NCAA basketball game on an aircraft carrier that same year. The game was played between North Carolina and Michigan State.

During its first deployment after returning to San Diego, the Carl Vinson will reportedly be the first carrier to be equipped with the Navy’s version of the F-35 Lighting II stealth jets.

According to a U.S. Naval Institute report, “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.”

Nimitz and Ford-class aircraft carriers, the flagships of the U.S. Navy, are unmatched in their speed, endurance, mission flexibility, and combat capability, and provide our national command authority with options, access and forward presence that allows for a rapid response to a wide spectrum of threats or natural disasters.

Military News | Navy News | USS Carl Vinson will return to San Diego homeport this summer