‘AVTN-68’ Completes First Cat and Trap Evolution

Since switching homeports in an epic way from Bremerton to Norfolk this summer, with elements of CVW-17 aboard just in case she was needed off Cuba or Venezuela, the 51-year-old USS Nimitz has shifted gears to training, a sort of unofficial re-rate to AVTN-68, leaving her old Carrier Strike Group 11 behind on the West Coast. Last month, her sister, USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75), left Norfolk for Newport News Shipbuilding to begin her multi-year Refueling and Complex Overhaul (RCOH) midlife maintenance and modernization phase, which is expected to run until November 2031-ish. That left HST’s regular air group, the historic Carrier Air Wing 1, without a deck to call home and Carrier Strike Group 8 without its namesake carrier. Enter Nimitz, who, along with the “Gladiators” of Fleet Replenishment Squadron VFA-106, hosted CVW-1 squadrons and the budding aviators of Chief of Naval Air Training (CNATRA) Air Wings 1 and 2 for a week of underway carrier evolutions with CSG-8. A T-45C Goshawk,…

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