US Navy Air Wings, Squadrons and Equipment

In the last two years US Navy Air Wings have changed in structure quite substantially, the A-6E Intruder is now all but gone from Fleet service (official disestablishment of the last two squadrons is in February 1997) with each Air Wing gaining an extra squadron of F/A-18 Hornets to make up for the loss. The extra F/A-18 units have come from several sources, some are USMC units, some are brand new squadrons, others are A-6 squadrons which are in the process of transitioning to the F/A-18. Until the old A-6 units have finished converting most Air Wings are actually lacking their third F/A-18 unit, squadrons being shifted round to ensure that deploying air wings do have the required three F/A-18 squadrons.

The other major change to Air Wings has been the loss of their second F-14 unit, now all but two Air Wings have only one squadron of 14 F-14 Tomcats, rather than the old standard of two squadrons, each with 10 aircraft. The two exceptions to the rule, look likely to remain with two squadrons, presumably to provide extra precision attack aircraft.

Each plane in a squadron is assigned a unique number, a 'modex', this is painted on the nose and other areas of the plane allowing easy visual identification of each plane on the crowded and noisy carrier deck. generally each squadron in an Air Wing will have a series of x00-x15 assigned to it, although specialist aircraft such as the ES-3A do not always follow this pattern. At present it seems that the third F/A-18 squadrons are taking the 200 series, which used to be the domain of the second Tomcat squadron, as opposed to the 500 series, which were assigned to the A-6 squadron.

Each Air Wing has a unique tailcode assigned to it, which all aircraft in the Wing carry. Thus as aircraft are moved between wings their tailcode will vary.

The ES-3A is only operated by two squadrons, VQ-6 for the Atlantic Fleet and VQ-5 for the Pacific. Due to it's highly specialised role ES-3A's are only attatched to an Air Wing for the duration of the cruise. Detatchments usually consist of two aircraft.

Atlantic Fleet Air Wings

Pacific Fleet Air Wings

US Naval Reserve Air Wing

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