Flight Operations
Aircraft are often launched from the carrier in a somewhat random order based on their deck positioning prior to launch. Therefore, aircraft working together on the same mission must rendezvous airborne. This is accomplished at a pre-determined location, usually at the in flight refueling tanker, overhead the carrier, or at an en route location. Properly equipped F/A-18E/F Super Hornets provide "organic" refueling, or U.S. Air Force (or other nation's) tankers provide "non-organic" tanking. After rendezvous/tanking, aircraft proceed on mission.
All aircraft within the carrier's radar coverage (typically several hundred miles) are tracked and monitored. As aircraft enter the Carrier Control Area, a 50 nmi radius around the carrier, they are given more scrutiny. Once airwing aircraft have been identified, they are normally turned over to "Marshal Control" for further clearance to the "marshal pattern".
Read more about this topic: Modern United States Navy Carrier Air Operations
Famous quotes containing the words flight and/or operations:
“When we are high and airy hundreds say
That if we hold that flight they’ll leave the place,
While those same hundreds mock another day
Because we have made our art of common things ...”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“There is a patent office at the seat of government of the universe, whose managers are as much interested in the dispersion of seeds as anybody at Washington can be, and their operations are infinitely more extensive and regular.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)