USS Fort Worth Departs San Diego Monday For Record 16-Month Deployment
The USS Fort Worth will depart Naval Base San Diego on Monday for a 16-month deployment, the longest for a Navy ship since 1973.
The USS Fort Worth will depart Naval Base San Diego on Monday for a 16-month deployment the longest for a Navy ship since 1973, when the USS Midway deployed for 327 days (about 10 months).
Stars and Stripes points out the Midway's epic deployment was with one crew. This will not be the case with the USS Fort Worth:
[T]he crew of 54, plus the 24-person aviation squadron, will swap out early next year, and that group will be replaced again late in 2015...
The crew will switch out a third time before it returns to San Diego.
The vessel's maiden deployment will include the first use of a drone helicopter aboard a deployed LCS.
That drone helicopter would be the MQ-8B Fire Scout drone. Click here to see it in action.
San Diego television station KGTV explains how the Fort Worth is learning from the mistakes of the first Littoral Combat Ship to deploy, the USS Freedom:
