AYUMI NAKANISHI / ANAKANISHI@STARBULLETIN.COM The USS Abraham Lincoln, above, sat yesterday near the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor.

Battle group
to leave isles
ready for combat

New fighter jets will likely see
action in Afghanistan or Iraq

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By Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.com

The USS Abraham Lincoln carrier battle group will be charting new waters when it leaves Hawaii this weekend for the western Pacific and the war on terrorism.

The Lincoln will be carrying the first squadron of the Navy's new F\A-18E Super Hornets, which probably will face their first combat test either in the skies over Afghanistan or possibly Iraq during the next six months.

AYUMI NAKANISHI / ANAKANISHI@STARBULLETIN.COM Capt. "Buz" Buzby is the commander of Destroyer Squadron 31.

It will serve as a test platform for a new device designed to save the lives of sailors who accidentally fall overboard. It will be a part of a Navy experiment to determine the effectiveness of deploying a single ship for 18 months.

Instead of being at sea for six months, the 563-foot Spruance class destroyer USS Fletcher will be on deployment for 18 months before it is finally decommissioned on the West Coast in 2004. However, its current crew of 370 sailors from Pearl Harbor will be rotated out sometime early next year and replaced with a crew from San Diego.

Capt. "Buz" Buzby, commander of the Destroyer Squadron 31 of which the Fletcher belongs, said the plan, dubbed "sea swap" by Pentagon planners, is "to make the best use of the ship."

Buzby, who commands the seven destroyers in the Pacific Fleet, said that sea swap is designed to meet the "tyranny of distance."

He explained yesterday as he waited to board the Lincoln at Hotel Pier in Pearl Harbor that usually, two months are lost while a warship steams to its area of operation and back to its home port.

"Out of a six-month deployment," Buzby added, "that means ship is on station only for four months."

The Lincoln battle group also will be using pocket-size transmitters for the first time, which can be used to pinpoint a sailor's location after he falls overboard.

Lt. Bob McLafferty, Lincoln's combat systems maintenance officer, said the device will replace the sea dye marking packet in a sailor's float coat and will be automatically activated when immersed in sea water.

"It will set off an audible alarm on the bridge of the Lincoln," he said, "and the alphanumeric code sent out by the MOBI (man overboard indicator) will show who the device was assigned to."

It also will automatically send a compass bearing to help rescuers locate the sailor.

However, it is the single-seater Super Hornet that has gotten the most press as the Lincoln begins its wartime mission.

AYUMI NAKANISHI / ANAKANISHI@STARBULLETIN.COM Lt. Stephen Walborn is one of the pilots who will fly the new F\A-18E Super Hornets.

Lt. Stephan "Stillborn" Walborn, one of the Navy's 12 first-generation Super Hornet pilots, describes the F\A-18E as still having "a new-car smell where everything works as advertised."

Walborn, a 1997 Annapolis graduate, has not flown any other combat jet.

However, because the Super Hornet is bigger (33 percent), heavier (weighing 34,000 pounds) and more expensive (each costs $57 million) than the original Hornets, which are now more than two decades old, Walborn expects he can do more.

He told reporters that with larger fuel tanks, it can fly farther without refueling and is thus more useful for the long flights from the South Arabian Sea to targets over Afghanistan.

"The 'Super Duper' Charlie has more range and more ordnance. ... I love this thing."

It will eventually replace such aircraft as the S-3 Viking refuelers and AE-6B Prowler electronic warfare jamming jets that are now part of the Lincoln arsenal. A two-person version of the Super Hornet is being tested to replace the F-14.

Three other Pearl Harbor-based vessels will also sail with the Lincoln battle group during the next six months. They are the destroyer USS Paul Hamilton, frigate USS Reuben James and the nuclear attack submarine USS Honolulu.

The Lincoln, with its crew of 5,500 sailors and aviators, will be here until tomorrow when it departs to relieve the carrier USS George Washington in the Arabian Sea.