VAQ-142 happy to be home

NAVIGATOR
NORTHWEST
VOL. 7, NO. 10
Serving NAS Whidbey Island and Community
ON JOB
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TEAMWORK
Middle school
renews
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ARMY-NAVY
GAME
Whidbey footballers join squad
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www.northwestnavigator.com
VAQ-142
happy to
be home
By Lt.j.g. Joe Reardon
VAQ-142 Public Affairs
Growlers in Fallon
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2010
T
he “Gray Wolves”
of Electronic Attack
Squadron (VAQ) 142
are all back home at NAS
Whidbey Island, just in time
to share the Thanksgiving
holidays with families
and friends, following a
highly successful 6-month
deployment to Al Asad Air
Base, Iraq in support of
Operations Iraqi Freedom
and New Dawn.
In the early hours, Nov.
18, the squadron’s maintenance and support personnel arrived home. The
squadron’s EA-6B Prowlers,
aircrew and a small contingent of maintenance person-
nel arrived at noon today.
VAQ-142
departed
Whidbey Island in May
2010 and immediately
immersed themselves in the
rigors of around-the-clock
operations. Every Gray Wolf
worked diligently to keep
Prowlers airborne at all
hours, providing electronic
attack in support of U.S. and
Iraqi ground forces across
Iraq. This deployment, possibly the last EA-6B Prowler
expeditionary deployment,
offered all the challenges of
combat operations including maintaining aircraft in
debilitating heat topping
140?F and sun-eclipsing
sandstorms.
“The dry heat of the
Lt.j.g. Joe Reardon
A VAQ-142 jet flies the blue skies over the desert during six-month deployment at Al Asad Air Base.
first several months was
breathtaking,” said Lt. Chad
Mickelson, “But the jets survived two major sandstorms
with no loss of operational
capacity through the sheer
will of the maintainers.”
Gray Wolf Sailors earned
many accolades while
deployed.
Cmdr. Courtney Smith,
Skipper of VAQ-142, presented 205 awards including
39 Navy and Marine Corps
Achievement Medals and
ten Good Conduct Medals.
Thirty eight Gray Wolf
Sailors earned their Enlisted
Aviation Warfare Specialist
Wings, 15 Sailors reenlisted
and two Sailors received U.S.
citizenship. Seventeen Gray
Wolves earned promotions,
including four through
the NAVCENT Combat
Meritorious Advancement
Program.
Aircrew achieved sev-
eral milestones during the
deployment. Smith and Lt.
Brian Pridgen reached 1,000
EA-6B Prowler hours and Lt.
Cmdr. Scot Taylor reached
3,000 EA-6B Prowler hours.
Overall, the Gray Wolves
flew more than 1,660 hours
and completed over 470
combat sorties.
As the squadron prepared
to leave Al Asad, some
reflected on the experience.
See VAQ-142 > Page 11
Cougars sharpen claws on USS Reagan
By Lt.j.g. Gabriel Duran
VAQ-139
After four demanding weeks on
board USS Ronald Reagan (CVN
76), the Cougars of Electronic
Attack Squadron 139 (VAQ-139)
returned home to Whidbey Island
from their Composite Training Unit
Exercise (COMPTUEX).
For Carrier Strike Group Seven,
Carrier Air Wing 14 (CVW-14) and
VAQ-139 it proved to be an arduous, yet successful boat detachment.
There were many lessons learned by
both new and seasoned Cougars.
COMPTUEX is a two-part exercise of scripted and spontaneous
simulations. It is the last required
qualification the strike group must
complete to be certified ready for
deployment. It typically represents
the first time in a training cycle
that a carrier strike group operates
together as a cohesive team.
The exercise is scenario driven,
containing “battle problems” of
increasing complexity and difficulty,
as well as Blue Water Certification,
which allows Reagan and CVW-14
Lt.j.g. Toni Miggins
Lt. Larry Greunke of VAQ-139 traps on board the USS Ronald Reagan during a
monthlong training exercise.
to operate without a divert airfield
nearby.
The scenarios were designed to
measure the ability of the strike
group to act as a coordinated, combat-ready force, and were intended
to closely resemble real-life situations the carrier strike group could
encounter during deployment.
The first set of challenges the
Cougars had to overcome was com-
placency as the Reagan dealt with
maintenance issues a few days after
the start of the exercise. Cougar
pilots had to re-fly their initial carrier qualification period as it had
been a week since their arrival.
“Once you get that groove, you
can’t let it loose,” said Lt. Cmdr.
David Elias. “We all had to re-cage
our brains and press on despite the
long lull between flights. I’m proud
of all our Cougar pilots for maintaining their focus.”
A week of non-flying on board
the carrier would have given any
Prowler maintenance department
an early Christmas. However, the
week off only made the amount
of stress on the seasoned Prowler
even greater as more flights within
the COMPTUEX curriculum were
compressed into only three weeks.
“The Cougar maintenance department never stops to amaze me,”
said Maintenance Officer Lt. Cmdr.
James Carver. “We have young men
and women who worked 12-hour
days seven days a week to make it all
happen.” The Cougar maintenance
department was able to achieve the
best sortie completion rate VAQ139 has seen in the past five years
during COMPTUEX .
In order to demonstrate the
squadron’s combat readiness, the
Cougars had to participate in
numerous long-range strikes to NAS
China Lake, Calif., and NAS Fallon,
Nev., as well as a number of surface
See COUGARS > Page 11