Aircrew from the Navy’s only forward deployed air wing completed another qualification milestone with Field Carrier Landing Practices (FCLPs) at Iwo To, Japan May 19-31, 2025.
FCLP is a required flight training for pilot qualification and proficiency that precedes aircraft carrier landing operations, ensuring warfighting readiness in support of regional security and stability in the U.S. Indo-Pacific region.
“[This is the training] that is required for Air Wing 5 air crews to get ready to go to sea,” said Capt. William Fallon, assistant chief of staff for Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Japan/Navy Region Japan. “[There is a great] amount of effort in the practice and the professionalism that goes into learning how to do this. Carrier environment is very challenging to work in—whether it’s daytime or nighttime. A large carrier suddenly feels very small when you do it, so it’s incumbent on us to practice realistically as we found right here, which is the benefit of Iwo To. It’s very dark at night, so it feels similar to our carrier environment.”
The routine training is required for all pilots of fixed-wing aircraft assigned to the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73). The types of aircraft that participate in FCLP are F-35C Lightning IIs, F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, EA-18G Growlers, and E-2D Hawkeyes.
FCLPs also provided valuable training to Air Wing 5’s landing signal officers (LSO). LSOs, or “paddles” are naval aviators specifically trained to guide and ensure the safe recovery of aircraft aboard aircraft carriers.
“Today, specifically, the paddles are training on the manually operated visual landing aid system (MOVLAS),” said Lt. Cmdr. Tory West, an LSO attached to CVW-5. “The pilots have to respond to the MOVLAS system differently, so if the ship is moving differently, the pilots can adjust and land safely.”
Although Iwo To offers an invaluable training opportunity for fixed-wing pilots and aircrew, it does come with its challenges. Iwo To is not suitable as a permanent FCLP site due to difficulty in maintaining its remote facilities and lack of optional airfields for use during inclement weather or other situations. The U.S. Government reserves the right to conduct FCLP at the alternate mainland facilities when required.
“One of the challenges of operating out of Iwo To is we don’t have the ability to divert an aircraft somewhere else, if there is an emergency; if there is bad weather, or something happens in the air,” Fallon said. “So if there’s a problem, we don’t have any other place to land. If there is an issue on the field where as if we had an area to conduct FCLPs much closer to land, it would provide much bigger safety margins for us to operate and train.”
Air Wing 5 includes the EA-18 Growlers of Electronic Attack Squadron (VAQ) 141; the E-2 Hawkeyes of Airborne Command and Control Squadron (VAW) 125; the MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopters of Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 12, the F-35 Lightning IIs of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 147, and the F/A-18F and F/A-18E Super Hornets of VFA 102,
Air Wing 5 became America’s first permanently forward-deployed air wing in 1973, when it was embarked with the first-in-class aircraft carrier USS Midway (CV 41) in Japan.
