Air Commodore S.B.P. Sinha, Indian airforce, is piped aboard through rainbow side-boys on the flight deck of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan. Sinha is aboard Ronald Reagan as part of the joint forces Exercise Malabar 08, designed to increase cooperation between the Indian navy and U.S. Navy while enhancing the cooperative security relationship between India and the U.S. Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group is on a routine deployment in the 7th Fleet area of responsibility. Operating in the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean, the U.S. 7th Fleet is the largest of the forward-deployed U.S. fleets covering 52 million square miles, with approximately 50 ships, 120 aircraft and 20,000 Sailors and Marines assigned at any given time.