page_title: Carrier Air Wing Fifteen
section_title: Post Vietnam
hierarchical_section_title: Carrier Air Wing Fifteen / History / Post Vietnam
caption_attribution_description: A U.S. Navy Lockheed S-3A Viking (BuNo 160580) from Anti-Submarine Squadron 29 (VS-29) "Dragonflies" as it makes the 200,000th aircraft landing aboard the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) on 1 April 1981. Two Grumman F-14A Tomcat aircraft of Fighter Squadron 51 (VF-51) "Screaming Eagles" (BuNo 160673, left) and VF-111 "Sundowners" (BuNo 160690) are parked on deck. A plane-guard Sikorsky SH-3H Seaking helicopter from Helicoper Antisubmarine Squadron 4 (HS-4) "Black Knights" is visible in the background. The squadrons were assigned to Carrier Air Wing 15 (CVW-15) aboard the Kitty Hawk for a deployment to the Western Pacific from 1 April to 23 November 1981.
context_page_description: Carrier Air Wing Fifteen is a former United States Navy aircraft carrier air wing that was decommissioned on March 31, 1995. It was previously known as Carrier Air Group Fifteen before 1963 before being renamed in December of that year.
context_section_description: CVW-15 made their final deployment on board the Coral Sea in 1977. This cruise was the only time that the F-4J Phantom and EA-6A Electric Intruder part of CVW-15. After this, in 1979, CVW-15 deployed for the first on a different carrier than Coral Sea in around 13 years when they deployed with USS Kitty Hawk and with new F-14A Tomcat and S-3A Viking. 
  In 1983, CVW-15 deployed on the new Nimitz Class Carrier USS Carl Vinson's first post shakedown cruise. This cruise was significant as it was an around the world cruise that involved stops in St. Thomas, Monaco, Abidjan, Perth, Subic Bay, British Hong Kong, Sasebo, Pusan, Pearl Harbour and the moving the Vinson's homeport from Norfolk, Virginia on the west coast to Alameda, California in the San Francisco Bay Area. During their time with the Carl Vinson, they took part in RIMPAC 84' and 86'. During the 1986 to 1987 cruise in the North Pacific, VF-51 and VF-111 carried the multiple tail codes of other Carrier Air Wings to confuse Soviet Naval Aviation patrols which carrier VF-51 and 111 was assigned to.
  In July 1988, during the Olympics in Seoul, CVW-15 embarked onboard Carl Vinson and operated off the coast of South Korea. In 1989, they also took part in the large naval exercise PACEX 89.
caption: A VS-29 S-3A Viking of CVW-15 landing on the USS Kitty Hawk in 1981 with an F-14A of VF-111 and VF-51 in the background.
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