{"id":33436,"date":"2017-08-17T16:25:01","date_gmt":"2017-08-17T16:25:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2017\/08\/17\/carrier-bush-air-wing-8-due-home-monday\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T19:35:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T19:35:17","slug":"carrier-bush-air-wing-8-due-home-monday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/2017\/08\/17\/carrier-bush-air-wing-8-due-home-monday\/","title":{"rendered":"Carrier Bush, Air Wing 8, due home Monday"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The ships, aircraft and over 7,000 sailors of the George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike Group are expected to arrive back home on Monday after dropping a record-setting amount of ordnance in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, officials say. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If they arrive home on Aug. 21, they will have been deployed 212 days, or exactly seven months, since the cold, foggy January day they slipped into the Atlantic and headed off to war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While deployed, the strike group served in the 5th and 6th Fleet areas of responsibility, conducting maritime security operations, theater security cooperation efforts and missions flying in support of troops fighting the Islamic State group over Iraq and Syria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group conducted flight operations in both the Mediterranean Sea and Persian Gulf that included 11,347 sorties, over 1,900 of which were combat missions, while logging 30,873 flight hours \u2014 12,603 of those in actual combat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flying from the Bush, the aircrews dropped 1,717 pieces of ordnance, including Joint Direct Attack Munitions. These numbers set post-Operation Desert Storm records for a carrier and air wing team, according to a press release from Fleet Forces Command.<\/p>\n\n\n\t