What is happening with Kitty Hawk??

Hi,

A CNN report of 1 October said that the Kitty Hawk is leaving port without its full complement of fighters:

http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/10/01/ret.kittyhawk.deploy/i…

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2001340007-2001342206,00.html

What do you speculate is the reason for this? Some arguments can be found in the text. Most heard one is that the Kitty Hawk will be used for basing Special Ops helos and troops. Why aren’t the amphibs used for that, it’s their job in the first place, and they’re much better suited for it? Off course this wouldn’t be the first time a carrier was used for basing helos, the French used their carrier to ferry Army helos to the Gulf during Desert Storm, somebody at warships1 mentioned Tahiti, and Midway was equipped with helos for the evacuation of Vietnam:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~buzznau/cv41-091.jpg

I’ve checked the warships1 forum and some speculate that maybe they plan to use C-130s for transporting the special forces. These would offer more range than the helos usually used for that job. It has been proven that C-130s can land and take off from carriers:

http://www.theaviationzone.com/facts/forrestal.htm

But I guess those C-130 crews would need extra training to accomplish such a feat. The tests showed that the flight deck would have to clear for the Hercs to land, obviously. The reason why the Hercules was never adapted for super-COD, was exactly this. It would interfere too much with normal flight ops. But now we see a carrier without most of its air wing. Did they do that to make room for Hercs for the SpecOps troops?? Some at warships1 seem to believe it.

A final question:

The articles said that most of the air wing is left behind, but some fighter are still onboard. Which ones were left behind? I’d imagine that they left most of the Hornets behind, equipping the carrier with Tomcats and Prowlers only/mainly, since these are the only ones with sufficient range to reach Afghanistan. Only a few Hornets as HARM shooters maybe. Recent ops have indeed indicated that it is possible that mainly those longer-ranged assets are used.

An alternative explanation that I’ve come up myself is that the carrier has left its Hornets behind to make room for additional Tomcat and maybe Prowler squadrons deploying from CONUS to this carrier. The special ops explanation offered by the Pentagon could then just as well be a deception.

Any thoughts, guys???

Best regards,

Ference.

P.S. A few days ago I heard a rumour that Kitty Hawk does have its entire air wing aboard. Then this whole discussion would be useless of course. But can anyone confirm or deny this???