Agreed that it takes a carrier to practice traps and launches, but wasn’t that what the Lexington (and wasn’t there another carrier assigned to take the Lexington’s place as a training carrier?) was for until recently? Everything else was done from shore, to the best of my knowledge. Granted, I never was more than a sideliner and never served, but it seems that there’s some seriously flawed logic in the way the Navy has been handled since Reagan left office.
Those were used for training brand new pilots, not maintaining existing ones. Now I believe they send a fleet carrier off of Florida every so often and carrier qual them that way.
It makes zero sense to let a combat air wing rot on shore for two years while their carrier is in Newport News. One air wing for each operational carrier. Anything else is a waste of men and material.