The trip included visits to the nuclear submarine base, the SEAL training base, and the amphibious warfare base at San Diego (Coronado), CA. The flight out to the USS Carl Vinson was on a Navy C2A COD aircraft which made an arrested landing on the carrier. The Carl Vinson was on qualification exercises about 100 miles west of the Mexican coast, in preparation for a deployment to the Arabian Gulf later in 1998. The return flight on the same aircraft started with a catapult take-off.