The roar of afterburners as a pair of Super Hornet fighters take off from the USS Carl Vinson reverberates up through the flight deck and is absorbed by the body and head of anyone standing on deck.

Crew in overalls coloured to denote their deck duties scurry from jet to jet for the next launches and, in a matter of minutes, 10 potent aircraft in this “cycle” have clawed their way into the skies above the Philippine Sea from the flagship of the US Navy’s Carrier Strike Group I.

Operating 225 nautical miles east-south-east of the Japanese islands of Okinawa, the USS Carl Vinson measures 1,092 ft from bow to stern, weighs 95,000 tons and has a crew of more than 5,000.

Powered by two nuclear reactors that permit the ship to operate for 25 years without refuelling, the vessel has more than 70 aircraft aboard.

Rear Admiral John Fuller, who commands this group, is diplomatic about a mission that has taken in port calls to Manila and the Vietnamese city of Da Nang and plays down suggestions that the latest phase of the deployment – joint exercises, including anti-submarine drills, with Japan’s Maritime Self-Defence Forces (MSDF) – is anything other than routine.