CVW-17 consists of eight squadrons and one detachment:[2] Carrier Air Wing Seventeen (CVW-17) was established on 1 November 1966 and assigned to USS Forrestal.

After only four days on the line with 150 sorties flown, a Zuni rocket was accidentally fired on the flight deck on the morning of 29 July 1967.

On 15 January 1978 Forrestal was operating 60 km off the Florida coastline, when an LTV A-7 Corsair II from VA-81 crashed during landing.

[4] When Forrestal entered a three-year Service Life Extension Program (SLEP) in November 1982, CVW-17 cross-decked to USS Saratoga and made six deployments aboard her until 1994.

On 10 October 1985 F-14A Tomcats of VF-74 Be-Devilers and VF-103 Sluggers intercepted a Boeing 737 carrying terrorists, who had hijacked the Italian ocean liner MS Achille Lauro.

In 2004, aircraft from the air wing played key roles in supporting ground forces during the Iraq War, especially the operations in Fallujah, that began 7 November.

CVW-17 joined USAF and United States Marine Corps (USMC) aircraft in striking key positions.

[1] In 2008, CVW-17 accompanied George Washington from Norfolk, Virginia to San Diego, California, although all fighter squadrons came from CVW-7, these keeping their "AG" tail code.

CVW-17 was then scheduled to be assigned to USS Carl Vinson, as part of Carrier Strike Group One, which underwent a Refueling and Complex Overhaul (RCOH) until July 2009.

CVW-17 began its first regular deployment on Carl Vinson to the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean on 30 November 2010 and returned on 15 June 2011.

[7] On 11 September 2014 at 17:40 hrs local time, two F/A-18Cs from CVW-17 crashed in the western Pacific Ocean whilst Carl Vinson was in her area of operations in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region.

Over the course of the deployment, supporting strike operations in Iraq and Syria, CVW-17 successfully flew 12,300 sorties, including 2,382 combat missions and dropped more than half a million pounds (230 tons) of ordnance against ISIS.