I am a huge fan of CVs but CVNs not so much. The air detachment doesn’t care how the snipes are boiling the water. Conventional carriers are much cheaper to build and have the same operational capability as far as the air detachment goes. Crew training is much cheaper too. The Navy shot themselves in the foot demanding all carries be nuclear. They over played their hand.
“The air detachment doesn’t care how the snipes are boiling the water.”
Actually, they do enjoy not having an exhaust plume to fly through. And they enjoy the speed, and the fact that it goes 2 decades without needing to refuel.
It was many years ago, but I read a report on the life-cycle cost of conventional and nuclear carriers. Conventional carriers were much cheaper as I recall.