Thanks! I understand the Kitty Hawk is still around because the people of Japan still have an issue with atomic powered vessels. I feel they are changing their minds rather quickly!
She's an oil burner and I guess the only reason she's still sailing in the nuclear power issue.
She's pretty worn-out. The Japanese Government still wants to homeport a US Carrier, so they know they are getting a nuke with the retirement of the Kitty Hawk.
Yes. She flunked her engineering ORI's in February, 2003, just before the Iraq War, when she failed to get boiler pressure from a cold light-off within the allotted time. Her skipper and engineering officer were relieved immediately. (Not that other people didn't deserve a reprimand as well, up and down the chain of command -- and get one.)
Sometimes it takes people getting their careers dinged pretty badly, before an old ship can get what she needs.
Elsewhere on FR, it was discussed in another thread that the John F. Kennedy is in tough shape, unable to use two of her catapults and therefore effectively reduced to flying a few Harriers and helos off her decks. She's pulling some kind of scrub duty from an East Coast port -- training duty or something -- and is in very bad physical condition.