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Thanks..one follow-up..a few comments on the thread suggest that 25 years is NOT a long life..our CVNs last 50+ years..with one refueling at 25-30 years..

What matters are the ships' design life, and how much operational work they have under their belt.

Modern USN CVNs are designed from the start for 50 years. Older USN supercarriers weren't: they were more like 30-35 years and a number (three Forrestals and two Kitty Hawks) were SLEP'd (Service Life Extension Program) to run them out an additional 10-15 years. As it was, the two most successful SLEPs were the ships that ended up being the forward-deployed decks in Japan (Independence and Kitty Hawk), where they had a lighter operational tempo than CONUS-base decks and got better upkeep (as was the case with Midway before them).

The Essex-class carriers had operational careers that averaged around 20 years (remember that many were mothballed after WWII and not reactivated until Korea), and by all accounts they were pretty much falling apart at the seams when taken out of service in the late 60s through mid 70s.

The Invincibles were designed for about 30 years of service. They had a somewhat lighter OpTempo because of the RN policy to keep one in overhaul/extended readiness and the other two operational (one as the high-readiness deck, the other as RN Flagship). But the RN also treats its ships much differently than the USN does. The previous Ark Royal was an absolute shambles when decommissioned and paid off in the late 1970s, after a ~25 year operational career.