KH SLEP was done about on schedule and the Reagan administration pushed for maintenance. Maintenance funding was a make or break for carriers. Lack of will gave disasters like what happened to America. A shipyard closure {Old Philly} right in the middle of SLEP gave the Navy the JFK SLEP fiasco. Connie's SLEP began in 1990 was finished in Philly in 1993. JFK's SLEP was about the same time. The Poppy Bush years were not kind to several carriers mainly all conventionals from Connie - JFK. They were over deployed and due to funding under maintained. From the Poppy Bush years on began the decline and the real reason the carriers had issues. You can't get issues fixed that congress, Pentagon, and Sec of Def aren't willing to address. The stunt they did to the America three deployments in three years could have gotten men killed and did lead up to the boiler room explosion so severe she was towed Cold Iron up to NNSY. The SLEPs scheduled and carried out earlier than 1989 seemed to fair better. Here's a WIKI account of Ranger's fate and what I was saying about the carrier program USS RANGER
Since the late '80s defense cuts, Ranger did not undergo the Service Life Extension Program (SLEP) modernization process as did her three sisters and the later Kitty Hawk-class ships, and by the early 1990s her material condition was declining. Both the out-going Bush and in-coming Clinton Administrations recommended cuts to the defense budget and so the retirement of Ranger, along with her sisters Forrestal and Saratoga, was put forth. Ranger was decommissioned on 10 July 1993 after 36 years of service, and is at the Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility, Bremerton, Washington. This decommissioning came instead of an SLEP refit scheduled for the same year. Such an extension would have extended Ranger 's life into 2002, requiring a re-authorization in 1994.[23] In September 2010, the not-for-profit USS Ranger Foundation submitted an application to Naval Sea Systems Command proposing the donation of Ranger for use as a museum ship and multi-purpose facility, to be located on the Columbia River at Chinook Landing Marine Park in Fairview, Oregon.[24][25] However, in September 2012, NAVSEA rejected the foundation's proposal, and redesignated the ship for scrapping.[26] Preparations for disposal Ranger were completed 29 May 2014.
These bad choices even by the much beloved by many Cheney as Sec of Def came back right after 9/11/2001 to bite us on the butt. This is why Connie and JFK could not get underway. It wasn't the fault of the two scapegoated Captains rather the fault of the GHW Bush, Clinton, and congress during those years for not allotting the funds for upkeep. There's no good reason to assume had maintenance not been funded all of the ships could not have reasonably seen a 40-50 plus year service. S.L.E.P. as such worked when it was funded to be done correctly. BTW Indy underwent Slep starting in 1985. It took a commitment & the will of POTUS and congress to get the maintenance done right.
We went through a rush job overhaul at NNSY in 1979-80 because Iran was heating up. Things that were supposed to be shipyard workers duties suddenly became ours. This was under Carter. We were likely the one of few carriers that came out of a year long overhaul on time. The Pentagon had ships company {mainly all Snipes} doing three section duty often into the evening hours to accomplish this. The ship when going into overhaul had anyone with over a year left transferred off which was a big mistake qualifications wise. When I got out only myself and another guy were actually qualified watch standards for watch above Rover status. Why weren't more persons qualified? Because it took having operational equipment to do so. The shop left the yards with one qualified man because I got out about a week before. The rest was a new greenhorn crew.
With the carrier fleet being drawn down from 15 to 12 decks, new nuke carriers in the pipeline, and not having been SLEP’d, America was a dead carrier walking.
I can see the Navy trying to wring a couple additional deployments out of her, the safety issues you cite aside. Thats exactly what the Navy did with Enterprise’s last couple deployments. Look how close they were to each other, but doing so provided some breathing room in the deployment schedule for the other carriers.
Correction: It was Kitty Hawk and JFK that after 9/11 had serious issues. Many seemed to stem from poor maintenance. Now the Navy knew as did congress POTUS and Sec Nav that the JFK had been an unofficial reserve ship for almost a decade not given due maintenance or funding. The Kitty Hawk had maintenance issues which likely was the cause of the so called improper watch procedures. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/743906/posts The bouy inncident was cause but the others were not when you had schmucks nickle and dimeing the maintenance to death. Many repairs should only be done in the yards and take the yards expertise and equipment. I’ve seen recent pictures of the carrier piers at NOB Norfolk and the flightdecks looked like Tent City. because yard maintenance was being done there instead of up at the yards.
One of the last cruises I went on 994 was the 1987 round the world tour with the KH...they split off from our group and we independently steamed down thru the ditch and up the coast back to San Diego...
I do remember, from an operational standpoint, the K
H, Midway, not so much the Coral Sea...The really older CV’s had their stuff together, the airwings were fun to work with...
The lesson learned on that trip was to really appreciate the simpler things in life while on deployment...Made some fabulous ports of call in the Med, a lot of them, Haifa, Dubrovnik, a couple in Italy, a stop at Palma, Marseille (sp? ehhh) then we made the dash back over to our side of the pond to drop off the KH for her SLEP in Philly...