[VaBthang4]

[Gary Boldwater]

If you move the island further aft won't there be more turbulence in the landing zone? The Enterprise's huge billboard antenna on the island created turbulence problems in the past.

[verity]

Unlike Air Force aircraft and Army ground forces, carriers and their air wings need no land bases in places such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, Dwyer said. In fact, he noted, a carrier can substitute for an Army installation. In the early days of the Afghanistan campaign, the navy stripped the Kitty Hawk of its air wing and made it a base for special operations troops.

Rapid reaction doctrine is alive and well.

[jdege]

Take a gander:

Joint Mobile Offshore Base

[Saturnalia]

Hmm, #77 is going to be Geo. H. W. Bush.
How about Lincoln or Theodore Roosevelt for the CVNX?
Hell, capitalize on the new nature of the ship and name it the Enterprise!

[Teacher317]

CVN 76 named for Reagan, for winning the Cold War without firing a shot...
CVN 77 named for George H Bush for liberating Kuwait...
After the Iraqi liberation and the big hullabaloo about George W Bush landing on a carrier, it isn't too unlikely that he will have a future (super-)carrier named after him.

Hmmm, it seems like they've skipped a President in there somewhere. Now who could that be and why would they choose to not honor him? Hmmmm. Could it be that randomly bombing numerous other nations without any decisive results or plan doesn't warrant such an honor?

And looking backwards, there's a previous President who stood idly by as over 100 Americans were held hostage for 444 days who also isn't going to have a carrier named after him. Imagine that!

Carriers named for Presidents:
1945 - FDR
1968 - JFK
1977 - Eisenhower
1986 - Teddy Roosevelt
1989 - Lincoln
1992 - George Washington
1998 - Truman
2003? - Reagan
2007? - GHWBush

(Interesting... only six of the 77 carriers hulls were ever sunk by enemy action! The Langley, Lexington, Princeton, Hornet, Wasp, and Yorktown, all from 1942 to 1951.)

[Non-Sequitur]

All the deserving presidents have been done and we're starting on the undeserving ones, so how about USS America or USS United States? Recycle some of the good ones from the recent past and make another USS Independence or USS Saratoga or USS Yorktown or USS Midway. Go with the names of famous fighting ships like they used to and name it USS Wasp or USS Hornet or USS Ranger. Give it a name to be proud of.

[harpo11]

Just don't name any of these fine ships the USS Impeached President Clinton.

[World'sGoneInsane]

I hope they redesign those helicopters too. There must be a better one that we haven't thought of yet.

[Prodigal Son]

An electromagnetic aircraft launching system will replace the steam-powered system used on current ships.

Is this like a rail gun?

Instead, they chose to meet the president’s stated goal to “skip a generation” of technology.

This President will be remembered as a visionary.

We are already leagues ahead of any other nation in this department and oceans ahead of any country that is potentially a threat to us. The Arab world had their nose rubbed in that fact quite recently and they still haven't got their minds around it yet. What's it going to be like when we "skip a generation" of tech? Jeezuz! If we're giants striding the face of the globe now, what'll we be then?

The only thing that worries me is the super cavitating torpedo thing. I have to trust that that the military is keeping an eye on this because it is something that could fundamentally change the equation in the favor of our enemies. This will be one of the major challenges I think for our adversaries in the future- negating American Air and Naval power generally and the aircraft carrier in particular. We cannot allow Russia or China to perfect such a torpedo or a delivery platform for it.

[jimkress]

Think there will ever be a USS William Clinton?

[JudgemAll]

Hmmm. given our stealth doctrine, I think we need submerssible aircraft carriers using vertical take off jets.

[Publicus]

Here are some photos you can also enjoy.

[HalfFull]

Bump

[Alas Babylon!]

An artist's rendering of the CVNX, now CVN-21:

[liberalnot]

during the vietnam war some of the old ww2 carriers were re-commissioned as communications ships, and parked out in the pacific.

this was, of course, before we had adequate numbers of satellites.

[XBob]

1 - Compare the management of our carrier fleet with the management of our shuttle fleet, and compare upgrades and replacements, and keeping them safe and sailing/flying.