Carrier Families

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Comment by Scott on September 17, 2009 at 11:18am

Hello again everyone, Dan left home on Monday to head to Norfolk, VA to report for duty on USS Theodore Roosevelt on Wednesday. He isn't real exited about it since it's dry docked for the next 40 months or so.

Comment by NavyDad on September 12, 2009 at 1:07pm

HI everyone, I am new to this site, My Son is on the Uss IWO Jima LHD7 out of Norfolk, Va. The pic is from Fleat week in NewYork City

Comment by Brad on September 11, 2009 at 9:57pm

Finally spoke with Garrett via Skype. He told me a day or two before the GW came into port he was part of the crew doing a med evac flight for a potential heart attack victim 2.5 hours to Japan to a hospital. One hour in both batteries failed on the heart monitor/defibulator so if the heart stopped they would have to do CPR for the remaining 1.5 hours! Fortnuately they did have to and arrived safely. Then on the way back they had to climb high over a typhoon between them and the GW with 50 knot neg. gain going into the winds! Finally 15 mins from the carrier they got briefed on what happens on complete shut down due to possible lightning strike damage and possible restart if hit as lightning was all around going from cloud to cloud. No hits, but they were all on edge! Quite the flight!

Comment by Brad on September 2, 2009 at 9:43am

Just uploaded a pic from the HS-14 squadron from the USS George Washington that Garrett flys with.

Comment by NavyDads Admin (Paul) on August 27, 2009 at 12:20pm

from Navy Times:

OSD Considers Chopping Flattop

By Greg Grant Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 2:52 pm
Posted in Policy, Rumors
File this one under QDR rumors, although senior OSD officials thought about cutting a carrier from the very beginning of the QDR. Now, sources tell us that OSD may actually chop an additional carrier from the Navy’s battle fleet, a move that would take the force down to nine carriers from the current total of 11.

The Navy plans to retire the CVN-65, the Enterprise, in 2012. The resulting 10 carrier force would be further reduced by one if DoD’s rumored reduction is enacted. Skipping a future carrier purchase doesn’t save money now. Cutting one flattop from the existing force would.

The Navy’s latest shipbuilding plan – that’s the FY-2009 30 year plan for a 313 ship fleet, the Navy did not submit a shipbuilding plan with the 2010 budget – calls for a total of 12 carriers by 2019. As CRS Navy analyst Ron O’Rourke pointed out in a July report on Navy shipbuilding, the Navy added a 12th carrier to its proposed 313 ship Navy in 2007.

“The Navy’s February 2008 report on the FY2009 30-year shipbuilding plan states that the 313-ship plan includes 11 carriers and does not include a reference to “eventually 12” carriers, but the long-range force projection in the report continues to show a total of 12 carriers in FY2019 and subsequent years,” O’Rourke writes.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates endorsed the Navy’s plan to shift procurement of the new CVN-78 Gerald R. Ford class carriers from one every four-and-a-half years to one every five years. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the cost to build a Ford class carrier at $11.2 billion each; the Navy plans to buy 7 by 2038.

To be sure, there are plenty of obstacles to cutting a carrier from the fleet. For one, the Navy is required by law to maintain 11 carriers. The Navy has an outstanding request for a legislative waiver from Congress so it can retire the Enterprise, which would drop the carrier force to 10 for 33 months between the retirement and the scheduled entry of the first of the Ford class into service in 2015. Lawmakers have yet to act on the request.

Interestingly, when former CSBA naval analyst and now Navy under secretary, Bob Work, gave his shipbuilding brief earlier this year, he said that if forced by a constrained shipbuilding budget to trim the planned build, he would cut the carrier force to 9.

Work said that 9 carriers was the minimum number needed to handle a strategy that keeps one carrier strike group forward deployed in the Pacific and one in the Indian Ocean. He said that during wartime, a 10 carrier force could generate six strike groups in 90 days. I’m guessing then that 9 carriers could generate 5 strike groups.

Work’s former boss at CSBA, the influential Andrew Krepinevich, wrote in the July issue of Foreign Affairs in an article titled, “The Pentagon’s Wasting Assets,” that carriers risk “operational irrelevance” as nations develop improved submarines and increasingly accurate, long-range anti-ship missiles that put the big flattops at risk. Krepinevich is part of the “red team” that is examining the QDR.

Comment by E.G. - ND's Creator/Admin on August 23, 2009 at 8:34pm

Glad to see everyone's Sailor is doing well. I'll keep it going with an update on Evan. They have been flying sorties over Afghanastan for the last month. They were working hard keeping everyone safe during the election there. Happy to know that he and his shipmates are helping keep the peace in that region. He is looking forward to his next port and to coming home soon.

Comment by Scott on August 16, 2009 at 8:20am

Dan got home on Saturday morning, it's great to have him home for awhile. He looks great, he said he is glad to have school over with. He's ready to get to his ship even if it's drydocked for 40 months.

Comment by Brad on August 14, 2009 at 11:21am

Yesterday I got to see Garrett on Skype for Manilla in the Philippiens. The GW is the first carrier to port there in 13 years. Due to the long time since the US has been there, he and others have not enjoyed this stop. They were not prepard with service providers (cab drivers, etc.) that could communicate even a little, making travel difficult at best. He even had to show some how to read their own city map!! Command did not allow overnight stay, and other than their big mall area, things got pretty ugly and unsafe within very short distances. Hopefully this paves the way to better opportunities for future stops by other carrier groups! I believe they have pulled out today, and hopefully to home port in Japan in three weeks.

Comment by Scott on August 14, 2009 at 7:07am

Yea and he is not happy about it.

Comment by NavyDads Admin (Paul) on August 13, 2009 at 9:21pm

Going to the "Big Stick"....only to be in port for the next three years...........

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