Navy Mulling Extending Service Lives of Nimitz-class Carriers - USNI News

The Navy is considering an extension of the service lives of the first few aircraft carriers in the Nimitz-class, the head of the service’s carrier program said on Thursday.

The Navy is assessing whether to delay decommissioning timelines for the first few ships in the Nimitz-class, Program Executive Officer for Carriers Rear Adm. James Downey said at a symposium hosted by the American Society for Naval Engineers.

Specifically, the Navy is evaluating the timeline for USS Nimitz (CVN-68), with an eye toward coming to a conclusion about the first-in-class ship within the next one to two years, he said.

“You have 40 more years of Nimitz life, but Nimitz herself is coming up to potentially an end-of-life-cycle at the end of this [future years defense program]. But she has capability beyond that point,” Downey said. “So we’re looking at where that capability sits from a timeframe perspective. It’s — generally the math takes you to the 52 or 55 years, so we have that issue that we’re going through.”