The aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan and its strike group willdeploy to Japan on Saturday. Christopher Brown / Navy
From Aviation Week:
The Navy has requested eight ships in the FY '10 budget, and included advanced procurement of seven. "That's a slow climb to 313," said Ike Skelton (D-Miss.) yesterday morning at a House Armed Services Committee hearing. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead agreed with him.
Here's a little more detail behind what the Navy's asking for in FY '10 for its ships budget:
Aircraft carriers: The Navy remains committed to a force of 11 carriers for the next thirty years. Between the planned 2012 inactivation of the Enterprise and the 2015 delivery of the Gerald Ford, legislative relief is needed to temporarily reduce the operational carrier force to 10, the Navy said. Extending the Enterprise beyond 2012 involves "significant technical risk, challenges manpower and the industrial base" and requires spending $2.8 billion with "minimal operational return" on the investment.
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