2025: retirement of USS Nimitz (CVN-68)

The US Navy’s thirty-year shipbuilding plan was released on 10 december 2020. The plan announced the names of 48 ships scheduled to be decommissioned or, in the case of Military Sealift Command Ships, placed out of service, during the fiscal years 2022 through 2026. The US Navy will maintain a fleet of 355 ships of certain types and numbers. Of note for our aviation enthusiasts: the planned retirements include the first Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, the USS Nimitz (CVN-68).

In an accompanying force-structure goal, a figure of seven requested new ships is planned, this number is less than the eleven that the Navy requested for FY2020 (a figure that excludes CVN-81, an aircraft carrier that Congress authorized in FY2019) or the thirteen that US Congress procured in FY2020 (a figure that again excludes CVN-81, but includes an LHA amphibious assault ship that Congress also procured in FY2020).

CVN-68 was commisioned on 3 May 1975 as CVAN-68 (a month later redesignated as CVN-68). Its first cruise took place from 16 July 1975 to 24 September 1975 and brought the aircraft carrier to the Guantanamo Bay operating aera as well as into the North Atlantic. Since then, already over thirty cruises were made. The Nimitz became famous by the movie "The Final Countdown" (1980). CVN-68 is currently sailing through the North Arabian Sea with Carrier Air Wing 17 ('NA-xxx') embarked.

Opening photo and sailing photo by USN: A C-2A Greyhound of the Fleet Logistics Support Squadron (VRC) 30 "Providers", launches off the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN-68) on 9 December 2020, Flight Deck Geography by Stephan de Bruijn