Increasing Aircraft Carrier Forward Presence Changing the Length of the Maintenance Cycle
Roland J. Yardley, James G. Kallimani, John F. Schank, Clifford A. Grammich
Prepared for the United States Navy Approved for public release; distribution unlimited
NATIONAL DEFENSE RESEARCH INSTITUTE
The research described in this report was prepared for the United States Navy. The research was conducted in the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Department of the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community under Contract W74V8H-06-C-0002.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Increasing aircraft carrier forward presence : changing the length of the maintenance cycle / Roland J. Yardley ... [et al.]. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-8330-4407-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Aircraft carriers—United States—Maintenance and repair. 2. United States. Navy—Operational readiness. I. Yardley, Roland J. V874.3.I53 2008 359.9'4835—dc22 2008008899
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Preface
Aircraft carriers are a powerful and versatile element of U.S. naval forces. They allow the Navy to undertake a wide range of tasks, such as bringing airpower to bear against opponents, deterring adversaries, engaging friends and allies, and providing humanitarian assistance. Aircraft carriers, like other naval ships, go through a cycle of training to gain and sustain readiness, deploy to a forward theater, return from deployment, and maintain readiness to surge (i.e., to get underway to provide additional forward presence as requested by theater commanders). They also undergo scheduled maintenance at shipyards. Because carriers are among the most complex weapon systems operated by the Navy, their crews require a great deal of training and the ships demand extensive maintenance. Depot maintenance periods consist of large and complicated work packages. The duration of maintenance periods, the type of maintenance required, and maintenance period scheduling affect the carrier fleet in numerous ways. Because personnel tempo policies have limited carriers to just one 6-month deployment per cycle, the length of that cycle affects the carrier’s operational availability. While longer cycles could decrease the proportion of time a carrier is in maintenance and increase its operational availability, longer cycles with only one deployment per cycle effectively decrease the time a carrier is deployed. In recent years, the Navy has lengthened the duration of the maintenance cycle for carriers, effective