Does anyone know what is the name of the US Navy's training aircraft carrier? I tried to find it on the internet, but all of the old one's have been mothballed.

Forrestall was supposed to replace Lexington as the AVT, but Forrestall was decommissioned and apparently there is no dedicated training carrier.

They really ought to put some more carriers in storage and train the crews with simulators.
They're not important in the current state of affairs and they're too damned expensive.

Originally Posted by the_13th_redneck

They really ought to put some more carriers in storage and train the crews with simulators.
They're not important in the current state of affairs and they're too damned expensive.

You don't much understand the utility of having a portable runway, do you?

Originally Posted by c/Commander

You don't much understand the utility of having a portable runway, do you?

Agreed. But is there a current AVT?

Originally Posted by the_13th_redneck

They really ought to put some more carriers in storage and train the crews with simulators.
They're not important in the current state of affairs and they're too damned expensive.

Problem is this. We've been down the road of getting rid of or alomost getting rid of systems before and then suddenly needed them.

Originally Posted by 03USMC

Agreed. But is there a current AVT?



Problem is this. We've been down the road of getting rid of or alomost getting rid of systems before and then suddenly needed them.

Your right, nothing replaced the Lexington. A-6s probably would have been handy recently, + they cancelled the AC-27 gunship & the new Combat Rescue Helicopter.

Currently look at how "involved" the carriers are. Their role in GWOT is absolutely miniscule, they're practically without any role whatsoever even in fighting pirates.
You don't need 11 of them prowling the oceans at this time.
You very well could get away with maybe five at this time (that would be more than enough) with the rest in storage and their crews being trained on land based simulators. Would be easier on the families as well.
Of course in terms of storage, they would be in a state where the crews could climb in and get them running like normal in under 2 months. Means that when the global situation makes carriers relevant again, they'll be out and about in no time.
I understand the benefits of a moving airfield, but at this time, they're not that valuable.

Originally Posted by 03USMC

Agreed. But is there a current AVT?



Problem is this. We've been down the road of getting rid of or alomost getting rid of systems before and then suddenly needed them.

We don't really need one. With each CVN assigned its own air wing, it's pretty redundant for a carrier to be used for training purposes. When the student aviators need to do carrier quals (this is pretty rare), they generally would use a CVN that's doing deployment workups or some other underway without an embarked airwing.

Redneck: Not sure what your fascination with simulators is recently, but you'd better believe that the quality of training in a simulator is not nearly the same as doing it "for real".

No, it's not as good as the real thing at all.
But you can divert the money to things that need it more than carriers.
Look at the cost of things... it's just insane.