The Navy is almost three years away from introducing the USS George
H.W. Bush aircraft carrier to the fleet, but many of the parts and
subsystems used aboard the ship already are out of production, said
Rear Adm. Dennis Dwyer, program executive officer for aircraft carriers.
The ship, known as the CVN-77, is the last of the Nimitz-class.
“I can’t make a Nimitz any more … Most of the
equipment on a Nimitz is obsolete,” Dwyer told reporters.
“That’s one of the tyrannies of building combat ships.
They don’t have a large market for some of the things we use.
A lot of the infrastructure of the Nimitz class is not made anymore.”
CVN-77, once delivered in 2008, is expected to be in service for
at least five decades. “We’re going to be fighting [the
obsolescence problem] the whole 50 years,” said Dwyer. To
prevent this from happening to the next class of carriers, the CVN-21,
the Navy will incorporate as much commercial technology as possible.