Aircraft carrier
Following the deactivation of USS Enterprise in December 2012, the US fleet comprised 10 fleet carriers, but that number increased back to 11 with the commissioning of Gerald R. Ford in July 2017. The House Armed Services Seapower subcommittee on 24 July 2007, recommended seven or eight new carriers (one every four years). However, the debate has deepened over budgeting for the $12–14.5 billion (plus $12 billion for development and research) for the 100,000-tonne Gerald R. Ford-class carrier (estimated service 2017) compared to the smaller $2 billion 45,000-tonne America-class amphibious assault ships, which are able to deploy squadrons of F-35Bs. The first of this class, USS America, is now in active service with another, USS Tripoli, and 9 more are planned.
In a report to Congress in February 2018, the Navy stated it intends to maintain a "12 CVN force" as part of its 30-year acquisition plan.

Aircraft carriers in preservation: 

Current museum carriers: A few aircraft carriers have been preserved as museum ships. They are:

USS Yorktown (CV-10) in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina
USS Intrepid (CV-11) in New York City
USS Hornet (CV-12) in Alameda, California
USS Lexington (CV-16) in Corpus Christi, Texas
USS Midway (CV-41) in San Diego, California
Soviet aircraft carrier Kiev in Tianjin, China
Soviet aircraft carrier Minsk in Nantong, China

Former museum carriers: INS Vikrant (1961) was moored as a museum in Mumbai from 2001 to 2012, but was never able to find an industrial partner and was closed that year. She was scrapped in 2014.
USS Cabot (CVL-28) was acquired for preservation and moored in New Orleans from 1990 to 2002, but due to an embezzlement scandal, funding for the museum never materialized and the ship was scrapped in 2002.

Planned but cancelled museum carriers: USS Tarawa (LHA-1) had a preservation campaign to bring her to the West Coast of the United States as the world's first amphibious assault ship museum. However, in RIMPAC 2024, on 9 July 2024, the Tarawa was sunk alongside USS Dubuque (LPD-8) as SINKEXs.

Future museum carriers: 

See also: Airborne aircraft carrier
Aviation-capable naval vessels
Carrier-based aircraft
Drone carrier
Lily and Clover
Merchant aircraft carrier
Mobile offshore base
Project Habakkuk
Seadrome
Submarine aircraft carrier
Unsinkable aircraft carrier

Related lists: 

Notes: 

References: 

Bibliography: 

Further reading: 

External links: 
"Launch & Recover (1960)" on YouTube – technical training film from the Royal Navy