Hypothetical scenario: Y’all elect me President (not too farfetched, I run every four years). The Spaniards and the North Koreans start rattling their individual sabers, and as a show of force, I decide to send a couple of Carrier Battle Groups across the Pacific and Atlantic.
As a ballpark figure, how long does it take to cross the Atlantic and Pacific from home ports?
Tripler
Why Spaniards? Why not!
From their basic cruising speed, a Carrier leaving San Diego could be in Japan in 7 days. Add another 1-2 to take position in the Sea of Japan on the other side. Of course, I didn’t look up the speed of their escorts, which would likely be the limiting factor.
Home Port wise (which says nothing of where they are at any given time), two are based out of San Diego, two out of Washington, one out of Japan.
The other five are based out of Norfolk. They could reach Spain in 5-6 days, assuming they were all conveniently at Norfolk.
Of course, we have a lot of other forces much closer. Like the B-52’s out of Guam which flew over South Korea earlier this week.
There are also other limiting factors. Typically the air wings on carriers need weeks of training before being ready to deploy. Getting a carrier to a crisis zone is more than simply being physically present.
I was more interested in transit times–thanks Chimera. I know that carriers can only realistically launch (and sustain) 120 sorties a day. But assuming crews are trained and flightworthy, do they need specific theater training on the AOR they’re deploying to above and beyond what, say, an Air Force aircrew would need?
[sub]I’m Air Force, and not familiar with the peculiarities of Navy aviation[/sub]
Tripler
Now I’m intrigued. . . maybe the Spanish need some work done.
Before we go on, can someone clarify what a sortie is?
I read once that “five sorties” could mean five attack runs, or five cases of an airplane taking off for any reason.
FWIW, I think the word entered civilian consciousness in a big way in the air-cordon run-up to the Gulf War, and was often misused by the press, and not corrected by the military because it sounded good.
A sortie is a plane going out on a mission. If two planes are sent out, then that is two sorties.
Second Stone is correct; ‘sortie’ came from the French word for “departure.” In the vernacular, it means a departure and return of an aircraft. Could be an AWACS aircraft on C2, C-17s on a cargo run, an F-15E or A-10 on a CAS mission, an F-16C on a CAP.
It can be used for ships or personnel movements, but like you mentioned, it evolved into aircraft centric. I haven’t heard the term used in years though, outside of mission sustainability rates.
Tripler
Everything else is “mission(s).”
No specific AOR training is required. They’ll have knowledge and be briefed on air platforms, naval platforms, and surface-to-air/air-to-air threats before operating in the vicinity of a potential threat.
Old bitter joke:
“It’s all the fault of the elephants and the Jews!”
“Why the elephants?”
AOR 
I’ll add to my above with this: As a Mission Commander of a reconnaissance platform, I had to know naval orders of battle, air orders of battle, weapons systems, air defense capabilities, radars (Early Warning, targeting, airport, etc) general government, and a slew of other odds and ends for the top 5 or so threat countries. That was just for a recon guy. The pointy-nosed guys have a much better focus on the weapons systems, appropriate defensive tactics, and air orders of battle.
As an aside, we were required to have an in-country brief when entering the CENTCOM AOR. However, I don’t know if shipboard personnel are required to go through this, and if so, I doubt that would hold up the works if POTUS needed the battle group somewhere asap.
AOR = Area of Responsibility.
flyboy I was attached as an XO to EODMU6, and the guys there gave me a few pointers. But I didn’t get a chance to ask: there are oilers and ammo ships that sail alongside the carrier–do their underway replenishment affect sortie rates that you, as aircrew, would notice?
I would assume their max speed would affect battle group’s speed (5-7 days). . . I mean, I’m the President. I would never send a carrier out on it’s own; she’s a sitting duck without picket and support ships.
Tripler
I’m a smart President.
Er, d’ya really want that? From the last time you got to work over the Spanish the loose ends stretch to this day.
But if you really must, normally to deal with an issue in Continental Europe you’d use your Mediterranean-deployed carrier. But these days that one is probably occupied all the way over to the other side of the Arabian Peninsula. I’d give it 4 days from Norfolk.
They plan all this stuff out, even on short notice. The carrier is self-sufficient for long enough to get where it’s going and have other slower assets catch up. And depending upon the state of the emergency, it may not be a big deal to drop your speed by a few knots (and delay arrival for half a day) to let anything slower keep up.
I’m not a boat guy (my platform was land-based), so I’m not fluent on exactly how they do things, but I’m pretty sure that you’re not going max blast for days on end with a carrier, and you’re going to have the usual DDG’s screening you no matter what. And I’m not sure which of those two has a higher top speed. But I could see outrunning a repo ship if it couldn’t keep up and either meeting another one already in theater, or having it catch up.
We used it whenever ships had to leave port for hurricanes or other emergencies.
What is the maximum speed for an aircraft carrier?
I stand corrected! I’m USAF, and I see I unfortunately I’ve missed out on the other communities’ uses then . . .
Tripler
I am obliged! 
Laden or unladen?
There is probably a deployed Carrier Group within 3-7 days of North Korea most of the time. Additionally we usually have a carrier based in Japan.
If you want to get another Carrier group to station from San Diego:
Approximate distance as the crow flies in miles from San Diego United States to Seoul Korea (South) is 6105 miles. With a fleet steaming 24x7 at 18 knots or 20.714mph, it would take 295 hours or over 12 days. But as even the supply ships can do 26 knots lets assume 25 knots in an emergency and the new time is under 9 days.
And if you were willing to leave supply ships behind and catch up with supply from Japan and Guam in theater, how long would it take then?
Well the modern Carrier should be able to sustain 32 knots pretty well and maybe higher. So just under 7 days. I suspect the latest carriers could actually do 40 knots though but I doubt they could sustain that for days. A carrier should never outrun her primary fleet though and I don’t know if the Cruisers, Destroyers and Subs can sustain 32 knots.