Being that I just got out and was on a carrier I have a pretty good idea of the planning of deployments or the lack there of. There is a lot of different variables that go into the schedule for ship underway time. It depends on the phase of a ships work up cycle, ship status, fleet status, world status. Any one of the things can change the ships schedule, sometimes years to months ahead of time or even a couple of days ahead. There is really no set rotation for a carrier, really it's just who is available for a given time. The Stennis just got back from a 8 month-er Aug 31 and is going out again in what I would refer to as a short period of time due to the Lincoln screwing up a dry docking and being delayed four months. I heard that two year thing to when I first got orders and it didn't follow true at all. Just expect to due two work up cycles, which is just basic ship quals and that takes a few underways to complete, and two deployments if you don't re-enlist. Other than that, it can be pretty random. Oh, and this last deployment I went on was almost moved ahead three weeks due to the navy wanting two carriers in the gulf, and the ship was told about a week ahead of the new date, I got a call while I was on leave.