After six years of delay and $2.3 billion in cost overruns, the U.S. Navy is adding a powerful new warship to its fleet, the USS Ford, a first-of-class ship, and first new aircraft carrier design in 40 years.
Even with its $13 billion price, Navy officials say it’s worth the cost and the wait.
The 100,000-ton behemoth, nearly twice as long as the Washington Monument is high, features a sophisticated electrical distribution system that replaces many steam-powered systems, such as the launch catapult, with new more flexible and efficient technologies.
“Ford, being a new design with a lot of new technology, is an expensive ship, but that return on investment is well worth that price, said Rear Adm. DeWolfe Miller, Navy director of air warfare.
“That’s not to say we are not cognizant of the cost, not aware of the cost, we are always trying to drive down the cost, trying to increase the learning curve so that subsequent ships costs less,” Miller said in a Navy podcast.
President Trump will speak at the ship’s formal commission ceremony Saturday in Norfolk, Va., with other dignitaries including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson, and the ship’s sponsor, Susan Ford Bales, daughter of the 38th president, Gerald R. Ford, for whom the ship is named. The Ford is the first aircraft carrier to join the fleet since USS George H. W. Bush in 2009, and will bring the number of U.S. carriers to 11. The Navy is working its way back to 12.
The Ford also is the first aircraft carrier design in more than 40 years. All the others in the fleet are based on the USS Nimitz commissioned in 1975.
The new design features include an electromagnetic aircraft launching system that enables a smoother launch for planes of different weights and sizes. It is not unlike what powers modern roller coasters, and can generate 25 percent more flight missions per day than Nimitz-class carriers.
The control tower, or “island,” is smaller and has been moved toward the stern to allow more efficient use of the five-acre flight deck.
The ship was built by Newport News Shipbuilding, a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries, which calls the Ford the “most efficient aircraft carrier ever designed.”
The company says the design reduces maintenance by 30 percent, and enables the carrier to operate with less manpower, saving the Navy more than $4 billion over the ship’s 50-year life.
It designed for a crew of 2,628, which is 600 fewer than a Nimitz class carrier. It can hold 4,660 personnel and 75 aircraft.
Its hi-tech system for distributing electricity generated by the ships twin nuclear reactors increases electrical capacity by 250 percent.
While the commissioning ceremony marks the Ford’s formal acceptance into the fleet, and begins its official designation as a United States Ship (USS), it must still undergo testing before it joins the operational fleet, expected by 2020.
