The USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), on the left, and the Nimitz class carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) transit the Atlantic Ocean in June 2020.
Posted on 10/27/2021 5:03:58 AM PDT by PIF
After multiple issues and delays, the USS Gerald R. Ford is now set to go to sea for its maiden deployment in 2022
The much-delayed maiden deployment for the U.S. Navy’s new aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford is now scheduled to take place next year, four years later than originally planned. The nuclear-powered vessel is the lead ship in a new class of supercarriers, four of which have been ordered, with the three additional units now under assembly. A decision on the configuration of a fifth is due next year. With a whole range of advantages promised over the current Nimitz class carriers, the Navy is keen to get the first of the Ford class into operation, but it has been a long wait, with many setbacks due to the inability of critical systems to function as intended.
“Everything is on track,” Rear Adm. Gregory Huffman, the commander of Carrier Strike Group 12, recently told USNI News in an interview.
... many of these issues have seen improvement or been solved outright, with fixes announced for the powerplant, successful tests of EMALS and AAG, and confirmation that all the technical data for aircraft launch and recovery had been gathered.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedrive.com ...
While Carrier Air Wing 8 (CVW-8) has embarked, most recently in spring this year, it was a reduced-size composition that practiced integrated carrier strike group operations. Embarking a full-size air wing is clearly now a priority, to explore how the carrier and its subsystems actually work in a fully representative, sustained, on-cruise, operating environment.
Still, it will not be one of the first carriers capable of deploying the MQ-25 Stingray tanker. That will require a number of additional modifications and testing.
As modular and advanced as it may be, the USS Gerald R. Ford will not be able to operate the Navy’s newest strike fighter, the F-35C Lightning II, either. Doing so will also require a number of upgrades and trials.
That said, the issues are being worked, the Ford is making progress, and by the time the Kennedy and Enterprise come online, all of these issues will be in the rearview mirror.
The new woke military system?
Yet, in the modern age of submarine-launched cruise and hypersonic missiles, the piloted airplane and aircraft carriers are obsolete.
by the time the Kennedy and Enterprise come online, all of these issues will be in the rearview mirror.
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Last bit of the article implies that, if the Ford does not operate to expectations, the Navy is looking at spending the money for more of the Ford class on smaller carrier types.
There is no certainty that the Ford class will ever operate F-35s
KEYWORDS: carrier; navy; target;
No, the gradual collapse of civilisation. I began to suspect this when I found out we could no longer produce the Saturn 5 engines or the steel armour required to build an Iowa class battleship.
Fitting for a carrier named after a milquetoast, do-shit who was never elected President.
They should name the next garbage scow after the latest never elected moron.
Do we make them bigger and bigger so we can see them more easily from space?
The Naval Academy is a woke cesspool. Its officers have shown they play games of personal enrichment from Kuala Lumpur to Hawaii. Ship’s officers bump into ships at sea. Mixed crews of male and female are a joke. In short, in efficiency our navy ranks well below most other nations. And now this joke of a moving foxhole that attracts the eye.
“Fitting for a carrier named after a milquetoast, do-shit who was never elected President.”
He didn’t hesitate to act when Cambodia took the Mayaguez. He had just become president and I was so proud of him.
People are supposed to do their jobs. Just because we have had so many not do theirs, doesn’t mean we lower the bar.
He wasn’t evil. He was a good American. Not being Carter shouldn’t get you a class of carriers though.
I hope you are right. My son enlisted a year ago. He qualified for advance electronics. I hope he ends up on a good ship with a competent commander.
Yet, in the modern age of submarine-launched cruise and hypersonic missiles, the piloted airplane and aircraft carriers are obsolete.
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I think you’re correct. Just at the battleship was the key surface ship of WW1, the aircraft carrier was the key advancement in ship technology in WW2. WW3 will be different. Carriers, with all their required support and defense ships, can be taken out with a single hypersonic weapon carrying a small nuclear warhead. Even a surface skimming conventional cruise missile could likely evade radar long enough to reach a carrier. Carriers put too many eggs in one basket.
I bet it sails with contractors on board tying to continue to finish a very large punch list.
I bet it sails with contractors on board tying to continue to finish a very large punch list.
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Sounds like it will.
The relatively recent tendency to name American naval vessels after politicians or leftist icons (Harvey Milk, for example) is just another indication of how political/'woke' our military has become...
The with no urinals, but it has a maternity ward. What a joke.
“ They should name the next garbage scow after the latest never elected moron.”
How about naming the next garbage scow after repeatedly elected morons.
The USS Adam Schiff comes to mind.
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