These 40 000 pound underwater bombs are just another test before the Us Navy’s largest and most expensive aircraft carrier is declared combat ready.
The Uss Gerald R Ford is the first in a new class of carriers with more firepower and a smaller crew.
The previous class began service in 1975.
The Ford was designed to save billions over a 50-year lifespan.
Still, the Ford was double the cost of the last carrier built and it’s been plagued with unexpected costs and delays.
Just unclogging the toilets can cost four hundred thousand dollars.
We went aboard the Uss Ford to find out why America’s most advanced aircraft carrier still can’t be deployed, nearly two decades after plans to build it began.
These sailors are moving ordinance onto a new kind of weapons elevator that allows them to do what would be impossible on any other aircraft carrier: we’re bypassing the mess deck area.
We’re completely independent.
You would never even see us moving ordinance throughout the day.
So it’s more secure, with higher survivability, and we can store more on board.
It’s the only way to move munitions from deep inside the forward to rearm planes on its flight deck.
US Navy USS RONALD REAGAN (CVN-76)
Less advanced carriers move weapons in a more dangerous way through the hangars to the flight deck.
There are 11 elevators on board, yet only 7 are fully functioning.
Until all 11 elevators are complete, this ship can’t be certified for deployment.
The advanced weapons elevators are just one example of nearly two dozen major new technologies that make the Uss Ford cutting edge and one big floating experiment.
Tal Manville is a retired navy captain who served as the very first project manager on this new class of aircraft carrier.
The ship was supposed to start construction in O4.
It got moved O5.
They made an adjustment, they delayed it a second time, they delayed it a third time, pushing that out.
The ship just by those delays went from 6.4 billion dollars to 10 billion dollars.
USS JOHN F. KENNEDY (CVN-79)
The Ford is the first of four new carriers already in different stages of design and build.
The Navy plans to replace the entire super carrier fleet with fords.
Us law requires its navy to operate 11 carriers at all times, but with all the delays the Us is down to 10.. the reason we have 11 is driven by the fact that the Us Navy is kind of a two ocean Navy, if you will.
Of the 22 aircraft carriers in the world, half are american, while China, Italy and the Uk have just two each.
This carrier class- if if we build 10 or 11 or 12, could go easily into the 22nd century.
More than 5 000 shipbuilders worked an estimated 49 million hours to build the Ford.
That’s seven times the hours logged building the empire state building.
Admiral Mike Gilday, the chief of naval operations, said it was a mistake to introduce more than maybe one or two technologies on any complex platform at a time.
Admiral Gilday is right.
What you want to do is only do one or two new technologies on a new ship, and here’s the reason why ships are the only weapon that the.
The prototype, the first of the class, goes to war on the ship was christened in 2013..
The Navy accepted delivery of the ship in 2017 without everything working, as a way to stay under that year’s budget requirements.
Four years later, the carrier’s systems and technology are still being tested and it won’t be ready for deployment until 2022.
So it can go to sea.
Pilots can take off and land, but the problems are still being ironed out before it’s ready to go to war.
It’s pretty clear that putting this many new technologies onto one ship was a mistake from a program management perspective, because it did cause the program to be delayed.
The delays and tests and fixes are so costly that every new piece of technology is over budget.
Two of the technologies that set the Ford apart from every other carrier are the aircraft takeoff and landing systems.
Some of those are very large, you know, not incremental uh changes, but i would say revolutionary changes in terms of the electromagnetic aircraft launch system.
USS GEORGE H.W. BUSH (CVN-77)
Other carriers use steam driven catapults to propel their jets off the deck, but the Ford uses electromagnetic linear induction motors similar to a high speed Maglev train or roller coaster.
Just research and design on the electromagnetic aircraft launch system cost over one billion dollars.
Installing it on the Uss Ford cost more than twice what it was supposed to.
The steam catapult system had thousands of moving parts.
There are less than 100 moving parts on a electromagnetic catapult, so that was a big improvement.
Fewer moving parts means fewer sailors to operate and maintain.
The smaller crew, and new technologies were projected to save 4 billion over its 50-year run.
Compared to the previous class of aircraft carriers, the new system causes less stress on the planes, so they last longer and more types of aircraft can use it, including ones that are still being designed.
Landing and takeoff are easier on pilots too, since a computer does the work.
The pilot turns over control to the computer.
It autopilots the airplane down to the carrier deck and then when it hits that advanced arresting gear, it just smoothly brings it to a stop.
So it’s a dramatically different experience for the pilot.
It’s much safer, and then it’s also going to make the airplane last longer.
The Ford’s computerized systems allow both lighter and heavier planes to take off and land, something that limited older carriers.
The Ford’s combination of new technologies means that a wider variety of aircraft can land on it.
It’s smoother arrestments for aircraft.
That is our goal here on board for a future of naval aviation, flying drones and F-35s.
Oddly enough, the new launch system can’t handle the newest fighter plane, so the Ford will need a retrofit to handle the f-35 stealth fighter.
The next Ford class carrier is under construction in the shipyard, but it’s already being modified for the f-35 at an added cost of 315 million dollars.
Many of the Ford’s delays can be traced back to politics.
Five american presidents over two decades weighed in on the planning and building of the Ford.
The Department of defense made the aircraft carrier program far more expensive than it needed to be, and you can take that to the bank.
FORD CARRIER CONSTRUCTION COST
So far, the true cost of building this war horse is 13.3 billion dollars, a number that’s increased nearly every year since construction began.
Even the most basic of on-board functions can be eye-wateringly expensive.
The ship has 750 toilets connected through vacuum pressure, like the system on commercial jets.
When one toilet gets clogged, the whole system can be affected.
The fix requires an acid flush that costs four hundred thousand dollars and the Navy has said it doesn’t know how often it will need to be done.
The Navy changed its shipbuilding programs when the Ford’s problems came up.
He began designing and testing the takeoff systems on land in 2011, while the Ford was under construction.
The advanced weapons elevators are also now being tested before installation.
However, that program will only benefit the next Ford class carrier built as a deterrent.
The true value of the forward is likely to be in the wars it helps prevent rather than those it wages you.