The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, the most advanced and expensive in the history of the US Navy, is about to finish its training tests before beginning its first worldwide deployment at the end of the year. To do this, you need one last key certification that will determine if you are fit for combat. This new exercise requires that the aircraft carrier sail with your entire air wing, which means that for the first time since it entered service in 2017 the USS Ford is sailing with 80 aircraft as part of the Composite Training Unit Exercise, known as COMPTUEX. This training test is designed to solve any problem before it is fully ready for a war scenario and comes after more than a decade of setbacks and technical problems.
The tests consist of recreating combat situations, attacks with planes, submarines and missiles; ship casualties and engineering and communication drills. If it finally achieves certification, the ship will be ready to deploy for seven months with its strike group. The USS Ford recently left the Norfolk Naval Base in Virginia with between 40 and 50 fighter jets F/A-18E/F Super Hornets and F-35, plus five EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft; 19 MH-60 Seahawk helicopters and four early warning airborne aircraft E-2D Hawkeye.
He Captain Paul Lanzilotta in command of USS Ford has said the crew will conduct an unprecedented level of sorties during COMPTUEX rehearsing flight operations and deck approaches.
This aircraft carrier is the first of a new class developed for the first time in forty years in the US that will replace those of the Nimitz class. With a cost of more than 13,000 million dollars, the USS Ford will be the flagship of a new generation that introduces up to 23 new technological developments. The first of the series displaces 100,000 tons and was deployed for the first time in 2022 in the Atlantic and visited the ports of Halifax, Canada and Portsmouth, United Kingdom. In that time he operated ships from Canada, the Netherlands, Denmark, France, Germany, Sweden and Spain.
This USNI News video shows the current deployment of the USS Ford:
This aircraft carrier has eleven advanced elevators that can move missiles and bombs to the flight deck in less time. It features a new type of catapult design that uses electricity instead of steam. Is he electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS), which uses a linear induction motor catapult instead of the steam piston used on the Nimitz-class aircraft carriers. This technology allows the launch of more aircraft and saves considerable time.
They also highlight the dual band radar (DBR) system and the power system, which works from a more powerful double nuclear reactor of the A1B type and with 600 MW, higher than the 550 MW (thermal) of the two A4W reactors on Nimitz. This more robust nuclear power plant not only provides much more power but also provides greater autonomy.
The US shipping industry takes about five years to build an aircraft carrier, but production of the Gerald Ford spanned eight years, from 2009, when the keel was laid, to 2017. After years of delay and a 30% cost overrun, the USS Gerald Ford obtained initial operational capability from the US Navy in December 2021.
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