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The Navy’s Newest Aircraft Carrier Has So Much to Prove
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Ordered in 2008 and commissioned in 2017, the USS Gerald R. Ford began its first deployment in October 2022, years behind schedule and billions over budget. The Navy hopes that all water under the bridge as the first-in-class carrier demonstrates capabilities that could prove critical for a possible conflict with China.
The Ford-class carrier shares a hull and some propulsion technology with its Nimitz-class predecessors, but beyond that, critical systems such as launch and arresting gear, elevators, electrical generation, radar and other technologies are new.
Ford was conceived in the early 2000s to address the “relatively nascent Chinese threat,” and provide a platform for “a high-end war against a really capable competitor,” said Bryan Clark, senior fellow and director of the Center for Defense Concepts and Technology at the Hudson Institute.
Requirements for the new carrier class include the ability to conduct more sorties, launch and recover a greater range of aircraft and provide power for new radars and defensive weapons, some of which have not yet been developed. .
The carrier embarked in the Atlantic with a coalition of allied forces and NATO. Phases of the new deployment include strike group steaming, air defense exercises, maritime domain awareness, long-range maritime strikes and anti-submarine warfare exercises, according to Lt. jg Alexander Fairbanks, public affairs officer for the US 2nd Fleet.
The exercises “provide an opportunity for US, NATO and allied forces to refine their integration at the operational level and demonstrate the advantage that Ford-class carriers bring to the future of naval aviation,” he said.
The carrier’s advantages stem from 23 new technologies. A major development is the replacement of decades-old steam and mechanical launching and arresting systems with electronic systems, “which gives you more versatility in terms of the types of aircraft you can launch and recover, and then how quickly you can do it,” Clark said.
Electromagnetic launching and arresting systems have wider tolerances than mechanical systems, he said. That’s important for launching smaller, lighter aircraft such as unmanned systems needed in a high-end battle.
“They can launch really light aircraft without damaging them,” Clark said. The force of the old steam catapults would tear apart smaller planes. The Navy can now look to new types of small unmanned aerial systems that can be launched from the carrier.
Additionally, Ford’s larger hanger bay and flight deck allow for more aircraft to be delivered and deployed more quickly, he said.
This capability will change how carriers operate in a high-end battle as well as “gray-zone” situations due to the ability to conduct more surveillance or electronic warfare operations, he added.
“The Navy has never really been able to take advantage of some of the Air Force vehicles,” which can now go to the Navy and onto the carriers, he added.
While the Navy is in the process of replacing the carrier-based C-2 Greyhounds with the CV-22 Osprey, and the F-35Cs are deployed on several Nimitz-class carriers, for now Ford is fuming with the traditional carrier wing aircraft: the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet, E-18G Growler, E-2 Hawkeye and the Greyhound, Fairbanks said.
The electromagnetic launch system allows for a high level of computer control, monitoring and automation. “[The system] improves takeoff speed while reducing wear and tear on the aircraft and reducing the cost for maintenance and support. It also reduces the personnel required to operate by one-third and allows for quieter and cooler working and living spaces for sailors,” he added.
In addition to launch and arrest, Ford boasts upgrades to other critical systems.
“The Ford-class aircraft carrier offers advanced weapons elevators, an upgrade that allows the Ford to move more ordnance faster and requires less maintenance and personnel to operate,” Fairbanks said. . The 11 weapons elevators could move 24,000 pounds per load at a faster speed than the Nimitz carriers.
Because of the increased power generation, the carrier is equipped with the dual-band radar technology used on newer destroyers. “The two functions of the DBR are multifunction radar and volume search radar, which together provide a complete 360-degree air picture around the ship,” he said.
Some of the Navy’s cutting-edge electronic weapons currently under development will likely make it to the Ford class as well, Clark said. “This is the platform that the Navy might find really best to use for laser demonstrations because it has a lot of power,” he added.
So far in the deployment, Ford has completed the “Tailored Ship’s Training Availability and Final Evaluation Problem, a comprehensive assessment of the readiness of the ship and crew to operate and train itself at sea,” Fairbanks said. These routine exercises and assessments include aircraft launch and recovery, medical emergency response, general quarters, replenishment at sea and other routine carrier activities.
Another difference between the Ford and Nimitz class is the number of crew on board conducting operations. The move to electronic systems means higher reliability, less maintenance and fewer personnel on board, Clark said.
“You don’t need nearly as many mechanics, for example, as you do on a ship with hydraulics and steam power … so that’s a huge cost savings,” he said. “So, you throw in a bunch of mechanical people, and then you bring in some electrical people and then that change is still 500 less than [Nimitz] class.”
“All crews working on Nimitz-class ships can be retrained and adapted to work on Ford-class ships,” Fairbanks said. “For example, there are a lot of Ford sailors working [the] air department moved from Nimitz-class ships to Ford and retrained to use the new Ford systems.”
The main question now is whether the carrier is over the big “growing pains” of getting all the systems integrated and working properly with the new carrier, Clark said.
The Congressional Research Service released a report in August that detailed the carrier’s history of development problems and raised concerns that not all of its bugs have been ironed out.
For example, the report, “Navy Ford (CVN-78) Class Aircraft Carrier Program: Background and Issues for Congress,” highlights the five-year delay in the carrier’s initial deployment caused in part by the time it took to acquire the 11 weapon elevator to work properly.
“The delay in the ship’s first deployment extends a period in which the Navy is trying to maintain policymaker-desired levels of carrier-forward deployments with its 10 other carriers — a situation that could add to operational strains on the 10 carriers and their crews,” the report said.
The CRS report noted reliability deficiencies in the radar system and cited a Government Accountability report from June 2022 that raised additional concerns about Ford.
“The Navy continues to struggle with the reliability of electromagnetic aircraft launch systems and advanced arresting gear needed to meet requirements to rapidly deploy aircraft. … The Navy expects to achieve reliability goals in the 2030s . Until then, however, this low level may prevent the ship from demonstrating one of its main requirements – the rapid deployment of aircraft,” the report said.
CRS noted that Ford is about $3 billion, or 27 percent, of the 2008 budget, and that could increase based on any new problems that arise during the deployment. The cost overrun has implications for the next three Ford-class carriers: the John F. Kennedy, scheduled for delivery in June 2024; the Enterprise, which will be delivered in March 2028; and the Doris Miller, which is expected to be delivered in February 2032.
“A major source of past cost growth for CVN-78 appears to be an unrealistically low original cost estimate for the ship in the FY 2008 budget submission, which may reflect an underestimation of intrinsic challenges of the development of the then-new Ford-class design compared to the development of the earlier and well-understood Nimitz-class design,” the CRS report said.
The report notes that an “unrealistically low cost estimate” for Ford could lead to “similarly unrealistically low cost estimates” for three additional carriers. CRS estimates that CVN-79 is 38 percent above its initial projection and CVN-80 is about 20 percent.
The Navy projects that the Ford-class carrier will recoup some costs by having a longer life span and requiring less maintenance and a smaller crew.
That’s a result of having fewer mechanical systems and components that require frequent maintenance, calibration and replacement, Clark said.
“Repairs consist of replacing modules, running electrical diagnostics,” he said. “You can replace a large module of it instead of going in and fixing specific engine parts.”
In theory, replacing electrical modules and components would be faster and easier maintenance, but that requires having spare electronics on board or easily accessible.
“So, that’s one area where the Navy needs to improve its spares capacity and the Navy has started to increase its funding for spares over the last few years,” he said. “This is one of the concerns because the fleet is becoming more reliant on microelectronics in general.”
In addition to the need to have a stable supply and supply chain for microelectronics, the widespread use of electronic systems in the Ford class requires strong cybersecurity protocols, he said.
“It’s obviously a big area of concern, and I think the Navy … they’re stepping up obviously a more aggressive effort to identify vulnerabilities,” he said. “But one ship in particular has a lot of access points, it has a lot of antennas, a lot of radar systems and sensors that could potentially be the way to introduce a cyber tool.”
Those are among the many technical, procedural and doctrinal problems that will be analyzed and resolved as the new carrier and its crew learn the platform’s capabilities and limitations, he said.
Topics: Navy News, Shipbuilding, Aircraft Carriers
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