The USS Gerald R. Ford, US Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, embarked on its maiden deployment on Tuesday. The carrier cost more than $13 billion and will work with countries like Canada, France and Germany on training on air defence, anti-submarine warfare and amphibious operations. The US Navy’s Facebook page carried a live video showing tugboats moving the gray-painted ship away from the pier at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia.
The ship’s deployment will “demonstrate its unmatched, multi-domain, full-spectrum lethality in the Atlantic,” Admiral Daryl Caudle said in a statement ahead of the ship’s departure.
The deployment will involve 9,000 people, 20 ships and 60 aircraft from nine different countries, the US Navy said, without providing a breakdown by nation.
The USS Gerald R. Ford was commissioned in 2017 and is more than 1,100 feet (335 meters) long. It can displace 100,000 long tons (101,000 tonnes) when fully loaded. It boasts a speed of more than 34 miles (54 kilometers) per hour.
The ship requires hundreds fewer crew members to operate than previous carriers and is designed to be able to carry futuristic energy weapons that are still under development. The rate at which it can launch and retrieve aircraft is reported to be a key improvement. But a June 2022 report to Congress talks of issues with the systems involved.
“The Navy anticipates achieving reliability goals in the 2030s,” the Government Accountability Office report said of the carrier’s Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System and Advanced Arresting Gear. The issues could “prevent the ship from demonstrating one of its key requirements – rapidly deploying aircraft.”
The vessel’s weapons elevators, which move missiles and bombs from its magazines to the deck so they can be loaded onto planes, have also suffered problems.
“The ship’s first deployment was delayed by a need to complete work on the ship’s weapons elevators and correct other technical problems,” the Congressional Research Service said in a report updated in August.
(With inputs from agencies)
