Years late and billions more: The USS Gerald R. Ford is a lesson in how the Navy builds ships

[rangerrebew]

 
Years late and billions more: The USS Gerald R. Ford is a lesson in how the Navy builds ships

The aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford returns to Norfolk on Friday, April 14, 2017, after a week of builder's trials during which the ship's systems were tested.

BILL TIERNAN, DAILY PRESS/TNS
 

By DAVE RESS | Daily Press | Published: May 23, 2021

(Tribune News Service) — For the past 1½ years, on 18 trips off the Virginia and North Carolina coasts, sailors and shipyard workers from Newport News have prepped the Navy’s newest carrier for deployment — 27% over its original budget and years behind schedule.

The costliest single item on the Department of Defense’s shopping list, the USS Gerald R Ford has been on a fast track to launch a series of new technologies intended to boost the Navy’s striking power for at least the next 50 years.

It is a fast track that started two decades ago and has seen delays installing key components of the ship, as on-shore testing revealed unexpected problems that required hundreds of millions of dollars to fix and that forced workers at Newport News Shipbuilding to redo finished parts of the 1,092-foot long carrier, hundreds of pages of government budget documents, Navy assessments, oversight reports and Congressional hearings show.

https://www.stripes.com/news/us/years-late-and-billions-more-the-uss-gerald-r-ford-is-a-lesson-in-how-the-navy-builds-ships-1.674378

[rangerrebew]

Junk!  Pure junk!

[PeteS in CA]

... to launch a series of new technologies ...

Yawn! Trying to incorporate too many new technologies at once caused delays in the B-1 program. Trying to incorporate too many new technologies at once caused delays in the F-35 program. The pitfalls in the Ford are neither unique nor are they fatal flaws.

[Fishrrman]

Could the Gerald Ford become the last American carrier built?

(or, are there others in the works right now...?)

[PeteS in CA]

Could the Gerald Ford become the last American carrier built?

(or, are there others in the works right now...?)

The USS John F. Kennedy is fitting out, and the USS Enterprise is under construction, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_R._Ford-class_aircraft_carrier#Ships_in_class .