USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78)

PCU Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) is to be the lead ship of its class of United States Navy supercarriers. As announced by the U.S. Navy on 16 January 2007, the ship will be named after the 38th President of the United States Gerald R. Ford, whose World War II naval service included combat duty aboard the light aircraft carrier USS Monterey (CVL-26) in the Pacific Theater.

The keel of the Gerald R. Ford was laid down on 13 November 2009. Construction began on 11 August 2005, when Northrop Grumman held a ceremonial steel cut for a 15-ton plate that will form part of a side shell unit of the carrier. The schedule calls for the ship to join the U.S. Navy’s fleet in 2016. Gerald R. Ford will enter the fleet replacing the inactive USS Enterprise CVN-65, which ended its 51 years of active service in December 2012.

Ship naming


In 2006, while Gerald Ford was still alive, Senator John Warner of Virginia proposed to amend a 2007 defense-spending bill to declare that CVN-78 "shall be named the U.S.S. Gerald Ford." The final version signed by President George W. Bush on 17 October 2006 declared only that it "is the sense of Congress that ... CVN-78 should be named the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford." Since such "sense of" language is typically non-binding and does not carry the force of law, the Navy was not required to name the ship after Ford.

On 3 January 2007, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced that the aircraft carrier would be named after Ford during a eulogy for President Ford at Grace Episcopal Church in East Grand Rapids, Michigan. Rumsfeld indicated that he had personally told Ford of the honor during a visit to his home in Rancho Mirage a few weeks before Ford's death. This makes the aircraft carrier one of the few U.S. ships named after a living person. Later in the day, the Navy confirmed that the aircraft carrier would indeed be named for the former President. On 16 January 2007, Navy Secretary Donald Winter officially named CVN-78 the USS Gerald R. Ford. Ford's daughter Susan Ford Bales was named the ship's sponsor. The announcements were made at a Pentagon ceremony attended by Vice President Dick Cheney, Senators Warner and Levin (D-MI), Major General Guy C. Swan III, Bales, Ford's other three children, and others.

The USS America Carrier Veterans Association (CVA) had pushed to name the ship USS America. The CVA is an association of sailors who served aboard USS America (CV-66), which was decommissioned in 1996 and scuttled in the Atlantic as part of a classified weapons damage/battle damage test of large deck aircraft carriers in 2005. Eventually, LHA-6 was named America.

Construction


On 10 September 2008 the US Navy signed a $5.1 billion contract with Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding in Newport News, Virginia, to design and construct the carrier. Northrop had begun advance construction of the carrier under a $2.7 billion contract in 2005. The carrier is being constructed at the Huntington Ingalls (formerly Northrop Grumman) Newport News Shipbuilding facilities in Hampton Roads, Virginia, which employs 19,000 workers. The keel of the new warship was ceremonially laid on 14 November 2009 in Dry Dock 12 by Ford's daughter, Susan Ford Bales. Said Bales in a speech to the assembled shipworkers and DoD officials, "Dad met the staggering challenges of restoring trust in the presidency and healing the nation's wounds after Watergate in the only way he knew how — with complete honesty and integrity. And that is the legacy we remember this morning."

As of August 2011, the carrier was reported to be "structurally halfway complete". In April 2012, it was said to be 75 percent complete. On 24 May 2012, the important milestone of completing the vessel up to the waterline was reached when the critical lower bow was lifted into place. This was the 390th of the nearly 500 lifts of the integral modular components (from which the vessel is assembled) that the ship's construction will ultimately require. On 8 October 2012, the carrier reaches over the 88 percent of the complete structural construction. Huntington Ingals reports (in a 8 Nov. 2012 GLOBE NEWSWIRE press release) that they have "Reached 87 percent structural completion of CVN-78 Gerald R. Ford". By 19 December 2012, construction had reached 90 percent structural completion. "Of the nearly 500 total structural lifts needed to complete the ship, 446 have been accomplished."

The island was originally scheduled to land in 2012, however, the island landing and ceremony actually took place on 26 January 2013.

On 9 April 2013, the flight deck of the carrier was completed following the addition of the ship's upper bow section, bringing the ship to 96 percent structural completion.

On 7 May 2013, the last of 162 superlifts was put in place, bringing the ship to 100 percent structural completion. Remaining work that needs to be done includes hull painting, shafting work, completion of electrical systems, mooring equipment, installation of radar arrays, and flooding of the dry dock.

On 11 July 2013, a time capsule was welded into a small room just above the floor, continuing a long Navy tradition. The time capsule holds items chosen by President Ford's daughter, Susan Ford Bales, and includes sandstone from the White House, Navy coins and aviator wings from its first commanding officer.

The ship was originally scheduled for launch in July 2013 and delivery in 2015. Production delays meant that the launch had to be delayed until 11 October 2013 and the naming ceremony until 9 November 2013, with delivery in early 2016.

On 3 October 2013, the Gerald Ford had four 30 ton, 21 ft-diameter bronze propellers installed. The installation of the propellers required more than 10 months of work to install the underwater shafting. Piping, electrical systems, and the habitability areas such as the galley and mess spaces are still being worked on.

On 11 October 2013, the ship's drydock was flooded for the first time in order to test various seawater-based systems. Its launch date was changed yet again and is to be on the same day as its naming ceremony on 9 November 2013.