In less than a year, The US Navy will launch the $13 billion USS Gerald Ford. It will be the most expensive warship in history to its fleet. According to CNN, the USS Gerald Ford will be joining the US Navy by February 2016. It represents as a lead ship of the new Ford-class aircraft carrier series.
When it sets sail, it will be the largest carrier ever to be cast off the seas. Compared to the US' current Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford will feature a number of changes and advancements.
According to the Navy - the USS Gerald Ford seated in a huge dock on the James River, is the first in a line of nuclear-powered ships and is being built near the southern district of Newport News, Virginia. The ship is made to be the most technologically advanced, the most expensive, and one of the largest warships ever built.
The ship is huge that it will weigh an astonishing 90,000 tons, it will be a 1,092 feet long and can stretch out as far as a couple football fields towards the horizon. It can accommodate a town's population of more than 4,500 people.
Compared to the previous steam-powered launch systems, the USS Gerald Ford can launch 25% more - using its newly designed Electro-Magnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) which will have increased electrical power supply.
The USS Gerald Ford will be known conversationally as "the Ford". it is also identified by its hull number - CVN 78. The vessel is equipped with electromagnetic catapults, designed to shoot fighter jets into the sky. And it has the most advanced radar system the US military ever has.
The Ford's Ship Design Manager at Newport News Shipbuilding, Brian Nehrbass stated: "There's a lot of risk involved in bringing all this technology together and making it work," he says. "As good as we engineers think we are, we're not always able to make things go the way we want them to." Nehrbass also said: "the unpredictability of some of these things do drive costs up."
Watch the video here of the $13 billion USS Gerald Ford:
