US Navy Ford Class nuclear carriers

7a74e8e14530b65275865959f23caaa5-1.jpg

cross-posting from
Aircraft Carriers III 3 minutes ago
the most recent vid
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
7a74e8e14530b65275865959f23caaa5-1.jpg

cross-posting from
Aircraft Carriers III 3 minutes ago
the most recent vid
Thye are adding more and more aircraft to the air operations work up on the Ford.

I have seen up to 5 F/A-18E/Fs aboard now and that number will grow over time of course.

They are treating her like what she is...a brand new class...and they are working her up from the ground up in terms of air ops.

...and that is fine. It is what they should do.

I am hoping that they take the opportunity this year...but it will probably be next...to get some F-35Cs aboard and have them work out too. They will be coming no doubt...but the sooner the better as far as I am concerned in their work up program.
 
through Facebook On This Day feature I now noticed the Ford had been christened exactly four years ago; I watched live broadcasting of that event, and in the Facebook message I joked like
'the last ships of the Ford class will serve at the beginning of the 22nd Century which is not a typo'

sorry if the fun got lost in translation LOL
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Here are several pages of pictures of daylight flight operations of the USS Gerald Fod CVN-78. They have worked their way up to 12 aircraft testing and working air ops. That number will steadliy climb.

One needs to remember that the Ford class is an entirely new class of carrier with new catapults, new arresting gerar and mechanisms, new propulsion, and a new flight deck arrangement. They will test all of the permutations for each aircraft in every possible configuration and in every weather and flight condition imaginable to make sure that all of the new equiment works, that all of the personnel are trained well enough to be able to practically operate it in their slee[p, and to ensure that the carrier can function

Day time operations:

Forf-Airops-01.jpg Forf-Airops-02.jpg Forf-Airops-03.jpg Forf-Airops-04.jpg Forf-Airops-05.jpg

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