Sea Power: Navy's Newest Aircraft Carrier Has Lot to Prove.

• Author: Carberry, Sean

Ordered in 2008 and commissioned in 2017, the USS Gerald R. Ford embarked on its maiden deployment in October 2022, years behind schedule and billions over budget. The Navy is hoping that's all water under the bridge as the first-in-class carrier demonstrates capabilities that could prove critical for a possible conflict with China.

The Ford-class carrier shares a hull and some propulsion technology with its Nimitz-class predecessors, but beyond that, the critical systems such as launching and arresting gear, elevators, electrical generation, radar and other technologies are new.

The Ford was conceived in the early 2000s to address "the somewhat incipient Chinese threat," and provide a platform for "a high-end war against a really capable competitor," said Bryan Clark, senior fellow and director of the Center for Defense Concepts and Technology at the Hudson Institute.

The requirements for the new carrier class included being able to generate more sorties, launch and recover a wider range of aircraft and provide power for new radars and defensive weapons, some yet to be developed.

The carrier got underway in the Adantic with a coalition of allied and NATO forces. Phases of the new deployment include strike group steaming, air defense exercises, maritime domain awareness, long-range maritime strike and anti-submarine warfare exercises, according to Lt. j.g. Alexander Fairbanks, public affairs officer for U.S. 2nd Fleet.

The exercises "provide the opportunity for U.S., NATO and allied forces to refine their integration at the operational level and demonstrate the advantage that Ford-class carriers bring to the future of naval aviation," he said.

The carrier's advantages come from 23 new technologies. One major advance was replacing decades-old steam and mechanical launching and arresting systems with electronic systems, "which gives you a lot more versatility in terms of the kinds of aircraft you can launch and recover, and then how quickly you can do it," Clark said.

The electromagnetic launching and arresting systems have wider tolerances than the mechanical systems, he said. That is essential for launching smaller and lighter aircraft like unmanned systems needed in a high-end fight.

"They can launch really light aircraft without damaging them," Clark said. The force of the old steam catapults would have torn the smaller planes apart. The Navy can now look at new types of small unmanned aerial systems that could be launched from the...