While the Nimitz-class carriers remain a tried and trusted asset to the US Navy, the Ford ships feature more advanced components.
The US Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, is currently underway on a regularly scheduled deployment to the US European Command area of responsibility. After departing its homeport in Norfolk, Virginia, in June, USS Gerald R. Ford recently transited the Strait of Gibraltar and stopped at a port in Marseille, France. Late last month, the massive carrier transited the Strait of Dover alongside the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers USS Mahan, USS Winston S. Churchill, and USS Bainbridge. Detailing its recent journey, the commanding officer of the Ford, Capt. Dave Skarosi, noted, “Gerald R. Ford’s agile transit through the Strait of Dover between England and France is a testament to our power projection capability that supports peace through strength.” Skarosi added that “Our skilled navigation team ensures that the world’s largest aircraft carrier brings our capability as a forward-positioned force anytime, anyplace, to defend the Euro-Atlantic region from hostile action.”
Introducing the USS Gerald R. Ford
USS Gerald R. Ford represents the lead ship in the Navy’s Ford-class of aircraft carriers. In terms of size, power, and capability, the impressive warship is arguably superior to its foreign (and even domestic) counterparts. While the Nimitz-class carriers remain a tried and trusted asset to the US Navy, the Ford ships feature more advanced components. The Nimitz carriers have remained a cornerstone of the service’s sea-based strategy since 1975. Overall, these formidable warships are well designed, and over the years, emerging technologies have been easily incorporated. However, several constraints, including the class’s inability to incorporate specific emerging technologies, have led to the necessity of a successor.
Initially conceptualized as the CVN-21 program, the Ford carrier ultimately evolved into CVN-78. In order to make these carriers more efficient than the Nimitz ships, larger flight decks, enhanced weapons handling, a new propulsion plant design, and other technological improvements were incorporated. The Ford carriers feature a larger flight deck, enabling more aircraft storage. The addition of the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) and an Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) specifically enables the Ford carriers to launch 25 percent more sorties. Plus, with EMALS and AAG in place, the carriers generate triple the amount of electrical power. Naval Technology previously reported that it is estimated that the upgraded technologies onboard the Ford ships will result in a 30 percent reduction in overall maintenance requirements.
Gerald R. Ford is currently the only operational Ford carrier. The future USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79) is expected to officially enter service with the Navy by early 2027, according to the service’s fiscal year 2026 budget justification documents. “The CVN 79 delivery date shifted from July 2025 to March 2027 (preliminary acceptance TBD) to support completion of Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) certification and continued Advanced Weapons Elevator (AWE) work,” reads the FY 2026 report. Until the John F. Kennedy and the remaining planned Ford-class carriers reach operational capacity, the Navy’s Nimitz warships will certainly continue to lead the US Navy’s efforts at sea.
About the Author: Maya Carlin
Maya Carlin, National Security Writer with The National Interest, is an analyst with the Center for Security Policy and a former Anna Sobol Levy Fellow at IDC Herzliya in Israel. She has bylines in many publications, including The National Interest, The Jerusalem Post, and The Times of Israel. You can follow her on Twitter: @MayaCarlin.
Image: DVIDS.
