Here is an amazing Video of USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) Flight Deck Activity | Life Aboard Aircraft Carrier
The USS Gerald R. Ford is the US Navy’s newest and largest aircraft carrier — in fact, it’s the world’s largest.
Commissioned in July 2017, it is the first of the Ford-class carriers, which are more technologically advanced than Nimitz-class carriers.
The Ford stands about 134 feet tall. The length of the Aircraft carrier is about 1,106 feet (337m), it is about 39 feet (12m) wide and 250 feet high (76m). It has 25 floors, displaces 100,000 tons and has a speed of 30 knots (56 km / h; 35 mph).
An approximate 2,600 sailors among 500 officers and over 3,700 enlisted. Carrier two launchers RIM-162 RAM, 3 Phalanx CIWS and 4 M2 calibers .50. On 75+ aircraft and 1,092 by 256 feet (333 m by 78 m) flight deck.
Design features of USS Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier
- Advanced arresting gear.
- Automation, allowing a crew of several hundred fewer than the Nimitz-class carrier.
- The updated RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow missile.
- An AN/SPY-3 X Band multifunction radar and an AN/SPY-4 S-Band volume search radar. Designated together as Dual Band Radar (DBR), initially developed for the Zumwalt-class destroyers.
- An Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) in place of traditional steam catapults for launching aircraft.A new nuclear reactor design (the A1B reactor) for greater power generation.
- Stealth features to reduce radar cross-section.
- The ability to carry up to 90 aircraft, including the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, Boeing EA-18G Growler, Grumman C-2 Greyhound, Northrop Grumman E-2 Hawkeye, Lockheed Martin F-35C Lightning II, Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawk helicopters, and unmanned combat aerial vehicles such as the Northrop Grumman X-47B.
It has an improved hull design and weapons stowage, a new weapons elevator, more space on the flight deck, a new electromagnetic-powered aircraft-launch system, three times the electrical-generation capacity of any previous carrier, and a lot more.
The Gerald R. Ford class possess an integrated, electronically active radar search and tracking system.
The double-band radar (DBR) was being developed by both the guided-missile destroyers of the Zumwalt class and by the aircraft carriers of the Ford class by Raytheon.
The island can be kept smaller by replacing six to ten radar antennas with a single six-sided radar.
The DBR works by combining the multi-function radar AN / SPY-3 of the X-band with the transmitters of the volume search radar (VSR) of the S-band, distributed in three-phase arrays.
The three faces dedicated to the X-band radar are responsible for low-altitude tracking and radar illumination, while the other three faces dedicated to the S-band are responsible for the search and tracking of the target regardless of the weather.
It should be noted that it minimizes costs from $ 500 to $ 180 million.
