The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, described by the US Navy as “the most capable, adaptable and lethal combat platform in the world”, has been deployed in the Caribbean to intensify military pressure on Venezuela. CNN profiled the ship and its military assets.
With a displacement of more than 100,000 tons and a length of 334 meters, the Ford is the largest warship the United States has ever put to sea. Entering service in 2017, it is the first of its class, heir to the Navy’s 10 Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, the oldest of which will be retired next year. It has a crew of nearly 4,600, including flight crews. This is about 20% fewer personnel than the Nimitz class, which is made possible by Ford’s more efficient systems that make it the most advanced aircraft carrier in the world. It is powered by two nuclear reactors, the exact specifications of which are secret but which, according to the Navy, produce electrical power three times greater than that of the Nimitz-class ships which allows it to operate the electromagnetic launch system (Emals). Using magnets instead of steam to power the ship’s catapults gives Ford the ability to put aircraft in the air faster and with heavier weapons and more fuel, increasing the range and lethality of its fighters.
The same technology applies to its 11 elevators which use electromagnetic rather than hydraulic motors, meaning they can move munitions more quickly from depots to the flight deck and load them onto planes. The ship is also equipped with the Navy’s Advanced Arresting Gear, the system that essentially grabs the tailhook of planes with cables when they land on the flight deck. A digitally controlled system allows for higher sortie speed and lower power consumption. The Ford’s flight deck is about 1.2 meters wider than the Nimitz class, and its “island” – the part of the ship that rises above the flight deck – is smaller and further back, providing more space for easier management of aircraft movements.
Ford’s spearhead is the F/A-18 fighter, a twin-engine Boeing aircraft that can carry various types of air-to-air, air-to-ground and anti-ship missiles, as well as laser-guided bombs and has a maximum combat range of 2,011 kilometers.
Ford also transports electronic jamming aircraft, warning and control aircraft, cargo planes and helicopters. But it doesn’t embark the Navy’s newest stealth fighter, the F-35C. The changes needed to support the fifth-generation aircraft are not expected to be made before a yet-to-be-determined maintenance period.
Although it was commissioned in 2017, it did not deploy until 2022, as the Navy struggled to fix problems with its advanced systems. In 2023 she spent eight months in the eastern Mediterranean after Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel.