USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78)
_on_the_James_River_in_2013.JPG)
Gerald R. Ford on the James River in November 2013.
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| History | |
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 United States
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| Name: | Gerald R. Ford |
| Namesake: | Gerald R. Ford |
| Awarded: | 10 September 2008 |
| Builder: | Newport News Shipbuilding |
| Cost: | $12.8 billion + $4.7 billion R&D (estimated) |
| Laid down: | 13 November 2009 |
| Launched: | 9 November 2013 |
| Sponsored by: | Susan Ford |
| Christened: | 9 November 2013 |
| Commissioned: | April 2017 |
| Status: | Launched |
| Badge: | _crest.png) |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier |
| Displacement: | About 100,000 long tons (110,000 short tons; 100,000 tonnes) (full load) |
| Length: | 1,106 ft (337 m) |
| Beam: |
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| Height: | nearly 250 ft (76 m) |
| Decks: | 25 |
| Installed power: | Two A1B nuclear reactors |
| Propulsion: | Four shafts |
| Speed: | In excess of 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph) |
| Range: | Unlimited distance; 20–25 years |
| Complement: | 4,660 |
| Armament: | |
| Aircraft carried: | More than 75 |
| Aviation facilities: | 1,092 ft × 256 ft (333 m × 78 m) flight deck |
Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) is the lead ship of her class of United States Navy supercarriers. It is currently a pre-commissioning unit (PCU) expected to be commissioned into the Navy in 2017. The ship is named after the 38th President of the United States Gerald R. Ford, whose World War II naval service included combat duty aboard the light aircraft carrier Monterey in the Pacific Theater.
The keel of Gerald R. Ford was laid down on 13 November 2009. Construction began on 11 August 2005, when Northrop Grumman held a ceremonial steel cut for a 15-ton plate that forms part of a side shell unit of the carrier. She was christened on 9 November 2013. The schedule called for the ship to join the U.S. Navy's fleet in March 2016 with the first deployment in 2019.Gerald R. Ford will enter the fleet replacing the inactive USS Enterprise (CVN-65), which ended her 51 years of active service in December 2012.
In 2006, while Gerald Ford was still alive, Senator John Warner of Virginia proposed to amend a 2007 defense-spending bill to declare that CVN-78 "shall be named the USS Gerald Ford." The final version signed by President George W. Bush on 17 October 2006 declared only that it "is the sense of Congress that ... CVN-78 should be named the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford." Since such "sense of" language is typically non-binding and does not carry the force of law, the Navy was not required to name the ship after Ford.
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