Geeky Moment: The Gerald R. Ford Class Aircraft Carrier
Via The Detroit News:
Construction of the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford got its official kickoff Saturday with a keel-laying ceremony at the shipyard where the $7 billion nuclear-powered ship is being assembled.
The 38th president’s daughter, Susan Ford Bales, declared the keel “truly and fairly laid” at an authentication ceremony attended by congressmen, dignitaries and shipworkers at Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding’s shipyard.
Bales, the ship’s sponsor, on Friday added her initials in chalk on a metal plate, which was welded to the 900-ton keel – the building block upon which the carrier will rise.
The Gerald R. Ford Class aircraft carrier is the next generation carrier and will have several new technologies. Via Naval-Technologies.com:
The other main differences in operational performance compared to the Nimitz Class are increased sortie rates at 160 sorties a day (compared to 140 a day), a weight and stability allowance over the 50-year operational service life of the ship, and increased (by approximately 150%) electrical power generation and distribution to sustain the ship’s advanced technology systems. Another key performance requirement is interoperability.
And the new class of carriers will have an electromagnetic ‘catapult’ system:
General Atomics has been awarded the contract to develop the EMALS electromagnetic aircraft launch system which uses a linear electromagnetic accelerator motor. EMALS demonstrators have been tested at the Naval Air Systems Command (NASC) Lakehurst test centre in New Jersey. It is planned that EMALS will replace the current C-13 steam catapults.
If successful, EMALS technology offers the potential benefit of finer aircraft acceleration control, which leads to lower stresses in the aircraft and pilots and provides a slower launch speed for unmanned air vehicles and allows a wider window of wind-over-deck speed required for the launch sequence.
The contract for the development of an advanced turbo-electric arrestor gear has been awarded to General Atomics. The electro-magnetic motor applies control to the synthetic arrestor cable to reduce the maximum tensions in the cable and reduce the peak load on the arrestor hook and on the aircraft fuselage.
Too cool:
President Gerald Ford…
This is some great technology. Hopefully, the POTUS won’t cancel it to avoid offending anyone.
@Matt: I really worry about that. You know, with all the bowing, apologizing and dithering Obama has been doing of late.
Gerald Ford was an intelligent statesmam, from an era when that was not an oxymoron. Unfortunately he will be known to an entire generation only as a stumbling idiot thanks to Chevy Chase and the rest of leftists at SNL. Makes me grateful for the “alternative” channels available today via the internet blogosphere.
@Dewey From Detroit: Agreed. That is why I was happy to see the Navy honor President Ford with not only naming an Aircraft Carrier after him, but naming an entire class of carriers after him.
Interestingly, only 2 classes of carriers have been named after US presidents: John F. Kennedy and Gerald R. Ford. And another less realized fact: Gerald R. Ford is the only president who was not elected to the White House. Nixon appointed him to be Vice President when Spiro Agnew resigned and Ford became President when Nixon also resigned.
Here’s hoping all that high-tech stuff works and doesn’t run into too many cost overruns. I can already hear the naysayers warming up with more Chevy Chase style crap if that happens.
@Cynical Synapse: C-S, thanks for the factoid. I didn’t realize only two classes of carriers named after U.S. presidents.
I did, however, do a grade school report on President Ford and the big point of the report was how he was the only President not elected to the White House.