I always wondered, what can the Ford class do that the Nimitz cannot?
Obviously Ford can launch faster and more efficiently, it's more modern, probably safer, and all that. In terms of operation, how is it revolutionary?
Say, China builds something like a Nimitz, and you have a Ford, we both launch aircrafts, what kind of advantages would Ford have, and how big of an advantage.
The Ford has new radars, a more powerful reactor, putting out too much energy at time, an EMALs system to launch aircraft and recover them faster then the steam powered CATOBAR system, and a redesigned flight deck that can transition air-craft faster from bellow to above deck and launch them in greater interval. The Ford also features stealth enhancements where as the Nimitz lacked any such features. If China built a Nimitz Class equivalent it would be a major downgrade from the Ford, but an upgrade over it's current aircraft carrier trainer. Simply put, the Ford is one hell of a machine and is better then the Nimitz in every way.
This link will explain the differences in a video that I can't get to post:
Defense News with Vago Muradian — Expert interviews and discussions of U.S. defense with host Vago Muradian.
What’s So New About America’s New Aircraft Carriers?
"Many of the differences between the Nimitz and Ford classes are well known. Continuing the trend from the George H.W. Bush, the crew size of the Ford will be considerably smaller than the early Nimitz class carriers, and even smaller than CVN-77. A reorganization of the flight deck and elevator system gives the Ford class a 15 percent higher sortie rate than the Nimitz class. Altogether it will be able to launch about 90 total aircraft. The electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS) reduces strain on aircraft and eliminates the need for the elaborate steam catapult system that has launched carrier aircraft since the 1950s. EMALS will also facilitate the launch of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
The Ford’s power plant generates considerably more electricity, allowing the ships to “grow into” future energy demands. This opens space for the genuinely transformational potential of the Ford class: directed energy weapons that could make cruise and ballistic missiles obsolete, and unmanned aircraft that could rewrite the history of air warfare."
From
What’s So New About America’s New Aircraft Carriers? | The Diplomat
This Is What Makes the USS Gerald R. Ford the Best Aircraft Carrier Ever Designed
So, you want to buy an aircraft carrier. Stateside, there's only one place you can go—Newport News Shipbuilding, the largest dry-dock in the western hemisphere.
This crew, a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries, has designed and built every U.S. aircraft carrier since 1961. Since the mid-1970s, the US Navy has relied on Nimitz-class carriers. Now, Newport is hard at work on a new mega-ship—the Ford class—and Gizmodo paid a visit to see how the first one is coming together.
Evolution of an Aircraft Carrier
The Ford is really the next generation of the Nimitz class. The hull is the same size, but the vessel has been optimized and modernized, to make it a far more capable ship. The new design relocates the island house (the primary flight control and the bridge), reduces the number of aircraft elevators from four to three, and increases the sortie rate by 25 percent, helping to more quickly deploy aircraft, ships, or sets of troops.
The Ford also has
three times the electric plant capacity—a capability meant to last through technology changes over its lifespan of fifty years. A new nervous system includes millions of feet of fiber optic cable, which greatly increases data speeds and capacities, and also adds durability, as fiber optic cable can endure marine life better than metal alternatives.
The Automated Sailor
This city on the sea has a lower population than its predecessor. "Nimitz was designed when the Navy had more sailors," Newport News Shipbuilding's President Matt Mulherin told us. "At the time, I don't think they really thought about what the cost of an individual sailor was. Today they do. That drives a lot of the operating and maintenance costs of the ship. So we've taken off a lot of bunks, and taken off workload for a lot of sailors... but it retains all of the functionality of the Nimitz-class ships."
The ship is more automated than any before it, which gives it increased capability despite the reduced crew. For the sailors that are there, things will be more comfortable. The whole carrier will be air-conditioned—a first—which adds comfort and also reduces components' and computers' corrosion from exposure to salt air.
Electromagnetic Airplane Slingshots
Nimitz-class carriers got planes moving for takeoff using steam-actuated catapults. The system required a lot of steam piping, a large condensate return, and tons of fresh water. They also have a lot of maintenence issues. Plus, with steam-actuation, the majority of the force is being transferred to the airplane at the beginning of the stroke—it's one hell of a jolt. But a more linear pattern of acceleration could put less stress on an airframe, and thus get a longer lifespan out of the multi-million dollar plane. That's where EMALS comes in.
EMALS stands for Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System. It uses a linear induction motor with an electric current to generate a magnetic field. That field then propels a carriage down a track. It's basically a gigantic railgun that launches airplanes instead of shells. Pretty damn cool.
The EMALS can accomodate lightweight drones and planes heavier than those we have today. It reaches top speeds gently, reloads more quickly, and requires less maintenance. The arresting gear (the mechanism which catches the planes as they return) will use EMALS technology as well, as will the elevators for the airplanes and weapons. The Ford class essentially eliminates steam from the equation.
Why Carriers Matter
"The four and a half acres of flight deck is what you really need to get that lethality," according to Mulherin. "Having the ability to do a catapult-launch of an airplane gives you the ability to load it with weapons and load it with fuel. If you do some kind of a vertical takeoff, you can add fuel in flight, but you can't add weapons, so it really limits its capabilities."
"The second thing is that size is cheap. Once you decide to build an aircraft carrier, you get some threshold of fundamental cost, and then to go from a medium-sized nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to a large deck, it's incremental cost, and you get more value for that incremental cost."
It's amazing to see a monolith like this still under construction. Nothing has been painted, and it's been in progress for years, so everything looks rusty, despite it being brand new. Inside, the various compartments are coming together. The rooms are designed to be modular, so for future upgrades, designers can just swap a box in and lock it down.
The ship is scheduled to be water-tight in 2013. That's when it will be christened, and the dry dock will be flooded. It will then be towed to a different dock at Newport News Shipbuilding where construction will continue until 2015. When its nuclear batteries go in, the Ford will be fully operational. The Ford will only need to be refueled once in its lifetime, 25 years after it launches. By then, this lighter, cheaper, more powerful carrier will have already made the seas a safer place.
From
This Is What Makes the USS Gerald R. Ford the Best Aircraft Carrier Ever Designed
A revolution? Perhaps not. But this is one hell of an evolution over our current systems.
I'd like to think I'm a love ninja, the misses isn't so supportive
