Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier: the US Navy's newest supercarriers

The Gerald R. Ford class is the United States Navy’s newest class of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, built as the successor to the Nimitz class. The lead ship, USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), was commissioned on 22 July 2017. The Navy has one ship in active service and, as of 2026, one in sea trials¹, with one more under construction and three further hulls funded or planned².

Design and development

The class grew out of what the Navy called the CVN-21 program, intended to replace the aging Nimitz-class design¹ while keeping its basic hull form. The Congressional Research Service describes the goals as increased daily aircraft sortie generation, more electrical power and a smaller crew; it estimates the class can operate with several hundred fewer sailors than a Nimitz-class ship, for an estimated 50-year life-cycle savings of about $4 billion per ship² against the older design.

Several of the systems built to deliver those gains proved troubled in development. The class introduces an electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS)¹ in place of steam catapults, paired with an advanced arresting gear (AAG) for recovering aircraft. The Pentagon’s test office, in a January 2025 report cited by the Congressional Research Service, found that EMALS reliability has not appreciably changed from prior years and still depends on contractor technical support, while the Congressional Research Service notes it lacks sufficient data to update the reliability statistics for AAG. Lead-ship cost also grew well beyond its original cap: the FY2007 defense authorization act set a procurement cost cap for CVN-78 of $10.5 billion, and its final procurement cost came to about $13.3 billion in then-year dollars².

Specifications

A Ford-class ship displaces about 100,000 tonnes at full load and runs 337 m long overall³, with a flight deck 78 m wide and a waterline beam of 41 m. Newport News Shipbuilding⁴, part of Huntington Ingalls Industries, christened the lead ship in 2013 and remains the only US shipyard able to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Two Bechtel A1B pressurized-water nuclear reactors power four shafts, part of what naval-technology.com describes as an advanced nuclear propulsion system with a zonal electrical power distribution system⁵ developed by Northrop Grumman; top speed is in excess of 30 knots. The ship’s crew numbers about 2,600, with a complement of 508 officers and 3,789 enlisted sailors¹.

Naval-technology.com describes the island as smaller than the Nimitz class’s and moved further aft, freeing deck space for extended aircraft parking and 18 refueling and rearming stations, served by three deck-edge elevators. The embarked air wing of 75 or more aircraft¹ can include F-35s, Super Hornets, Advanced Hawkeyes, Growlers, MH-60 helicopters and unmanned aircraft⁵; naval-technology.com puts the maximum air wing at up to 90 aircraft, a higher figure than other sources give.

Armament and sensors

For self-defense a Ford-class ship carries Evolved Sea Sparrow and Rolling Airframe missile launchers, plus Phalanx close-in guns and Mk 38 25 mm guns; naval-technology.com adds that the air wing itself carries bombs, air-to-surface missiles, torpedoes and depth charges for strike and anti-submarine work. The lead ship’s island carries a dual-band radar combining X-band and S-band active electronically scanned arrays, a design naval-technology.com notes was originally developed for the Zumwalt-class destroyers⁵. Starting with CVN-79, the Ford class switches to the AN/SPY-6(V)3 radar¹, and the Congressional Research Service confirms CVN-79 brings an updated combat system, SSDS Baseline 12, and the new SPY-6(V)3 radar², a different system from CVN-78’s.

Variants

Differences between hulls show up ship by ship, not as a named series of sub-variants. The clearest change is the radar: CVN-78 alone carries the dual-band radar built for the Zumwalt class, while starting with CVN-79, the Ford class switches to the AN/SPY-6(V)3¹. The Congressional Research Service confirms CVN-79 brings an updated combat system, SSDS Baseline 12, and the new SPY-6(V)3 radar. The Congressional Research Service also tracks a two-ship block buy of CVN-80 and CVN-81, contracted together for an estimated $3.1 billion in savings over buying them separately, and notes that some observers are interested in a similar two-ship block buy for CVN-82 and CVN-83².

Ships in class

The Congressional Research Service’s FY2026 budget materials name six funded or planned hulls. USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) is in active service; USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79) is in sea trials, with delivery expected in March 2027, more than four years later than first scheduled. USS Enterprise (CVN-80) is under construction, delivery expected in July 2030, and USS Doris Miller (CVN-81) is planned, delivery expected in February 2032. Two further hulls are projected but not yet under construction: USS William J. Clinton (CVN-82), with procurement projected for fiscal year 2030, and USS George W. Bush (CVN-83), with procurement projected for fiscal year 2034². Four further, unnamed hulls, CVN-84 through CVN-87¹, are potential additions to the class but are not yet funded.

Service history

USS Gerald R. Ford has carried most of the class’s service history to date (as of 2026). The Navy conducted full-ship shock trials on her, including three shock events of increasing severity from June to August 2021, to test the design’s resistance to battle damage. The Congressional Research Service dates the ship’s initial operational capability to December 2021. In a 262-day deployment covered by the Pentagon’s January 2025 test-office report, the ship’s Advanced Arresting Gear completed 8,725 arrested landings and its weapons elevators logged 11,369 runs², with the crew still dependent on outside technical support to fix hardware and software failures on both systems. USS John F. Kennedy, the class’s second ship, remained in sea trials¹ as of 2026.

Similar classes

The Nimitz class is the preceding US carrier design¹ that the Ford class is succeeding, both nuclear-powered supercarriers. Among foreign navies, the Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth class, the largest warships ever built for the Royal Navy, takes a different approach, operating short take-off and vertical-landing aircraft from a ski-jump deck⁶ rather than the catapults and arresting gear the Ford class uses.