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14 billion for a ship and they call it
a Ford!
The Most Expensive Ship Ever Built
The United States is building its next generation of
aircraft carrier, the FORD-class carriers. The U.S. Navy gave us access
to photograph construction of the USS Gerald R. Ford at Newport News
Shipbuilding, Virginia.
The numbers behind the USS Gerald R. Ford are impressive; about $14
billion in total cost, 224 million pounds, about 25 stories high, 1,106
feet long, and 250 feet wide. But the sheer enormity of the ship and
construction operation is hard to grasp until you’re nearly
face-to-metal with the massive military beast.
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At Newport News Shipbuilding the power of new
technology and 100 years of carrier design is built into every facet of
the new ship. The Ford will handle up to 220 takeoffs and landings from
its deck every day. Part of that quick turnaround is because, when
aircraft like the new F-35 return for maintenance, the plane’s network
will already have alerted ground crews to what’s needed so they can get
the aircraft on its way faster than ever before. The new FORD-class
aircraft carrier will be the largest, most lethal ship ever when it
joins the US fleet in 2016.
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The scope of the ship’s construction is hard to
fathom, but that chain is made up of links weighing 360-pounds each.
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It’s the weight of the chains that immobilize the 224
million pound carrier, not the anchors like those seen here on the USS
Abraham Lincoln.
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All that weight starts up here in the “Bulbous Bow”
that displaces the ship’s center of gravity, allowing her to cruise on
just the energy required for a much smaller ship.
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This bow alone is more than three stories tall and
weighs 116,000 pounds.
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With its nuclear power plant and extraordinary size,
the Ford is manufactured only here at Newport News Shipbuilding, VA.
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Using “Big Blue”, the largest crane in the Western
Hemisphere, towering 235 feet above the shipyard.
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Big Blue can lift nearly 2.5 million pounds at a time
and is essential for assembling the new class of ship.
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