The Navy’s costliest warship finally has all the elevators needed to lift bombs from below its deck so it can deploy on its first operational patrol — more than four and a half years after delivery.
The service has announced that the 11th and final Advanced Weapons Elevator is in place on the $13.3 billion USS Gerald R. Ford and the aircraft carrier is ready for training and operations.
“This is a significant milestone for the Navy, ship and her crew,” Rear Admiral James Downey, the Navy’s program executive officer for aircraft carriers, said in a statement. “We now have the entire system to operate and train with.” He said the service and the prime contractor, Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc., used “hundreds of craftsmen, technicians and engineers, working around the clock —through multiple underway and holiday periods — to get these advanced systems on line and operational.”
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