On this episode of the DefAero Report Daily Podcast, sponsored by Bell, our guests are Defense & Aerospace Report’s own contributing editor Christopher P. Cavas and Chris Servello, a founder of Provision Advisors (and Defense and Aerospace team member)on the Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday’s visit to San Diego and the investigations into the fire on USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6).
“The flames are out but the heat is still there,” Rear Adm. Philip Sobeck told reporters Thursday afternoon in San Diego. “We’re going space by space into every compartment checking for hotspots.”
James “Hondo” Geurts, top acquisition official for the US Navy and Marine Corps, is working to coordinate government and industry efforts to keep the nation’s industrial base healthy and functioning during the coronavirus pandemic.
The aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) has been at sea one of every two days since returning to service in October, Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly said Tuesday, continuing evidence that the ship is meeting or exceeding expectations.
The waterfront in this Navy town is always bristling with warships carrying guns, missiles and powerful electronic systems. But a new feature appeared recently in the form of laser weapons mounted aboard two ships based here. And more lasers are coming.
Three Carrier Strike Groups Now Deployed By Christopher P. Cavas WASHINGTON With the announcement today…
Onboard the USS Ford- The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) represents many firsts – new design, new electrical system, new propulsion plant, new aircraft launch and recovery system, new radars, new elevators and more. That the world’s most expensive warship ever built has teething troubles is well known, and that’s putting it mildly. During the Ford’s first operational period between mid-2017 and mid-2018 the carrier spent only 81 days at sea, and ten times had to cut short testing periods to come home with a serious problem. The Navy and its contractors were exceptionally mum about the detailed nature of many of those problems, stung by a never-ending stream of criticism from Congress and a host of media, commentators and analysts.
WASHINGTON – The US Navy’s top acquisition official was upbeat as he met with media Monday in his Pentagon office. He was just back after a quick trip to the long-troubled aircraft carrier Gerald R Ford (CVN 78), now underway off the Virginia coast on sea trials after 15 months in a shipyard.
The aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) is the most expensive ship ever built by the US government, and quite possibly by any government. No one knows the true price given the various computational ways to figure the costs of design and development of the ship and its various systems, building the carrier and buying thousands of installed systems and components, and getting all those systems to work as intended. The final bill isn’t in, but all things considered, it is safe to say it will be somewhere north of $15 billion.