US Navy's Newest Aircraft Carrier: CVN 78

Hi and welcome aboard USS Gerald R. Ford, the U.S. Navy's newest and most advanced aircraft carrier. We are currently sailing off the coast of France. We got here with a C2, we got to experience an AAG, Advanced Arresting Gear recovery, and later on, I'll get to experience an EMALS launch. But first, let's hear from some of the carrier's top officers on board. The Vice Commander of the U.S. 2nd Fleet, the Commander of the Carrier Strike Group, as well as the Ship's Commander. Good morning. Welcome aboard USS Gerald R. Ford, the most capable and most modern aircraft carrier in the U.S. Navy. I'm Lt. Col. David Patchell, I'm Canadian, and I'm the 2nd Fleet's Second Commander. I'm going to take questions in English today. So, Rear Admiral David Patchell, I'm the Canadian Officer and Vice Commander, U.S. 2nd Fleet. And 2nd Fleet is the U.S. numbered fleet responsible for overseeing this inaugural Gerald R. Ford deployment. And this is an important deployment. It's showcasing the first new class of carrier introduced in the United States Navy in over 40 years. And not only that, but we've had the opportunity to integrate allies and partners right across the Atlantic. Now, demonstrating the United States and the Allied commitment to NATO, and demonstrating the ability to increase maritime interoperability at sea. And not only that, but reinforcing that transatlantic link, that important bridge between North America and Europe. So, Admiral Huffman will give us some opening comments, and then we're happy to take any questions. Thank you, sir. Good morning, I am Rear Admiral Greg Huffman. I am the Commander of the Gerald R. Ford Strike Group. Welcome aboard the Gerald R. Ford. It is wonderful to have you out here. We are out here embarked on our inaugural deployment of the Gerald R. Ford Strike Group. This is an opportunity for us to embark a complete staff, a strike group staff, an air wing, a destroyer squadron staff, all of our strike group assets, which include a cruiser and destroyers, and then work with allies and partners. We've been embarked for several months now, operating off of the east coast of the United States, and now over off the coast of Europe. And it has been really a phenomenal opportunity for us to explore the capabilities of the Gerald R. Ford, bring it into a strike group environment, and then fundamentally operate with allies and partners from the very beginning. So, it's called Exercise Silent Wolverine. It involves ships from seven different nations. So, from Canada, Denmark, France, Spain, the Netherlands, United States, and Germany, all working together to increase maritime interoperability. So, as I mentioned, showcasing the new carrier. For a lot of the NATO nations, having the opportunity to work with the carrier is significant, let alone a brand new carrier like the Ford. So, this was a fantastic opportunity for us to explore the capabilities of the Ford as part of a strike group, but then also to work with those allies and partners and integrate them completely into the strike group concept. So, we were able to change roles and responsibilities within the strike group, allowing each of the allies to take on a different role in terms of air defense or anti-surface warfare, those type of things, and then explore all of the capabilities that the Ford class brings and then working with those allies and partners from the very beginning. So, it was a really fantastic exercise for us. So, the Ford has 23 new technologies. Some of the most prominent ones are the radar system that we have on board, which is different from the Nimitz class. It's more along the lines of an Aegis type of radar system. So, that brings different capabilities. And when we marry that with our allies and partners, it gives us the opportunity to look at how we can leverage what the Ford class brings and compare that with what the Nimitz class had and then maximize all of those efficiencies. That's one prominent example, I think, especially as we work with our allies and how they're going to leverage their equipment with our equipment. Absolutely impressed with the capability here on board Ford, including the elevators. Just phenomenal. And even more than that, impressed with the crew. This is a motivated crew. They are ready to respond. They are learning. I mean, they are learning a new carrier each and every day and improving. But just the incredible morale here on board the Ford has been impressive from a 2nd Fleet perspective. Yeah, I would say, I know the weapons elevators have been the topic of a lot of discussion recently over the last couple of years. They performed fantastically. We had zero issues with those elevators. And I think if you were to talk to the ordnance handling crew, they would say that they are incredibly impressed with what they have. They really like the new setup. And it's very much more efficient than what they're used to in previous classes of ships. So overall, I'd say that is a fantastic story and something that's very, very positive. So I would say overall, in the life of the ship, we've done well over 10,000 launches and recoveries on board. So for this particular deployment, I couldn't say exactly how many we did, but we were able to execute a full range of operations in our normal fashion of cyclic operations where we practiced how we were going to go and employ the ship. And we had very few issues at all with the EMALS. So it's very much a, it's still a work in progress and we're getting better at it and making improvements all the time, but it is absolutely performing where we need it to be. I'll just say one sort of closing comment then is, I've had the opportunity to visit a number of the Allied ships over the course of the week and impressed with the ship's capabilities, impressed with the sailors, and impressed with the camaraderie amongst all the different NATO nations who are out here. So, you know, NATO's in good hands. From a maritime perspective, it is clear that we are building capability, maintaining capability, and there's just that camaraderie at sea amongst mariners ready to support NATO. So I'm now with Siri. He's a shooter on board the USS Gerald R. Ford. He operates the famous EMALS electromagnetic launch system. So Siri, hi, thanks for welcoming us on board. Hi, I appreciate you coming. It's been awesome having you guys out here. Thank you very much. So you're in charge of operating the EMALS. You're basically the shooter of the aircraft on board. Yes, sir. What does EMALS bring compared to the old steam catapults? EMALS allows us to configure each launch a little bit differently. It's a lot easier on the aircraft. We can bring it up to speed a lot slower to put less wear and tear on the aircraft. It also gets rid of steam so that we're able to rely on electricity a lot more. So EMALS has, at one point when we did our Friends and Family Day cruise, we had about 10,000 launches. It's been a few months since that, so we definitely have a lot more in, but we're at least above 10,000 launches. And you have four catapults on board, Ford? Yes, four catapults. And in terms of maintenance on board, are you getting up to speed? Are you good at maintaining the system on board? Is it reliable nowadays, the EMALS? It's a slow process, but we're getting there. I'll tell you from just being out this month and a half, we've gotten a lot more efficient in fixing our gear, and we're getting faster and better at it. And the French, for their future aircraft carrier program, known as the PANG, so they are looking at EMALS as well. They're likely going to procure it. Is that the way to go, in your opinion, for future naval air operations? That's not something that I can really answer, but I can tell you that it's working well for us. And in the future, we're definitely going to see more of this on our future carriers. So, probably. All right, sir. Cheers. Thank you very much. Yes, sir. Thank you.