CVN 78 Gerald R. Ford

On May 21, 2004, Northrop-Grumman Newport News was awarded a three-year $1.4 billion preparation construction contract of CVN 21 aircraft carrier. This contract covers risk reduction, material procurement, design and engineering through fiscal year 2007. Each ship of the class is valued at approximately $8 billion. Construction of the lead ship started in 2007 to be commissioned by the US Navy in 2014. It features an enhanced flight deck, improved weapons movement, a redesigned island, a new nuclear power plant and reduced manning. It is expected that CVN 21 class ships characteristics will ease new technologies insertion workload. The program entered into the system development and demonstration phase in April 2004, and the scope of the program was expanded including three carriers instead of two as planned early and the program total value raising to $31.75 billion. The Raytheon company was selected as the CVN-78's industry lead integrator for warfare systems integration of all onboard weapon systems and electronics operations on April 14, 2005. The CVN-78 aircraft carrier will include Raytheon's Total Ship System Engineering approach to a common enterprise computing environment that maximizes multi-mission capabilities. The CVN 78 to be commissioned in March 2016 will feature the state-of-the-art Dual Band Radar (DBR). These aircraft carriers will operate the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft, E-2D Advanced Hawkeye airborne radar aircraft and the F-35C Lightning II stealth fighter as well as a variety of rotary wing aircraft. Before 2030 this ship will operate the emerging UCLASS unmanned combat aircraft as well as the F/A-XX sixth generation combat aircraft beyond 2035.

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