Construction on the Navy's next Ford-class aircraft carrier, the USS John F. Kennedy, is three-quarters of the way done.

The milestone was reached in mid-April, with the addition of the 827-ton forward section.

The carrier is the second in the class, and the Navy is looking at buying two more.



The USS John F. Kennedy is 75% structurally complete, shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls said on Monday. The Kennedy, CVN 79, is the second of the US Navy's Gerald R. Ford-class advanced nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

Construction on the Kennedy started in February 2011 with the "first cut of steel" ceremony in Newport News. The keel was laid in August 2015, and the carrier hit the 50%-constructed mark in June 2017.

Huntington Ingalls has used a modular-construction approach, bringing smaller sections of ship together into larger chunks, called superlifts. The superlifts are then outfitted with electrical wiring, piping, ventilation, and other equipment, before being hoisted into place.

The 75%-complete mark was reached on April 19, with the positioning of the 827-ton forward section of the carrier's main deck, which contains machinery spaces above the Kennedy's forward diesel generators, the company said in a release. The first piece of the flight deck, which includes command and control spaces, pilot ready rooms, and parts of the advanced arresting gear system, was also installed.

Below, you can see the superlift being dropped into place by the company's 1,157-ton gantry crane.

The recent superlifts mean 341 of the ship's 447 sections are now in place, the company said. The Kennedy, currently in a dry dock, is now 100 feet tall. Once the island and main mast are added, it will reach its full height of 252 feet.

The first two generators for the Kennedy's electromagnetic aircraft launch system, or EMALS, were also recently installed, marking a third important milestone for the construction process.

"We are very proud of the progress we are making on the Kennedy," Lucas Hicks, Newport News' vice president for the CVN 79 program, said in the release. "The ship now is 75% structurally erected and more than 40% complete."

Hicks said improvements over the construction process for the first-in-class USS Ford — like increased pre-outfitting and doing more complex assemblies in the company's shops — would allow the Kennedy to be launched three months earlier than planned.

The Kennedy includes many of the advanced features the Ford was equipped with, among them the advanced arresting gear and EMALS. The Ford, however, lacked one notable feature: urinals.

Newport News Shipbuilding installing the first section of the flight deck on aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy. The unit includes command and control, pilot ready rooms and additional support spaces, a jet-blast deflector, and components of the advanced arresting gear system. Matt Hildreth/Huntington Ignalls

The Ford was delivered to the Navy in June 2017 — two years later than planned — and cost about $12.9 billion, which was 23% more than estimated. Officials from the Navy and Huntington Ignalls have said lessons from the construction of the Ford will be applied to future carriers to control costs.

Hicks told Defense News earlier in April that the Kennedy is scheduled to be christened and launched in November 2019 and delivered to the Navy in June 2022.

In August 2017, Huntington Ingalls completed the "first cut of steel" ceremony for the third Ford-class carrier, the USS Enterprise, CVN 80, and the US Navy is considering buying the Enterprise and the unnamed CVN 81 in a single purchase — part of an effort to reach 355 ships as soon as the 2030s.

A block-buy purchase like that "really enables production," Hicks told Defense News.

"A two-ship buy will enable us to increase our capital throughput, [and] add more facility investment," he said, adding that such a purchase would also send a positive message to shipbuilder's 2,000 suppliers, allowing them to offer "better quality, cheaper products, faster throughput, [and] increase quality across all the systems as a result."