Huntington Ingalls Industries [HII] finished installing the last piece of the future aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy
’s (CVN-79) flight deck in another construction milestone, the company said Thursday.
CVN-79 will be the second of the new Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers being built by HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia.
The company installed the upper bow section of the ship as one of the last superlifts placed on the ship. Superlifts are large steel structural units built by HII that are larger and more complete than previous pieces when built on the carrier. It underscored it benefited from using digital technology, like visual work instructions, to install piping in the upper bow on the final assembly platen, instead of on the ship.
“The upper bow is the last superlift that completes the ship’s primary hull. This milestone is testament to the significant build strategy changes we have made—and to the men and women of Newport News Shipbuilding who do what no one else in the world can do,” Mike Butler, Newport News’ CVN 79 program director, said in a statement.
This superlift took 18 months to build and weighed 780 tons.
HII said CVN-79 is in the early stages of its testing program and is planned to launch and be christened in the fourth quarter of this year.
Previously, in May HII lowered the carrier’s 56 feet by 33 feet island onto the ship. That milestone marked the ship as over 90 percent structurally complete (Defense Daily, May 31).
Also, earlier in May, the program manager for CVN 79/80/81, Capt. Philip Malone, said they had executed 57 percent of total CVN-79 progress by March under the detail design and construction contract. Malone said Kennedy is on track to launch into the water in November, two and a half to three months earlier than the initial build plan (Defense Daily, May 7).