The U.S. Navy has amassed more than 60,000 lessons learned from the construction of its first Ford-class aircraft carrier, and that information is helping to streamline the production of subsequent carriers, according to a program official.
The lessons from the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) range from “an understanding of the materials required to build the ship, which lets us go buy those materials more effectively and efficiently,” to “changes in the way the shops are made up,” said Capt. Doug Oglesby, program manager for CVN-79 and CVN-80. Another example of lessons learned involves discovering it is more efficient to install pieces in a different order than originally planned.
The USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79), which is 27 percent complete, is requiring 18 percent fewer production man hours than Ford, Oglesby said Feb. 15 at an American Society of Naval Engineers (ASNE) symposium in Arlington, Va. The USS Enterprise (CVN-80), which begins construction in 2018, is targeted to achieve an additional reduction of 8 percent.
CVN-78 is 99 percent complete at Huntington Ingalls Industries [HII] Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia and has about 2,500 sailors living aboard it, said Ye-Ling Wang, deputy program manager for future aircraft carriers. The carrier is expected to begin sea trials in March and be delivered to the Navy in April.
Before those sea trials can begin, the Navy has to make certain that various ship systems are working well and that the crew is proficient to operate them, Wang told a symposium audience. That equipment includes communication and navigation systems, the propulsion plant, ship handling, damage control and habitation.
Vice Adm. Thomas Moore, head of Naval Sea Systems Command, said the Navy has “worked our way through” problems that surfaced last year with the main turbine generators on CVN-78. The generators produce electricity for the ship.
The carrier has “not been without her challenges, but we are building high-powered machines and things on a scale that we have never built before,” Moore told a symposium audience. “Ford’s going to be a great ship, and she’s right on the precipice of getting delivered. I look forward to getting her out to sea.”