A slower-than-expected testing pace has delayed sea trials of the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), the first of the Navy’s newest class of aircraft carriers, by at least six to eight weeks, the service said on Tuesday evening.
“The Navy has identified a slight deterioration in the required progress on the CVN-78 shipboard test program. As a result, the sea trial schedule will be delayed about six to eight weeks. The exact impact on ship delivery will be determined based on the results of sea trials,” said Navy spokeswoman Cmdr. Thurraya Kent in a statement.
The cause of the delay is that “the pace of completing testing for the large volume of new and complex systems on Ford has been slower than planned,” she said in an email to Defense Daily on Wednesday.
Huntington Ingalls Industries [HII] Newport News Shipbuilding was scheduled to deliver the Ford on March 31, 2016. A new delivery date has not been set.
Any work associated with the schedule delay is being managed below the $12.88 billion cost cap, Kent said. The ship is 93 percent complete.
So far, the service has completed testing of the Ford’s new aircraft launching system, the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System made by General Atomics, on the bow catapults and is set to wrap up testing on the waist catapults this November, she said. Dual Band Radar testing is in process, including the initial energization of the Multifunction Radar/Volume Search Radar array faces. The propulsion plants also are preparing for critical testing.
The Ford-class has been lambasted by critics for schedule delays and cost increases caused in part by some of the novel technologies being integrated onto the ship.
Earlier this month, Rear Adm. Jeffrey A. Harley, the assistant deputy chief of naval operations for operations, plans and strategy (OPNAV N3/5B), said that the Pentagon’s plan to add shock trials to the Ford’s test plan could push out its first deployment by as much as two years (Defense Daily, Sept. 10).
The Navy originally had not planned to conduct shock trials until the second ship of the Ford class, the USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79). However, Defense Department acquisition chief Frank Kendall in August sent a memo directing the service to go forward with those tests on the Ford.
The Senate Armed Services Committee will have the opportunity to question Navy officials about the vessel’s testing and deployment schedule during an Oct. 1 hearing on the program. Its chairman, John McCain (R-Ariz.), has been one of the Ford‘s harshest critics. SASC’s version of the fiscal year 2016 defense authorization bill includes language that would restrict funding for the Kennedy unless the Ford undergoes shock trials by September 2017.