U.S. Navy’s USS Gerald R. Ford Prepares for 1st Deployment After Inaugural Planned Incremental Availability

Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) announced today that the company’s Newport News Shipbuilding division completed the first planned incremental availability (PIA) for the U.S. Navy’s aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78).

Gerald R. Ford is the first ship in a new class of aircraft carriers that incorporates 23 new technologies, designed to support the Navy’s air wing of the future.

Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers incorporate new technologies such as electromagnetic catapults and weapons elevators, a redesigned flight deck and island, and more than twice the electrical capacity of Nimitz-class carriers.

The PIA involved six months of modernization and maintenance work to ensure Gerald R. Ford has the most current upgrades prior to the carrier’s maiden deployment. The ship entered the PIA in September 2021 after completing full ship shock trials and a successful post-delivery test and trials period.

Three other Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers are currently under construction at Newport News Shipbuilding. They include John F. Kennedy, Enterprise (CVN 80) and Doris Miller (CVN 81). In addition, Newport News Shipbuilding is conducting mid-life refueling complex overhauls on two Nimitz-class aircraft carriers – USS George Washington (CVN 73) and USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74). These overhauls will extend the service life for each platform by another 25 years, ensuring the Navy is positioned to deploy a fleet of aircraft carriers ready to support national security requirements.