- The USS Gerald R. Ford is the world’s largest aircraft carrier.
- It is the first of the Ford-class carriers and the most technologically advanced carrier to date.
- The US has sent the carrier toward Israel to deter any potential escalation in the ongoing conflict.
The USS Gerald R. Ford is the US Navy’s newest and largest aircraft carrier — in fact, it’s the world’s largest.
Commissioned in July 2017, it is the first of the Ford-class carriers, which are more technologically advanced than Nimitz-class carriers.
It has an improved hull design and weapons stowage, a new weapons elevator, more space on the flight deck, a new electromagnetic-powered aircraft-launch system, three times the electrical-generation capacity of any previous carrier, and a lot more.
The USS Gerald R. Ford launched on its first deployment in 2023 to the Mediterranean. The carrier and its strike force are en route toward Israel to provide support after an attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas killed 1,400 people.
Israel responded with a series of airstrikes on Gaza and most recently issued an evacuation order over the weekend, ordering 1.1 million people out of northern Gaza within a 24-hour deadline. The counter-attack from Israel has killed nearly 3,000 Palestinian people and injured more than 10,000 in Gaza, according to data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
As of October 10, 2023, the USS Gerald R. Ford and its strike force have arrived in the east Mediterranean Sea to “deter any actor seeking to escalate the situation or widen this war,” according to a statement from the US Central Command.
Take a look inside the supercarrier when it was docked in Virginia’s Naval Station Norfolk in 2017.
Read the full article here
