USS Gerald R. Ford

USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) is an aircraft carrier for the United States Navy and the lead ship of her class. The ship is named after the 38th President of the United States, Gerald Ford, whose World War II naval service included combat duty aboard the light aircraft carrier in the Pacific Theater. Construction began on 11 August 2005, when Northrop Grumman held a ceremonial steel cut for a 15-ton plate that forms part of a side shell unit of the carrier. The keel of Gerald R. Ford was laid down on 13 November 2009. She was christened on 9 November 2013. Gerald R. Ford entered the fleet replacing the decommissioned , which ended her 51 years of active service in December 2012. Originally scheduled for delivery in 2015, Gerald R. Ford was delivered to the Navy on 31 May 2017 and formally commissioned by President Donald Trump on 22 July 2017. Her first deployment departed 4 October 2022. , she is the world's largest aircraft carrier, and the largest warship ever constructed. Naming In 2006, while Gerald Ford was still alive, Senator John Warner of Virginia proposed to amend a 2007 defense-spending bill to declare that CVN-78 "shall be named the USS Gerald Ford." The final version, signed by President George W. Bush on 17 October 2006, declared only that it "is the sense of Congress that ... CVN-78 should be named the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford." Since such "sense of" language is typically non-binding and does not carry the force of law, the Navy was not required to name the ship after Ford.