The USS Gerald R. Ford, the first of the US Navy’s newest generation of aircraft carriers and the largest and most expensive warship ever built, is ready to begin her maiden deployment after years of delay and cost overruns.
The Ford’s keel was laid in 2009 and was estimated to cost $10.49 billion. It ultimately cost $13.316 billion.
The ship was delivered to the Navy in 2017, despite several critical ship’s systems not being operational. As of 2020, only five of eleven of the Advanced Weapons Elevators that lift munitions to the flight deck actually worked.