WT: President Trump commissioned the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford Saturday, celebrating the newest symbol of American military might as he called on Congress to approve a budget with a big increase in defense spending.
Addressing an audience of dignitaries and sailors on the $12.9-billion nuclear-powered carrier at the Naval Air Station in Norfolk, Virginia, Mr. Trump said the new warship will deliver an unmistakable message to America’s allies and enemies. more here
Unlikely name for your flagship. Hope it’s not accident prone.
Just doing a rewind of Chevy Chase doing Gerald Ford Christmas in Whitehouse from an old SNL
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/christmas-eve-at-the-white-house/n8620?snl=1
US Navy ships are known by nicknames, particularly AC carriers.
USS Enterprise – Big E
USS Teddy Roosevelt – Big Stick
USS Kitty Hawk – Battle Cat – Cocky Hawk
Hope they don’t use Stumble Bum for the Ford.
Thanks to John McStain, the USS Forrestal is forever known as Forrest Fire.
Good old “Feed Control Watch”. Brings back nightmares of drill team and dual downs with brand new sailors…. here’s hoping they got rid of the “Hagen Cabinet”.
She may be a new class but watch stations rarely change. May she have a long and prestigious life.
This shipe was accepted even with major problems (it can’t fight), The innovative launch and arresting gear doesn’t work and isn’t installed and the navy and contracters are frantically working to put old style gear in. As well the cutting edge sensors don’t work and won’t be added, I don’t believe the tests to determine it’s seaworthy and battleworthy tests have been done yet and it’s going to be a dock queen for quite some time. I’ve put in a link to a site that’s pretty good about all things navy and here’s one of the notes on the acceptance of the Ford. There are 20 articles about the Ford and Navy purchase and acceptance.
http://navy-matters.blogspot.ca/2017/06/navy-accepts-incomplete-and-damaged-ford.html
Open the door I served on the USS Kitty Hawk CV 63 and I never heard it called the Cocky Hawk. The Shitty Hawk yes, just plain Hawk and when we were drunk (some buddies and myself) in Pearl Harbor we sang we all live on a gray piece of shit to the tune of Yellow Submarine.
Once seaworthy(?) will it bump into a lot of things?
@geoff, brown shoe opinions don’t count.
It was called Shitty Kitty too.
It was still a CVA when I served, got the hat to prove it.
She’s glorious! Now fix her to work properly so she can fight our enemies!!!;
I’m was not a brown shoe. ship’s company sailors and the CAG (carrier air group) sailors really didn’t like each other. We had two separate but equal missions, they took care of the ship we took care of the planes on the flight deck and the hangar deck below. I was in VF-114 an F-4 fighter squadron out of NAS Miramar that was attached to the Kitty Hawk as part of the Air group. I was a plane captain on F-4 Phantoms. They had probably just moved the Hawk from being a CVA (attack carrier) to a regular aircraft carrier CV about 1972 during it’s last official tour of duty during the Vietnam war. I was on board during the 73-74 cruise and the 75 cruise before I got out of the Navy in Aug. 1975.