Nichols Martin
Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding division and the U.S. Navy have completed repairs of the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier’s propulsion plant. It redelivered the plant to the U.S. Navy on scheduled after more than a year of maintenance activities under post-shakedown availability, HII said Monday.
In January 2018, the carrier’s propulsion plant exhibited technical issues during tests. HII found that the issue stems from a manufacturing defect of a propulsion train component.
The plant’s on-schedule redelivery on July 22 supports the Navy’s effort to restore USS Gerald R. Ford. HII spent 400K work hours to correct the defect.
“We now enter the transition phase, where our focus shifts from a shipyard production work mindset to a ship’s force operational and maintenance mindset,†said Cmdr. Emily Bassett, the carrier’s reactor officer.
