Oil Tanker-Turned-Aircraft Carrier Is Key to American Naval Expansion -- War Is Boring
Giant dock ship can carry jump jets, copters, hovercraft—and for cheap
On Oct. 11 the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford, the largest warship ever built—and the most expensive—was floated for the first time at Huntington Ingalls’ shipyard in Newport News, Virginia. The 1,100-foot-long Ford, under construction since 2009 at a cost of $14 billion, boasts a new electromagnetic catapult and facilities for more than 70 warplanes and helicopters, including next-generation drones and stealth fighters still in development.
The sheer awe attending Ford’s progress towards front-line service, slated for 2016, has obscured a less visually impressive but arguably more important milestone for the world’s leading maritime force. On Sept. 15, shipyard workers at General Dynamics’ National Steel and Shipbuilding Company in San Diego floated the John Glenn, the second example of a new but little-known class of dock ship called a “mobile landing platform.”
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My Comment: You get what you pay for .... and while this "aircraft carrier" will not have the firepower and reach of the Ford Class aircraft carriers .... they are big, useful, practical, and cheaper.
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