Huntington Ingalls Industries announced yesterday that its Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS) division has reached 90 percent structural completion in the building of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78).
Shipbuilders successfully added three units to the ship last week. Two of the units were sponsons, which are structures that project from the side of the aircraft carrier hull and provide the space needed for flight deck operations. One of the sponsons was 140 feet long and weighed 391 metric tons, making it one of the largest sponsons to be erected. In addition, shipbuilders installed 3 million feet of cable of the estimated total 10 million feet to be installed.