USS Gerald Ford
With the flight deck and air traffic control center now fully qualified, Ford is eligible to perform carrier qualifications for new pilots and other missions to support the fleet. The news release notes that “[Ford] is now ready to give back to the fleet, as the only carrier qualification asset regularly available on the east coast this year.”
The certification comes a day after Ford announced it had recovered its 1,000th aircraft with its Advanced Arrest Gear system and launched its 1,000th aircraft from the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) catapults, two and a half years after the first of each took place on July 28, 2017.
