Do you know I was just thinking, the Ford Class will have a life cycle of 100 years, 50 years in the build and 50 years in the operations, this means the next time something like this happens it will be in 22nd century, what will be the threats then?
Enjoy these pics and many others like them ( Queen Elizabeth Class) because they happen only once a generation
Just shows how hard it must be to design a carrier with the mindset that it will have to meet the challenges of 100 years ahead, to put that into prespective, 100 years ago naval aviation was just taking off!
Well, it is true that the Ford's will be
around for 100 years, but it will not be a hundred years before we see them building their replacement.
It will be just like it is now with the Nimitz class. The USS Nimitz construction was started in 1968, she was launched in 1972, and commissioned in 1975.
Almnost fifty years later, probably in 2016 or so, she will be decommissioned with the 2nd Ford class. But the Nimitz carriers will remain in commission and active for another 40-50 years, so almost 100 years altogether before they are all gone. But here mid-way through, the new ones start coming ob board.
The same will be true with the Ford's. So, I expect in fifty years (and I will be long gone by then) the first replacements for the Ford class, whatever that is going to be, will be already designed and under construction. When you consider that with the Ford class we are very likely going to see laser and rail-gun defenses early on in their relative life...as you say, there is no telling what we will see with the next generation.
They may not be even be ocean going aircraft carriers in the sense that we view them now. Maybe, by then, we will be eneter into the Battlestar Galactica type vessel era, where massive space craft will carry fighters, that will patrol the airspace, the oceans, and near space instead. Who knows?
All we have to do is have a couple of breakthroughs in certain technologies...like inertia/mass dampening, leading to propuslion solutions that make such vessels possible in gravity and in space. Anyhow, the rest of my life will be more than full with what goes on with the Ford class, it's new propulsion, it's new weapons systems, it's new aircraft and airwing.
Heck, a lot of that stuff was considered sci-fi only 20 years ago (rail guns, lasers, UCAVs, etc.). Fifty years from now, perhaps we will see things like inertia dampening becoming reality too.
