Newport News Shipbuilding

It really is a leap when you jump off.

I spent 25 years building nuclear-powered aircraft carriers at Newport News Shipbuilding.

And then I left and joined my wife's woman-owned small business, Reed Integration, Inc., and helped her grow it to a multimillion-dollar government consulting business.

She's doing really well, by the way.

all of the blue water soviet navy was built in the mykolaiv shipyard in in ukraine and i'm not just talking about people who actually could weld i'm talking about naval architects i'm talking about the 800 pound brains that know how to design blue water guided missile cruisers okay What's it also take to make a Blue Water Navy? It takes hundreds of billions of dollars, right? It takes skilled shipyards.

It takes an economic system that can produce that surplus at a government level, get those funds more or less intact into some place like Newport News Shipbuilding.

where all of that money is going to go into building an aircraft carrier.

And all we need to do is look at the Admiral Kustinov, that fire trap that they've already put $2 billion into, and it doesn't even float.

The limiting factor is not propulsion, it's the crew.

Abraham Lincoln was laid down at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia in November of 1984, launched in February of 1988, and commissioned in November of 1989, named for the 16th president over her service life.

She has deployed to the Persian Gulf multiple times, operated extensively in the Pacific, and in May of 2003 became the backdrop for one of the more photographed political moments of the post-September 11th era.

That was the mission accomplished speech.

This was really, really frustrating.

So when 9-11 happened, I was in Newport News Shipbuilding building the USS Ronald Reagan.

Brand new carrier.

We were still building it.

I think it's a disgrace.

Um, I was actually at Newport News Shipbuilding when they did the first weld, uh, on the hull, uh, which is sort of a ceremonial, um, naming of the ship and, and starting off the construction for the Dorie Miller, and I think it was really a great, you know, moment of, of pride to represent the people who served in our military, especially in a time when they didn't have the same opportunities as everyone else in the military, were not really recognized in the same way for their service, and Dorie Miller was heroic.

Um, he, you know, risked his own life after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

He saved other people.

That job took thousands of men, more nearly 5,000 workers on the ship itself from 40 different trades to meet her production schedule

As the Forrestal took shape in Newport News Shipbuilding company's Dry Dock 11, some slightly unexpected features were installed

Through access openings left clear in the hull, her powerful steam turbines and reduction gears were lowered, the giant boilers too, eight of them

Back in the 1950s, big new cargo ships were usually built with diesel engines, but this enormous modern Navy ship was being built with a more powerful but much less efficient oil powered steam engine.

Sadly, this wasn't an isolated incident.

Around the same time two more fires were sparked by similar technical issues on two other ships and more sailors were killed.

Something clearly needed to change, so when it was time for the team at the Newport News Shipbuilding company to build the next generation of aircraft carriers, significant changes were made to improve the safety of the crew

The world's largest most expensive warship, USS Nimitz, a brand new billion dollar giant slipping powerfully across the North Sea

They're conventionally powered.

Those shipyards aren't certified to build nuclear-powered ships, so the final assembly would take place at Newport News Shipbuilding.

Now, if that sounds familiar, it's because that's where they're also building the Ford-class carrier, as well as some of the subs.

As CBO put it, quote, Newport News Shipbuilding is behind schedule on constructing three aircraft carriers as well as many submarines.

Adding the final assembly of a nuclear-powered battleship to the shipyard's workload could lengthen the delays for those programs in addition to delaying the construction of the battleship itself, end quote.

At the end of the day, they can build this if they want to, but not without increasing costs and delaying shipbuilding across Navy programs.

This Week.

President Trump on August 13th issued a National Security Presidential Memorandum that sets out several initiatives, including development of a plan to replace the aircraft launch system and weapons elevators on the new aircraft carrier Doris Miller CVN-81, now under construction at HII's Newport News Shipbuilding.

The directive does not affect systems already installed on the carriers Gerald R. Ford, John F. Kennedy or Enterprise.

Trump has long stated his objection to the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, or EMALS, installed on those carriers, as well as to the advanced weapons elevators on those ships.