USS Enterprise CVN-80 – History of the U.S. Navy’s Third Ford-Class Nuclear Supercarrier & Navy Decals
USS Enterprise CVN-80 – History, Service Record & Navy Decals
The USS Enterprise (CVN-80) is the third ship of the Gerald R. Ford class of nuclear-powered supercarriers and the ninth American naval vessel to bear the most honored name in the history of the United States Navy — a name that stretches from the Revolutionary War sloop that captured the British armed schooner Maria on Lake Champlain in 1775 through the World War II carrier that became “The Big E” and the most decorated American warship of that conflict, through the pioneering nuclear carrier CVAN-65/CVN-65 that proved the concept of nuclear propulsion in surface warships and served for 51 years, to CVN-80, which carries the Enterprise name into the Ford-class era and the second half of the 21st century. Currently under construction at Newport News Shipbuilding in Newport News, Virginia, CVN-80 represents the third ship of the class that is revolutionizing American carrier aviation, incorporating the full suite of Ford-class technologies — the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EALS), Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG), dual-band radar, and dramatically increased electrical generation capacity — while benefiting from the accumulated construction and operational lessons of both USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) and USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79). As the ninth Enterprise, CVN-80 carries a legacy that is unique in the annals of American naval history — a name that has been present at virtually every defining moment of American naval warfare from the Revolution through the nuclear age, and that will be present at whatever defining moments the 21st century’s second half presents.
The Enterprise Name – Nine Ships, 250 Years of American Naval History
No name in the United States Navy’s history carries the weight of operational significance, the depth of tradition, and the breadth of historical association that “Enterprise” carries — a name that has been borne by American naval vessels continuously, with only brief gaps, since the first year of the Revolutionary War, and that has been present at more defining moments of American naval history than any other name in the service’s tradition.
The first Enterprise — a British sloop captured on Lake Champlain in May 1775 and commissioned into American service — served in Benedict Arnold’s Lake Champlain fleet at the Battle of Valcour Island in October 1776, the engagement in which Arnold’s improvised fleet fought the British to a costly draw, delaying the British advance down the Champlain-Hudson corridor and buying the time that made the American victory at Saratoga in 1777 — the turning point of the Revolutionary War — possible.
Through the intervening centuries, successive ships named Enterprise served in the Quasi-War with France, the War of 1812, the Civil War, and both World Wars, building a continuous tradition of distinguished service that made the name the most honored in the Navy’s lexicon. But it was the sixth Enterprise — the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6), commissioned in 1938 and decommissioned in 1947 — that elevated the name to its supreme place in American naval tradition. CV-6 was present at nearly every major naval engagement of the Pacific War, from Pearl Harbor through the Battle of Midway, the Guadalcanal campaign, the Battle of the Philippine Sea, and the Battle of Leyte Gulf, earning 20 battle stars — more than any other American warship of World War II — and the nickname “The Big E” that subsequent Enterprise carriers have inherited. CV-6 was the most decorated American warship of World War II and remains one of the most celebrated ships in the history of the United States Navy.
The eighth Enterprise — USS Enterprise (CVAN-65/CVN-65), the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, commissioned in 1961 and decommissioned in 2017 after 51 years of service — proved the nuclear carrier concept in operational service, circumnavigated the globe on nuclear power alone as part of Operation Sea Orbit in 1964, fought in Vietnam, and served through September 11 and the Global War on Terror before her decommissioning made her the longest-serving American carrier in history. The gap between CVN-65’s decommissioning in 2017 and CVN-80’s expected commissioning represents the longest period in the modern Navy’s history without an Enterprise in service — a gap that will end when CVN-80 commissions and the most honored name in the Navy’s tradition returns to the active fleet.
Design – Third Ford-Class Nuclear Supercarrier
USS Enterprise CVN-80 is being designed and constructed as the third ship of the Gerald R. Ford class, incorporating the full range of lessons learned during the design, construction, and early service of both CVN-78 and CVN-79. The construction of CVN-80 has benefited from the most extensive build-to package ever developed for an American aircraft carrier — the accumulated engineering knowledge from two previous Ford-class ships allowing Newport News Shipbuilding to streamline the construction process, reduce the labor hours required per unit of ship completed, and deliver a more refined and more reliable ship than either of her predecessors at commissioning.
Like her Ford-class sisters, CVN-80 is powered by two nuclear reactors driving four propeller shafts at speeds exceeding 30 knots, featuring the EALS electromagnetic catapult system, the Advanced Arresting Gear, the dual-band radar, the redesigned island positioned further aft than on Nimitz-class carriers, and the dramatically increased electrical generation capacity that positions the Ford class to accommodate directed-energy weapons and advanced electronic warfare systems as they mature. The increased electrical capacity of the Ford class — approximately three times the generating capacity of the Nimitz class — is the feature that most fundamentally distinguishes the Ford class from its predecessor and that will become most consequential as the directed-energy weapons and advanced electronic systems of the mid-21st century enter fleet service.
CVN-80 is also being built as part of a two-carrier contract with CVN-81 (USS Doris Miller) — a procurement strategy that reduces the per-ship cost of Ford-class construction by allowing Newport News to maintain a more efficient and more stable production workforce and supply chain across the construction of both ships simultaneously. The two-carrier contract represents a return to the block-buy procurement strategies that had proven cost-effective in earlier American carrier construction programs and reflects the Navy’s commitment to sustaining the industrial base required to build and maintain the nuclear carrier fleet at an affordable cost. She was constructed at Newport News Shipbuilding with her keel laid down on October 21, 2017, and she is expected to commission in the mid-2020s.
The Enterprise Legacy and CVN-80
The naming of CVN-80 as Enterprise was announced by the Secretary of the Navy in January 2012, ending years of speculation about whether the name would be continued in the Ford-class fleet and ensuring that the most honored name in the Navy’s tradition would remain in the active fleet through at least the 2070s. The announcement was greeted with widespread enthusiasm by the naval community and by the veterans of previous Enterprise carriers — above all, by the dwindling number of CV-6 veterans and the larger community of CVN-65 veterans for whom the Enterprise name carried profound personal significance.
The decision to name CVN-80 Enterprise rather than a presidential name — the naming convention that had dominated American carrier nomenclature since the 1950s — reflected the Navy’s recognition that some names transcend the conventions of a particular era and belong to the permanent tradition of the service. “Enterprise” is such a name: a name that has meant American naval excellence, American naval courage, and American naval power for 250 years, and that will continue to mean those things as long as the United States Navy sails.
Expected Commissioning and Future Service
USS Enterprise CVN-80 is expected to commission in the mid-2020s, entering service as one of the most capable warships ever built and beginning a service life that will extend well into the second half of the 21st century. As an Atlantic Fleet carrier, she is expected to be homeported at Norfolk, Virginia, from which she will conduct the full range of Atlantic Fleet carrier missions: Mediterranean deployments with the Sixth Fleet sustaining NATO deterrence, Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea deployments sustaining American military presence in the Middle East, and the global presence operations that American carrier power uniquely enables.
The Ford-class technologies that CVN-80 incorporates — proven through the operational experience of CVN-78 and refined through the construction lessons of CVN-79 — will give her air wing the highest sortie generation rate of any carrier in history, making her the most effective instrument of American naval strike power ever put to sea. Her dramatically increased electrical generation capacity will accommodate the directed-energy weapons — high-energy lasers, high-power microwave systems, railguns — that are expected to transform naval combat in the coming decades, positioning CVN-80 to remain at the cutting edge of naval warfare technology throughout the decades of her service life.
Legacy – The Big E Returns
For the future generations of sailors and naval aviators who will serve aboard USS Enterprise CVN-80 through the decades of her service life — the commissioning crews who will bring the ninth Enterprise into operational readiness and carry the most honored name in the Navy’s tradition back to the active fleet, the Mediterranean and global deployment veterans who will sustain American deterrence and strike capability in whatever strategic environment the second half of the 21st century presents, and the future aviators who will fly from her deck in aircraft that may themselves be as revolutionary relative to the F/A-18 Super Hornet as the Super Hornet was relative to the F6F Hellcat — she represents both the continuation of the longest and most distinguished naming tradition in American naval history and the forward edge of the most capable carrier aviation force the world has ever seen.
Nine ships. 250 years. One name that has meant American naval excellence from the lakes of the Revolution to the Pacific atolls of World War II to the nuclear age to the Ford-class era. Enterprise: the name that belongs to the Navy’s past, its present, and its future. CVN-80 will ensure that it belongs to whatever the next 50 years of American naval history bring as well. The Big E returns.
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