The World's Largest Aircraft Carrier

How much does the worlds largest aircraft carrier cost?

This is the USS Gerald R Ford, one of mankind's greatest engineering achievements. This thing weighs a whopping 100,000 tonnes and can fit a barmy 90 aircraft on its 337m by 78m flight deck. That’s the equivalent of 3.7 football pitches long.

That makes it a big target so to defend itself it houses 3 phalanx CIWS capable of firing 75 rounds a second, deleting any aircraft or missiles from as far as 1.75miles away.

2 x RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile Launchers designed to take out supersonic anti ship missiles, 2 further RIM-116 RAM systems, 4x Mk 38 26mm Machine Gun Systems and lastly 4x M2 50Cal Machine Guns.

Not to mention it moves in a carrier strike group with 2 guided missile cruisers, 2 anti aircraft warships and 1-2 anti submarine destroyers or figates.

Yeah safe to say this thing is as untouchable as it gets. However, you could try and take it out when it’s refueling, all you’d have to do is wait 25 years. Thats because it’s powered by 2 pressurized water nuclear reactors meaning it has unlimited range.

To make all of this happen the carrier houses over 4,200 personnel.

So how much does this monster cost?

Well just the material and labor cost comes to a total of $12.8 Billion, then you can add a further $4.6 Billion in Research and development. And another $780 Million for sea trials but we still aren’t done because on top of this the carrier has an operating cost of $1.18 Billion a year and a maintenance cost of $2-$4 Billion every 32 months.

So all in all, by the time the carrier was fully deployed, the total bill will came to around $27.5 Billion. For that price you could buy 7 HMS Queen Elizabeth’s, Britain’s largest aircraft carrier.