This is the world’s largest warship which is now in Oslo

It is taller than Oslo City Hall, has space for all Norwegian fighter jets and costs the equivalent of two Norwegian defense budgets. On Wednesday, the aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford will arrive in Norway.

On Wednesday morning, the world’s largest warship, the American USS Gerald Ford, was on its way into the Oslo Fjord.

It is named after Gerald Ford, who was a Republican politician and President of the United States from 1974 to 1977.

But what kind of craft is this? Here we have collected some questions and answers.

What exactly is an aircraft carrier?

An aircraft carrier is in practice a mobile airbase. It enables a military power to continuously move combat aircraft and combat helicopters to areas where there is a need. In this way, a country can extend its own military air power to the entire world.

Aircraft carriers with associated combat aircraft constitute a significant military strike force, and where in the world they are located is considered to have great strategic and security political significance. Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is known to have said that an aircraft carrier is “100,000 tons of diplomacy”.

There are currently 47 aircraft carriers of various sizes and types in use in the world, distributed among 14 countries’ navies. But no one has more and bigger aircraft carriers than the United States.

How does it work?

An airstrip is usually several kilometers long. On an aircraft carrier, the planes have to take off and land over a much shorter distance.

On the largest American aircraft carriers, this is done by using electromagnetic catapults to give the planes take-off speed.

This video demonstrates how the mechanism works:

Correspondingly, a braking mechanism is used which “catches” the aircraft when it lands and stops it very quickly.

The planes can be parked on deck or transported down to a hangar below deck with lifts for storage there.

To avoid the need to refuel, the USS Gerald Ford has two nuclear reactors nuclear reactorsIn a nuclear reactor, heat is produced by the fission of atomic nuclei. This is done using radioactive material. The heat produces steam, which in turn can be used to drive motors or generators to produce electricity. which produces energy for propulsion and power. This allows the ship to move around the globe for decades with unlimited range.

It has a top speed of over 30 knots. On board are also advanced radar and sensor systems, missiles, torpedoes and rapid-fire machine guns.

How big is the ship?

In short: Big. It weighs over 100,000 tonnes. This corresponds to the weight of 66,000 medium-sized passenger cars.

With a height of 78 metres, it is 12 meters higher than Oslo City Hall. It is 337 meters long and 78 meters wide. If we placed it in the center of Oslo, it would look something like this:

The four bronze propellers weigh 30 tonnes each and are 6.4 meters in diameter.

Some slightly different figures are given, but the ship should be able to take between 75 and 90 aircraft or helicopters. This means that Norway’s entire combat aircraft fleet, consisting of 52 F-35s, would have a place on board.

The ship has a crew of at least 4,500 working on 25 decks. Among other things, they have access to various shops and a hairdresser on board.

Does this cost a bit?

Yes, an aircraft carrier is one of the most expensive military investments there is.

USS Gerald Ford was begun in 2009, but only entered into operational use in 2022 after years of construction and testing. It is estimated to cost close to 13 billion dollars. Today, this corresponds to around NOK 140 billion.

In comparison, the Norwegian annual defense budget is around NOK 76 billion.

The most expensive ships in the Norwegian navy are the frigates, which have cost around NOK 4.3 billion each.