On January 28, 2026, the future USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79) left Newport News and entered the Atlantic under her own nuclear power for the first time. At roughly 100,000 tons and 1,092 feet long, with a procurement cost of about 13.2 billion dollars, she is the second Gerald R. Ford-class carrier, and the ship that has to prove the Ford design can be repeated, improved, and delivered as a dependable fleet capability rather than a one-off experiment. In this video, we break down what the 2026 Builder’s Sea Trials actually tested: the first propulsion turn in protected water, high-speed rudder maneuvers that force a 100,000-ton hull to reveal how its systems behave under load, the integrated Ford-class bridge where a helm command passes through electrical logic, hydraulics, and sensors before the ship responds, and the new technology Kennedy carries beyond Ford, including the SPY-6 radar,

Source: USS John F. Kennedy (CVN – 79) Sea Trials Explained: A $13 Billion Supercarrier’s High – Speed Turns