The US Navy's newest supercarrier is underway with all its available airpower for the first time

• The Navy's newest supercarrier, USS Gerald R. Ford, is underway with all its airpower.
• This is the first time the $13 billion ship operated with its entire air wing embarked, a Navy official told Insider.

USS Gerald R. Ford — the US Navy's newest supercarrier — is operating underway with all of its available airpower for the first time.

A Navy official confirmed to Insider reporting from Navy Times that this is the first time the entire carrier air wing has been embarked on the Ford for an underway period. The ship is underway for a composite training unit exercise known as COMPTUEX.

This exercise "assesses a carrier strike group's abilities to conduct military operations at sea and project power ashore through joint planning and execution of challenging and realistic training scenarios," 2nd Fleet spokesperson Lt. Cmdr. Kristi Johnson told Insider. "This evaluation is planned and executed by the Carrier Strike Group 4 staff, and it tests the mission-readiness of deployable assets to perform as an integrated unit."

Johnson said the Ford's carrier strike group includes staff from Carrier Strike Group 12, Carrier Air Wing 8, and Destroyer Squadron 2. The participating vessels include the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Normandy and Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Ramage, USS McFaul, and USS Thomas Hudner.

The first-in-class Ford is the Navy's most advanced aircraft carrier and has a price tag of around $13 billion. The ship, which was launched in 2013, commissioned in 2017 and first deployed in 2022, has suffered delays and setbacks, and other issues like cost overruns. It has a litany of new technologies, including advanced elevators that can move missiles and bombs to the flight deck and electromagnetic catapults that are supposed to be capable of launching planes more effectively than the steam catapults on the Nimitz-class carriers.

Navy Times reported on Thursday that during the Ford's short 2022 deployment around 80 percent of the air wing had embarked on the ship. The Ford began the COMPTUEX exercise on March 2 with all its available airpower, including fixed-wing fighter jets, airborne early warning aircraft, and rotary aircraft.

The Ford Carrier Strike Group "demonstrated to the world what high-end naval warfare and integrated NATO interoperability looks like when it sailed on its inaugural deployment in 2022," said Rear Adm. Greg Huffman, commander of Carrier Strike Group 12, in a March 3 statement.

"Now, the strike group is initiating its final step in fully certifying as a combat-deployable warship. COMPTUEX will further demonstrate that our carrier strike group is a combat-ready naval force capable of conducting a full spectrum of integrated maritime, joint, and combined operations," he added.

The Ford Carrier Strike Group is expected to deploy on its first full-length deployment sometime later this year.