US Navy's F-35 Capable Aircraft Carrier Undergoing Sea Trials

US Navy’s USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier that will be able to operate Lockheed Martin F-35C Joint Strike Fighters on its deck is undergoing sea trials.

The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier has returned at sea for the first time in more than four years, US Navy announced Tuesday.

The hundred-thousand-ton vessel is undergoing sea trials after completing her refueling complex overhaul (RCOH), which happens once at the twenty-five-year halfway point of a carrier’s fifty-year lifespan.

Lincoln is the first carrier in the US Navy’s fleet that will be able to operate Lockheed Martin F-35C Joint Strike Fighters from its decks with the completion of its forty-nine-and-a-half-month overhaul.

“USS Abraham Lincoln has undergone significant combat systems modernization and will also be the first CVN capable of accommodating the F-35C Lightning II,” Rear Adm. Brian Antonio, Naval Sea Systems Command’s program executive officer for aircraft carriers, said.

“This RCOH enables the ship to meet future missions and continued service life requirements for many years to come.” He added.

According to service, sailors assigned to Lincoln, shipbuilders from Huntington Ingalls Industries-Newport News Shipbuilding (HII-NNS), the Navy's Supervisor of Shipbuilding, Conversion and Repair and Naval Sea Systems Command personnel will put the ship though its paces over the next four days.

The different groups will have to work side-by-side to test the carrier’s key systems and technologies to ensure Lincoln is ready to reenter the fleet. “Sea trials will provide an opportunity to test comprehensive shipwide repairs and combat system modernization items worked over the duration of the overhaul,” reads a NAVSEA statement.