First F-35C Lands Aboard a Ford Class Carrier as Future USS John F. Kennedy Begins Aircraft Trials

The U.S. Navy has recovered an F-35C fifth generation fighter aboard a Gerald R. Ford class aircraft carrier for the first time, with a jet from Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 23 making an arrested landing on the future USS John F. Kennedy (CVN 79) in the Western Atlantic on October 13. The Navy released photographs of the recovery the same day, stating that the ship was underway for Aircraft Compatibility Testing, which assesses how its launch and recovery equipment performs with the service’s aircraft. A second F-35C seen alongside the test jet carried inert GBU-38 Joint Direct Attack Munitions, although the Navy did not disclose how long the trials would last. The milestone comes nine years after the lead ship was commissioned, and highlights how long the Navy’s newest aircraft carriers have operated without the only stealth fighter in its carrier air wings.

The trials follow the Navy’s preliminary acceptance of Kennedy from Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding on September 29, when the program office described the ship as about 99 percent complete, with four Advanced Weapons Elevators still in testing. Captain Mark Johnson, the Navy’s program manager for Ford class new construction, stated that acceptance would allow the crew to “get more water under the keel as they test and train underway.” Formal delivery is expected in spring 2027, with Navy budget documents cited by Janes having moved it to March 2027 from July 2025 to complete certification of the Advanced Arresting Gear and work on the elevators. The lead ship, USS Gerald R. Ford, completed its own compatibility testing in January 2020 after 16 days at sea and 211 launches and recoveries by five aircraft types, none of them the F-35C.

The absence of the F-35C from Ford’s deck reflects decisions taken years before either ship first went to sea. The fighter’s Pratt & Whitney F135 engine produces considerably hotter and more concentrated exhaust than the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, requiring more robust jet blast deflectors, while the jet also needs secure spaces for classified mission data and facilities to maintain its low observable coatings. The Navy deferred these modifications on Ford to later maintenance periods, but under pressure from Congress it chose a single-phase delivery for Kennedy, building the changes in during construction at the cost of a longer build. Nimitz class carriers have meanwhile deployed with F-35C squadrons since 2021, with USS Abraham Lincoln having taken the first Marine Corps F-35C unit to sea in early 2022.

Kennedy is the first ship of its class completed with the AN/SPY-6(V)3 radar in place of the dual-band radar fitted to Ford, and it retains the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System and Advanced Arresting Gear whose reliability problems were widely reported during the lead ship’s trials. Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported on September 22, 2025, citing the navy, that the J-35 stealth fighter had completed catapult launches and arrested landings aboard the carrier Fujian, meaning a Chinese fifth generation fighter was shown operating from China’s newest carrier more than a year before the F-35C trapped aboard a Ford class ship. The F-35C, which entered service in February 2019 and belongs to a family Portugal is now weighing for its air force, has a larger wing and stronger landing gear than the F-35A and is the only variant built for catapult launches and arrested recoveries.