Newest carrier will be ready in 2015

Nearly a week after the Navy officially kicked off production of its newest aircraft carrier, service officials charged with overseeing the program said Friday it is on track to be in service by September 2015.

The Navy held the ceremonial keel laying Saturday for the USS Gerald R. Ford at Northrop Grumman's shipyard in Newport News, Va., marking the first time in 40 years a new class of aircraft carriers began production.

The keel laying of the massive ship represents the transition from "the design-centric mentality of a paper ship -- the PowerPoint slides and things that are in computers -- to really getting into something now that is going to start coming together in a dry dock and really quickly here ... look like a ship," Capt. Brian Antonio, the carrier's program manager, said at a briefing at the Washington Navy Yard.

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