US Navy’s last Flight IIA Arleigh Burke-class destroyer starts sea trials

The future USS Patrick Gallagher (DDG 127), the US Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, has left Bath Iron Works shipyard for the first time to start sea trials.

General Dynamics Bath Iron Works (BIW), the ship’s builder, said the destroyer departed down the Kennebec River on 27 April to begin a series of at-sea evaluations.

Sea trials are designed to verify that major ship systems perform as required before the vessel proceeds toward delivery and commissioning steps.

As part of BIW’s updated sea-trials programme, the vessel made a planned stop in Portland to rotate personnel, allowing crew members who had completed their assignments to disembark while others came aboard for the remaining tests.

The future USS Patrick Gallagher (DDG 127) is the final Arleigh Burke-class destroyer to be built in the Flight IIA configuration. Construction of DDG 127 began at BIW in 2018.

BIW held the keel-laying ceremony for the destroyer on 30 March 2022 and launched the vessel in October 2024.

The destroyer measures 509 feet (ft) 6 inches in length and has a draft of 21ft, 6 and three-quarter inches.

DDG 127 is outfitted with the Aegis Baseline 9 Combat System, which includes integrated air and missile defence functionality.

BIW said the system is intended to improve reaction time and electronic countermeasures performance for anti-air warfare, aligning the ship with evolving air and missile threat environments.