Thursday, December 29, 2011

F-35B Test Landings

I shudder to think what this plane costs, but if you read Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff, and its harrowing account of learning to land on an aircraft carrier, I think you will appreciate this video.

1 comment:

  1. I believe carrier landings have gotten a little easier with conventional take off and landing craft thanks to some of the landing systems they now have, but no question the carrier is hairy.

    One of the American Airlines Captains my grandfather flew with had a son in the Navy and I heard that he didn't like the carrier landing (with the rule that if you messed up you were out) so opted for transport aircraft onto land based runways (the fact that he wanted an Airline job after his service probably played a role in his choice as well). That was back in the 80's.

    VSTOL is helpful with smaller carriers (like the British have thus their big adoption of the harrier and desire for this variant of the F35) and the Marines also want this variant for the types of missions they fly.

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