The tail hooks are not designed to arrest an aircraft like it would for a carrier landing, the land-based arresting systems are much gentler on the airframe. The Air Force jets (aside from any that are shared with the Navy) have tail hooks only for emergency purposes during landing, or securing the aircraft during engine run-up testing. No, the F-16 cannot "carrier land", even with the tail hook. But they wouldn't be able to do a lot of them before the airframe would be toast. No doubt that in theory, you could take a carrier qualified pilot, check him/her out in the F-16, and that pilot could shoot traps onto a deck with the F-16 using the hook (launching it is another matter in the absence of catapult link). So the airplane needs a pilot trained to do that sort of thing, and an airframe that can do it repeatedly, that is, land with a descent rate of >500 fpm, a "hard landing" for a normal airplane, without developing cracks here and there and everywhere after a few dozen times. The main issues are the proficiency required to do it and the ability of the airframe to take it.Ī carrier landing isn't really a landing you more or less descend into the ocean and the deck gets in the way. Now, there is nothing stopping someone from landing an F-16 or any other fighter on a carrier deck and using its arrestor system, which works the same way. Lots of non-naval fighters have arrestor hooks for that purpose.
The hook is for emergency use at airports that have Runway Arrestor Systems. I know landing on a carrier is hard, so what is it that makes it so hard for an F-16? Perhaps a barrier could catch an F-16 but I'm more curious about the properties of the hook, undercarriage, and other issues with landing on a carrier. Hence they will not be considered as an option. Even if it does grab the cable, perhaps the aircraft with broken undercarriage would risk sliding off the side of the deck.įrom what I understand, there are no barriers on modern Nimitz carriers any longer. However, if the undercarriage does break, it might prevent the hook from catching the cable at the correct angle. I'm not so concerned with the undercarriage breaking, it would be better to recover an F-16 with broken undercarriage than losing it to the ocean. If it does catch it, perhaps it is not designed for that kind of abuse, and would tear straight off the airframe if this was attempted.įor carrier landings, the aircraft will typically from what I understand not flare and make hard landings which really beats the undercarriage. Is the F-16 tail hook even compatible with the arrest system an aircraft carrier uses? Perhaps it wouldn't catch the arrestor cable at all. My own layman efforts towards an answer, limited to mostly just identifying some obvious issues: However, I'm also taking just educated guesses. If someone happens to know the figures of maximum load on the F-16 tail hook versus what would roughly be required, that would be awesome. I understand that this will probably be speculation at best, I'm just curious.
F18 carrier landing in flight refuel full#
However, I assume the lighter F-16A (I assume they all have the hook, even the early block A variants?) is better, since it has less mass which needs to come to a full stop? Could it be done?įor this we assume an unmodified F-16, any of the F-16 variants are candidates for this thought experiment. During wartime or any emergency if the F-16 found itself over an ocean and needed to land, and there was a friendly carrier nearby. I know the F-16 is not designed to land on any aircraft carrier, however, if it was between ditching in the ocean and attempting to land on a carrier. Looking at the F-16 again, I noticed the tailhook which it seems to have.
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