Carrier landing question

[Alpo]

Just saw this clip. It's from a video game - not real - but still it made me wonder

 

 

 

When you are making a carrier landing, do you have to deploy the hook? Or is the hook always deployed?

 

If you miss the wire, is the correct procedure to firewall it and go around again?

 

Because that "OH MY GOD, I missed the wire! Eject!! Eject!!" thing seemed pretty dumb. And fairly expensive, airplane wise.

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

The tailhook is normally in a stowed position, deployed only for a Carrier Landing. Aircraft land on the Carrier at full throttle just in case they DO miss the wire. That allows them to relaunch to go around and try again. 

[Cactus Jack Calder]

Look closely. The front landing gear seems to have collapsed upon touch down. In addition you can see the wire in a V dragging behind the plane as it goes over the bow of the ship.
I was amazed that the parachutes worked at such a low altitude. It appears to me that the chutes had some sort of assist to get up away from the pilots. Funny looking shape for the chutes. Maybe necessary for the ability to open so quickly at low altitude and low falling speed. 
I prefer to be thought observant, not dull witted.
However, the shape and function of the chutes makes me wonder. Is this real, or AI generated? I know nothing of the source of this video.

 

 

CJ

[Subdeacon Joe]

That's called a "bolter" because the plane "bolts down the deck." 

As @Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770 said,  the hook has to be deployed,  and at touch down the pilot goes to full throttle just in case.

 

The Landing Signals Officer will instantly call out "Bolter. Bolter. Bolter!" The pilot will climb back into the landing pattern and try again.  

[Alpo]

28 minutes ago, Cactus Jack Calder said:

Is this real, or AI generated? I know nothing of the source of this video.

 

1 hour ago, Alpo said:

It's from a video game - not real -

 
 

[Cactus Jack Calder]

Well I recon that analysis of the scene is a moot point then.

I watched it a couple of times to get the details. I think that the designers did a fair to middlin’ job of creating a believable scenario.

As I indicated the  parachute action was the only thing I found strange.

Thanks for the explanation of the source.

 

CJ

[Stump Water]

US F-15 landing on a Russian carrier.  

 

Ya gotta do what ya  gotta do in a video game.  🙃

[Colorado Coffinmaker]

 

Yup.   "Computer Generate Imagery."   Quite Faque.  But, to be clear, most all modern Jet combat aircraft are equipped with "Zero Zero" ejection seats.  Those ejection seats WILL get the crew out and up high enough for chute deployment from Zero altitude, with Zero air speed.

[Abilene Slim SASS 81783]

1 hour ago, Colorado Coffinmaker said:

 

Yup.   "Computer Generate Imagery."   Quite Faque.  But, to be clear, most all modern Jet combat aircraft are equipped with "Zero Zero" ejection seats.  Those ejection seats WILL get the crew out and up high enough for chute deployment from Zero altitude, with Zero air speed.

 

[Cactus Jack Calder]

2 hours ago, Colorado Coffinmaker said:

 

 

 But, to be clear, most all modern Jet combat aircraft are equipped with "Zero Zero" ejection seats.  Those ejection seats WILL get the crew out and up high enough for chute deployment from Zero altitude, with Zero air speed.

Good to know. My experience with Naval Aviation goes back 56 years and was with Helicopters on the flight deck. No room for fixed wing aircraft on board the ship I served aboard. I did get to work on a shore party to cast off one of the big nuke carriers once. That ship made my ship look like a canoe. 

 

GATOR NAVY RULES!! We slip in quiet, deliver the Marines and withdraw before the enemy even knows we were there.

 

CJ

[Chantry]

6 hours ago, Cactus Jack Calder said:

Look closely. The front landing gear seems to have collapsed upon touch down. In addition you can see the wire in a V dragging behind the plane as it goes over the bow of the ship.
I was amazed that the parachutes worked at such a low altitude. It appears to me that the chutes had some sort of assist to get up away from the pilots. Funny looking shape for the chutes. Maybe necessary for the ability to open so quickly at low altitude and low falling speed. 
I prefer to be thought observant, not dull witted.
However, the shape and function of the chutes makes me wonder. Is this real, or AI generated? I know nothing of the source of this video.

 

 

CJ

  See ACES II - Wikipedia

[Abilene Slim SASS 81783]

There was a time in the early jet age when designers thought of other ways of egress. The early F-104s ejected the pilot downward. My dad’s Douglas A3D Skywarrior had a chute opened by a lever where he was supposed to slide out the bottom of the plane. Both systems depended on the planes being upright, which was a ridiculous assumption. 
 

Dad also flew Lockheed TV2s and Grumman F9F Cougars which had standard ejection seats. He thought the A3D arrangement was pretty stupid. 

[Trailrider #896]

The early F-104 downward seats were used before the rocket-assisted seats were developed. Top test pilot Ivan C. :"Kinch" Kinchiloe flamed out on takeoff. He tried to roll inverted and ejected, but didn't survive! The F-104's high T-tail required more velocity to clear a vertical ejection seat. It required development of the rocket seat, where the booster charge started the seat up the guide rail, and ignited the rocket immediately thereafter. To keep the pilot's feet from flailing around, he wore "spurs" connected to cables that pulled his feet back, and IIRC, that was followed by levers that ran across his shins. Immediately following ejection, a "butt-snapper" straightened straps on the seat, forcing the pilot away from the seat. At the same time, ballistically actuated cable cutters severed the lines connected to his spurs!  Things didn't always go correctly, however. When Chuck Yeager ejected from the NF-104, the seat came back past him, cracked his helmet visor, and the glowing rocket residue started a fire in the helmet! Fortunately, the cracked visor cut him above one eye, and the blood was baked by the fire, which save the eye! A bunch of us AFROTC cadets met him at Chanute AFB about six months later, and you couldn't even see a scar!

 

When I was given a "fam" ride in a T-33, I was told by the pilot, "If you hear me holler 'Eject! Eject! Eject! and you say, 'What?' You'll be talking to yourself!"  I later rode the ejection simulator, fired by a 37mm charge up a rail. Quite a jolt! Never had to do it for 'real', however!









 

[Colorado Coffinmaker]

 

Unfortunately, there were also several F-104 drivers, who had the trained in muscle memory for rolling the F-104 to eject at low altitude who rolled later F-104s with the top ejection seats and fired themselves into the ground.  Messy that.

 

Much more gentlemanly was the F-111 ESCAPE POD.

[Howlin Mad Murdock SASS #4037]

Also, Air Force aircraft all have hooks, but they are not rated for carrier landings, they are for catching wires at the run off end of the Air Force runways in case of brake failures.

If they try an arrested landing on a carrier, the hook will be ripped off the airframe.

[Three Foot Johnson]

This is Fairchild Air Force Base in Washington. Notice the small red rectangle at the lower left. That is the size of the landing area on an aircraft carrier deck a Navy or Marine carrier pilot lands on, day or night, in almost any weather short of a hurricane. The target landing area is about 80' wide and 500' long. Oh, and that tiny runway angles to the left about eleven degrees from the ship's track... and it's moving away from you... and pitching up & down... and rolling left & right... and the control tower isn't a quarter mile away, it's thirty feet off your right wingtip as you whiz past it at 150 mph. When the plane slams to the deck after ideally catching the #3 arresting wire, the throttles are advanced to FMP, full military power. It seems a bit counterintuitive, but if the hook skips the wires, the plane needs all that thrust to lift off again and not go off the end of the deck into the sea. If the plane has already started decelerating, and the hook breaks or arresting cable snaps, it's usually time to get out. After catching the #3 wire, a 17+ ton fighter jet will come to a complete stop in two seconds in barely more than another hundred yards. During launch and recover ops, there is always a rescue helicopter flying "guard" in case someone goes in the water.

[Abilene Slim SASS 81783]

Yup.

[Abilene Slim SASS 81783]

3 hours ago, Howlin Mad Murdock SASS #4037 said:

Also, Air Force aircraft all have hooks, but they are not rated for carrier landings, they are for catching wires at the run off end of the Air Force runways in case of brake failures.

If they try an arrested landing on a carrier, the hook will be ripped off the airframe.

AF planes landing gear would collapse before the tail hook grabbed a wire. A carrier landing is more like a controlled crash. 

[DeaconKC]

[Sedalia Dave]

On 8/7/2026 at 8:07 AM, Cactus Jack Calder said:

Look closely. The front landing gear seems to have collapsed upon touch down. In addition you can see the wire in a V dragging behind the plane as it goes over the bow of the ship.
I was amazed that the parachutes worked at such a low altitude. It appears to me that the chutes had some sort of assist to get up away from the pilots. Funny looking shape for the chutes. Maybe necessary for the ability to open so quickly at low altitude and low falling speed. 
I prefer to be thought observant, not dull witted.
However, the shape and function of the chutes makes me wonder. Is this real, or AI generated? I know nothing of the source of this video.

 

 

CJ

 

Video is from a video game.

Edited August 8 by Sedalia Dave