This is why Naval Aviators are the best and have the pelotas de latón.

We have all seen plenty of shots like this of US Naval Aviation aircraft landing and taking off from the US Carriers.





Personally in the second video the DV's are a little too close to the wire for my comfort. I have see those wires do some funky things on retraction on top of that coming back as fast as they do are fully capable of taking out ankles or breaking legs.



We have all seen things like this. I know, but what about large cargo bird like a C-130 taking off and landing on a carrier?






Oh, the Lt. Flatley mentioned is now RADM James H. Flatley III (USN Ret.) the son of VADM James H. Flatley. Lt. Flatley rose to prominence himself inside the Navy, before retiring as a RADM.

The Herky Bird wasn't the only thing strange to land on a carrier.

As far as I know about this was a test by the CIA to see if a U-2 could take off and land from a carrier a variant of the U-2 called the U-2G was manufactured and it had a tail hook, jet assisted take off (JATO) hook ups, and strengthen gear. This was also only used operationally once, at least according to unclassified documents, of one on board the USS Ranger CV-61 when they carried one near Tahiti and launched it to take photos of the French nuclear tests in the 60's near there. After that the project was considered to unwieldy, again according to unclass'd documents, so the CIA scrapped the project.

Just some interesting shots to share to you all.