I think "wire only" means the hook catches while the wheels are still off the deck.

I suppose that hard landing might have, in some ways, replicated the hard slam-down this would produce. Author, is that the case? Was the hard landing judged to have been a decent proxy for the wire-only arrestment?

Seems unlikely. One is slamming due to a heavy glideslope. Two is slamming due to a serious yank on the rear section. The airframe stresses and flight dynamics will be different.

Yeah, dynamics will be different, though caveat I am not a structures/loads engineer.

I just don’t think anyone had the risk appetite to chance a test asset against a very difficult to achieve test point.

It is also fair to assume the decision to not do additional testing of wire-only arrests was well analyzed by the respective engineering teams.

Program management does not take decisions like this by themselves.

Absolutely. We had a whole carrier suitability team full of people who lived and breathed this stuff. It was just my responsibility to make sure the aircraft instrumentation system got them the data they needed, at a high enough quality, to empower their analyses and decision making process.

> Ok, so it was considered good enough? (This quote made it seem like the testing had failed and they were giving up: "The program decides to officially stop trying to chase the off-center arrrestments and wire only arrestments.)

Kind of both: it was too dangerous to test a wider range of parameters, and the testing was therefore "successful" because it was crystal clear that going beyond the point where they had the problem would not be safe. So in this case "giving up"/stopping and "determining the limits of the landing envelope, were reached at the same time.

Based solely on the above description -- wire-only is when you don't have wheels on deck, also slowing the craft down.

Got it, thx!

I assume wire-only means no reverse thrust and no brakes.

No, aircraft land on carriers while applying full forward thrust and (I am 99% sure) no wheel brakes. The idea is that if the wire fails to catch they "bolter", i.e., do a touch-and-go, so they can come around for another landing attempt. (If they stopped or reversed thrust and the wire didn't catch, they'd end up in the drink.)

Based on other comments (or re-reading the authors comment carefully), it turns out that "wire only" mean that the wire catches before the wheels touch the ground. (This puts additional strain on the wire and airframe.)

You're correct, no wheel brakes and throttle to full as soon as the wheels touch.

If the cross-deck pendant snaps, the engines don't have time to throttle up before you go over the edge. And of course if you don't catch a wire you really don't want to be trying to stop.

No reverse thrust in carrier aircraft.

> no wheel brakes

There are brakes on the wheels (that can slow a plane moving at flying speed)? That's a lot of force. I assumed the wheels merely prevent friction between the plane body and the deck, and the engines and control surfaces, and the wire, did the braking.

"no wheel brakes" here means that the brakes aren't engaged, as stated so that if the aircraft misses the wires it can touch and go without drowning the pilot and destroying an $80m aircraft

All planes have wheel brakes, including naval aircraft. But in an arrested landing the wire stops the plane, not the brakes.