British engineers explored landing aircraft without undercarriages onto a rubberized deck in hopes of spreading impact loads and reducing airframe stress. The aircraft would touch down without wheels and then be removed from the deck, replacing concentrated landing shocks with a more evenly distributed load. Eric Brown's trials demonstrated how dangerous and awkward that approach was in practice. The mirror landing sight and angled flight deck were more practical British developments for jet operations at sea. These experiments tested several different answers to the same problem of landing faster aircraft safely on a carrier.
Notable Point · 4:46-5:50
Angled decks, mirror sights, and rubber landings
See how British carrier innovation ranged from mirror landing sights and practical angled decks to the abandoned undercarriage-free rubber deck.