Landing airplanes on a carrier has always been tricky, and it gets trickier as airplanes get faster. Last week Britain's Royal Navy told about a new and reasonably prang-proof system for landing the fastest jets.
British carriers are to be equipped with big curved mirrors that face aft from the end of the landing runway (see diagram). The mirror is mounted like the mirror of a dressing table, so that a gyro stabilizer can keep it at the proper angle no matter how much the carrier may be pitching. On each side of it are horizontal rows of colored lights. Strong white...
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