Its not the hook length, nor the wire height.
The hook reaches the deck in normal landing operations... the problem is that the hook is so close to the wheels that, after the wheels run over the wire and press it down, the wire does not have time to lift up before the hook arrives.
This is compounded by the hook sometimes bouncing back off the deck after it touches.
The first things they are trying are to change the shape of the hook so that it will slip under the wire even if the wire is still touching the deck*, and to strengthen the bounce dampers to reduce or eliminate hook bounce-back.
* The hook point is the same as used successfully on all F/A-18 models... its just that those aircraft have more wheel-hook distance, so the wire lifts up off the deck before the hook arrives.
The new shape is more likely to damage the wire over time, leading to the wire being replaced after fewer arrestments... they had re-used the Hornet/Super Hornet hook point because it was a low-wear design.
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