I wonder if, being on an RN vessel releases them from USN 'dry ship' rules?
Do you actually believe that no such situation has arisen since June 1914?
More seriously: The landing-aid history started with SRVL, which the RN was exploring because of concerns that the F-35B's VL performance might be deficient under some circumstances. James Denham at NAWCAD was involved with early SRVL tests using QinetiQ's VAAC Harrier, and proposed a test to explore whether direct lift control could be exploited on non-STOVL jets (a STOVL jet has DLC inherently). Magic Carpet (it's the world's longest acronym) is a flight control and guidance software change that provides some control of vertical acceleration independent of alpha. Last I looked it was being rolled out on F/A-18 and incorporated in F-35C.