Civilian aircraft with arresting gear (tailhooks)?
 

It's not well known among the public that some land based military aircraft (e.g. f-16, f-22) have tailhooks intended to be used in emergencies, and that a fair number of dual use airports have arresting cable systems.

The literature I've seen in regard to civilian a/c operating around these systems are basically how to avoid accidents should the systems be malfunctioning or deployed unintentionally. I'm wondering though, have any civilian aircraft been equipped with arresting hooks, or has the idea been given consideration? Or is EMAS the agreed upon civilian option?

Don't forget drag chutes.

Hooks
 

Hi,
Tail hooks have been trialled in the USA. A Convair CV-340 (actually a military C-131) was tried and got good results with the passengers not noticing anything too abrupt. I think they were probably used to being flown around in US military transports. I don't know what deceleration was achieved but it was under 1 g.

Next a Boeing 720 was tried and that worked too. Later this 720 went on to be used in the controlled impact tests with anti-misting kerosene.

The American Society of Civil Engineers published a paper, authored by Rhody in 1965 with further details.

Big vertical nylon strips held up by steel wires were tried for big aircraft such as Concorde and B-52s. Try searching the New York Times 17 Dec 1970 for a picture. The French DGAC https://www.stac.aviation-civile.gou...avions_2_0.pdf gives the Concorde reference.

Hope that helps.

Arrester gear would be a good idea at the RW14 stop end at EGNM. ideal for catching errant Citations and 737s. Too late for TriStars and Viscounts.