Gouging the tarmac during hook tests then striking the deck at the same spot would become a 'problem' it was said using DFP because it was so accurate but IIRC I don't believe a 'fix' has been implemented. The carrier probably moves enough to vary the hook strike point enough plus any other variables doing same. JPALS will be programmable for varying the wire to be caught being especially useful during rough weather for the 'hook to ramp' clearance to be safe. LSOs can manipulate a manual mirror MOVLAS (MANUALLY OPERATED VISUAL LANDING AID SYSTEM) situated on the starboard side (called 'station 3' but it can be at stations 1&2 on the port side) to get aircraft onboard in bad weather or when regular IFLOLS at the port side station is (U/S) unserviceable.

USN 'boat officer' quote as mentioned by 'gums': '35_aoa':
“FWIW, CVN 76/77/78 3 wire boat hook to ramp clearance is (IIRC) more like 10 feet. It is different enough that our brand new CAG paddles on cruise (who were both 4 wire boat guys) spent some time learning the "new" sight picture. For a month or two, they were calling low all the way for what were on-on passes. Then the airwing paddles collectively got into the debate of whether or not an "OK 1 wire" was a thing. Technically speaking, it is, based on the reduced hook to ramp clearance, but it took several months to convince CAG paddles of this. Old habits and sight pictures die hard I suppose.” http://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic....t=hook#p353647

One day the 'funni' txt transcript of the F-35C test pilot may be corrected as best as possible before I burst belly laffing but no mention of JPALS.

F-35C Delta Flight Path IDLC Tailhook 2015 Clemence Brief [uboob wideo]
Sep 28, 2015 Transcript
"On the boat I DLC and dfp who's familiar with this any magic carpet lectures out there people have been to okay if I said if you called the ball and you heard 40 knots 42 not starboard would it make you nervous well this control scheme makes it easy what I dlc is is integrated direct lift control what that means is the throttle just doesn't control the engine it controls the lift on the wing so you are directly affecting almost instantaneously your glide slope with throttle control you couple that with dfp which is delta flight path delta flight path is a flight control scheme that essentially flies a very precise glide slope for you when it's engaged and that's programmable so most of time our basic angle set at three and a half degrees so we have three and a half degrees set in there if you're low in this case you're basically hands off but if you do find yourself a little let's say a ball low then you pull back on the stick until you see a center ball and then you release and the ball should stay centered it has gust redirection for the berbil that it knows the winds because it has an AI NS system and it's always calculating the winds the only thing you need to do is plug in ship speed you plug in ship speed then it can do all the math for you I mean it hasn't aged the radar for crying out loud it should be able to figure this stuff out it's just basic trigonometry and so we've instituted this flight control mechanism in the airplane and we flew it on VT 1 and I'm telling you from the pilot's perspective if you've been in the cockpit for six or eight hours and you just want to get a board at night you're going to want delta flight path because it is very little work load you essentially just engage it with a nose wheel steering button and you're on that three and a half degree glide slope and you just make small deviations as required if you're 42 not starboard you might have to make three corrections you feel the airplane working airplanes are working a lot but you're doing very little except for starting at a center ball from the LSO perspective they've said it looks a lot like a mode one approach so it's very stabilized a very low workload for the pilot the Hudson Balaji is a little different because this is more applicable basically right here you have a glide slope reference line so the big joke with the Hornet but we'll guys kind of tell us all you do is put the thing on the thing and that's it well now you just put the thing on the thing on the thing and essentially you will be flying a precise three and a half glide slope to touch down whether or not the lens is even on so we're making it we know the geometry we know the winds we know the ship's speed if you put this budge slope reference line on the lens itself and the SRV V the ship reference the velocity vector on the ship then you will land with the summer ball know there are a lot of skeptics out here but it works and it's it's really nice."

Original thread starter post has been updated with some more detail but not much.
Crashed F-35C Fell off USS Carl Vinson Flight Deck into South China Sea [as one would expect of a wire break] 25 Jan 2022 Sam LaGrone https://news.usni.org/2022/01/25/cra...outh-china-sea

"...[U.S. 7th Fleet said early Tuesday in a statement] “An F-35C Lightning II assigned to Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 2, embarked aboard USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) had a landing mishap and impacted the flight deck and subsequently fell to the water during routine flight operations,” the statement said. “Impact to the flight deck was superficial and all equipment for flight operations is operational. Carrier Air Wing 2 and USS Carl Vinson have resumed routine flight operations in the South China Sea.”...

...The Monday crash during a landing on the carrier injured seven sailors, including the pilot who ejected from the F-35 and was recovered from the water by helicopter. “The pilot and two other sailors were [evacuated] to a medical treatment facility in Manila, Philippines, and four sailors were treated by on-board medical personnel,” reads the 7th Fleet statement. All the sailors are in stable condition.

“The U.S. Navy is making recovery operations arrangements for the F-35C aircraft involved in the mishap aboard USS Carl Vinson in the South China Sea,” U.S. 7th Fleet said in a late Tuesday statement following an earlier version of this post...."

Further to that. I read that they had to introduce a random, inaccuracy range. To try and minimise spot damage.

Recovery efforts underway


https://www.reuters.com/article/sout...-idUSL1N2U52XC

Some slides from NAVAIR via SLDinfo about 'Magic Carpet' (now PLM Precision Landing Mode) and DFP for the F-35C with a graphic from it showing touchdown dispersion during testing onboard CVNs. A few pages were deleted (graphics) to get under the PDF file size limit here.
The Magic Carpet System - Enhanced Capabilities for the F-18 Carrier Force - includes Delta Flight Path DFP for F-35C
"...No connection to the ship/datalink..." https://www.slideshare.net/robbinlai...ystem-for-f18s
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....e9adac1bbe.gif

Spaz, great post and info. Have downloaded the pdf.
In my lack of knowledge, do the green dots mean Delta/Path's are good?

It just looks like to me that the F18's have more Greens in the optimal landing area. I understand they are different ships.

Personally I'm not concerned about the green dots or whatever just that there is dispersion with DFP in both aircraft. DFP was in use with the F-35C that crashed (we don't know how yet) aboard VINSON. Some people want to insist that JPALS was in use. YES it may have been to get back to the carrier and into the marshal but it was not used for the carrier approach part. DFP was in use as has been described. One day when all is hunkydory with JPALS - certified for auto landings to touchdown - it will be used by both Super Hornet & Lightnings in night, rough weather and fatigued pilot deck landings. I have read in the old LSO newsletters that probably future pilots will 'hands off auto land' as a matter of course; while a 'hands on DFP landing' for example will become an 'emergency'. Navy Pilots today resist auto landings but they are meant to be practiced once in a while. Apparently they are very uncomfortable to experience, whilst it is hoped the JPALS auto land to touchdown/arrest will be more comfortable. Yes dispersion in the case of JPALS may be an issue but apparently overcome by slightly varying the programmed touch down point on deck. LSOs are said to be able to program the target wire as mentioned earlier.

An Example of No.1 arrestor wire NOT set aboard USS Carl Vinson with an F-35C (double nuts 400 of VFA-147 "Argonauts") arresting on the target wire. SMOKIN'. 210128-N-SS900-1459.JPG (4310×3069) (defense.gov)
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....5e7896a04c.jpg

CARRIER CABLE BREAK,S AFTER LANDING F18 HORNET !! [low quality video but informative]

_______________________________________

One for the heck of it - pilot not at fault - arrestor wire improperly installed below deck.

A4G Skyhawk 888 Wire Break HMAS Melbourne Pilot Eject OK Finan USN

Alleged photo post-ditching

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....6a476c2742.jpg

Looks real enough?
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....d3b5c1d5f5.jpg

Seems to float, now if they had a hook on the top they could have craned it aboard. :suspect:

Maybe if the hook and stuff underneath had worked as planned it would not need to be craned out ;-)

It does look pretty buoyant there. I do wonder if they managed to get any lines on it.

SpazSinbad Thanks for all the fantastic info and links. Awesome stuff.

Race is on to reach sunken US jet... before China 27 Jan 2022 BBC News
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other...ina/ar-AATcSjj
"...National security experts say Chinese military would be "very keen" to get to the jet but a US salvage vessel looks to be at least 10 days away from the crash site. That's too late, says defence consultant Abi Austen, because the black box battery will die before then, making it harder to locate the aircraft...."

Should have had the rescue divers attach a `boooouy` on a loooong piece of string before it went under..

Once again this is conjecture and I'm not sure the video is even taken onboard VINSON however the power (perhaps to burner because I hear a HOWL at last second) comes on 'at the ramp' but all my conjecture could mean a fairly ordinary F-35C carrier approach. LSOs by the many monitor these approaches so any pilot not responding to their calls will be in big trouble. Anyhooo....

F-35C VFA-147 USS Carl Vinson Approach Full Power BUMP

Missed the end frames showing not only smoke but debris. That cannot be good. Smoke from ejection? Not enough known at this stage.
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....e093cd672d.png

That smoke and debris appears much too early (and at the wrong end of the boat) to be associated with a wire break and flop over the side. Assuming that is a video of the approach in question, which seems very likely on first inspection, an altogether much uglier landing accident (such as a ramp strike) has to be considered more likely.

Fair enough. From another discussion on another forum that 'ramp strike' would seem to be IT. I have experience in an A4G in a NIGHT RAMP STRIKE during my second NOT night deck landing - high all the way <sigh> Story told somewhere here I imagine, also story in PDF form.
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....43306ee7b2.jpg