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I know in mostly all of the seaborne landings on the Naval warships is done using Arresting Gear and there are some land based airfields also which used arrested gear methodology but do any aircraft specifically military ones (just the fighter jets)can be stopped using this or there is something specific feature in an aircraft which makes it Arresting gear compatible?

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    $\begingroup$ I think your question is the wrong one. Can you imagine how large the gear would have to be to stop a C5 Galaxy? Wouldn't it be better as "why do some military aircraft have arrester gear and some do not"? $\endgroup$
    – Simon
    Jan 22, 2015 at 8:13
  • $\begingroup$ C5 is actually a military cargo which can not be landed on naval warships also. So, my questions is specifically for fighter jets etc.. I have edited the question also. $\endgroup$
    – NitinG
    Jan 22, 2015 at 8:37
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    $\begingroup$ @NitinG It's not the type of aircraft that's the problem; there are cargo planes that land on carriers (e.g. C-2). Carriers don't just have fighters, because they have other things they need as well. $\endgroup$
    – cpast
    Jan 23, 2015 at 7:17
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    $\begingroup$ On the flipside, there is a special part that's needed to use arresting gear; most fighters have it (even if they can't land on a carrier), but it's a special part. (incidentally, land fighters generally can't land on a carrier, so that's no reason to not use a tailhook on a cargo plane; the C-130 has been landed on a carrier with no tailhook at all, just excellent short-field performance. Arresting behavior is independent of plane type; size is relevant but not the only thing that matters, type doesn't matter at all.) $\endgroup$
    – cpast
    Jan 23, 2015 at 7:27

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In order to engage the usual arresting gear (cables) on an aircraft carrier, it helps to have a tail hook.

There are other forms of arresting gear that do not require a tail hook. Presumably the main limitations on an aircraft using them are the size, weight, and landing speed of the aircraft. These devices do not seem to be designed for as frequent use as the arresting cables of a carrier.

Followup: As I found out on looking into this further, many (most? all?) present-day land-based fighter jets, not just Navy or Marines jets, have tail hooks as well. However, at least according to this blog entry, tail hooks of the types of aircraft used by the US Air Force (and some other air forces) are not designed to work with aircraft carrier arresting cables but only with land-based systems (which suspend the cables higher than the aircraft carrier systems do).

As mentioned in a comment (and in the Wikipedia article on "Arresting gear" linked above), barrier nets can serve as arresting gear. Various publications (for example the Supplement Alaska, pp. 10–11, accessed 22-Jan-2015) list numerous kinds of gear, including cables designed to engage tail hooks, woven straps designed to be torn by tail hooks (one-time use only!), nets designed to engage struts, nets designed to engage wings, nets combined with cables, and engineered material arresting systems (EMAS) that absorb energy as they are crushed under the wheels of the aircraft. I have not yet found any citations of EMAS being used by military aircraft, but its main limitation of seems to be landing speed rather than aircraft weight or size, as an FAA fact sheet on EMAS dated December 12, 2014 credits these systems with stopping nine aircraft that overran runways in separate incidents, including a Boeing 747, an MD-11, and an Airbus A320.

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  • $\begingroup$ Without a specific reference to an arresting barricade, this answer is incomplete $\endgroup$ Jan 23, 2015 at 1:18
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    $\begingroup$ @raptortech97 I've added an explicit list of other systems. The research was engaging (pun intended). It also appears I was under a mistaken impression about the presence of tail hooks on USAF fighters and other such aircraft, so I've attempted to correct that. $\endgroup$
    – David K
    Jan 23, 2015 at 3:45

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