Push a Button, Land on a Carrier

sane? writes "Putting an aircraft down on a carrier in bad weather is the stuff of melodramatic Hollywood films. Automated systems for conventional aircraft and big carriers has been done for a while, but getting a hovering Harrier, helicopter, or future JSF to land on a pitching deck of a smaller ship is a different matter. This week QinetiQ demonstrated a complete autoland - a significant step towards making the future JSF work."

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My thoughts on Mil Tech

[CHESTER COPPERPOT]

The ability to land an aircraft automatically onto a ship will enable pilots of JSF to conduct missions by day or night and in weather conditions that would previously have not been possible.

I've worked with the triumvirate of engineers, officers, and soldiers/airmen/sailors during trials of new military technology and I can say it'd be pretty good odds that this automatic ship landing on the STOVL aircraft wasn't tested under extreme conditions such as enemy and weather. I wonder if it was tested on high seas, massive winds or snow?

I know /. likes to think about the "oooh wow gosh!" factor of shiny technology but a lot of the time new military technology gets tested under the easiest of conditions by risk fearing engineers. It then gets pumped up by career minded military officers (who resemble business marketers) and then left for the end users in combat to deal with the bullshit. Try repost the article when this new automatic button has been tested under extreme conditions, seen numerous deployments and used by actual end users not in a sterile environment.