The British and Americans toyed with the idea of flexible aircraft carrier decks from which to operate wheelless jet aircraft.
Largely forgotten about today, the 1950s saw some extraordinary experiments involving aircraft carriers fitted with rubber flight decks, the idea being to launch and recover jet aircraft with no landing gear at all. While the thinking behind it might seem baffling in retrospect, the concept appeared to offer some key advantages at the time. However, unlike other revolutionary carrier aviation technologies that emerged in that period, the flexible deck was bound for the scrap heap.
It was in the United Kingdom where the first serious thinking about the possibility of carrier-based aircraft without landing gear took hold, in the immediate post-war period.
World War II demonstrated the primacy of the aircraft carrier as the dominant surface warship, overtaking the battleship at the center of maritime warfare. Soon after the war ended, experiments began with jet-powered carrier aircraft, which promised to bring a whole new level of performance and capability. At the same time, however, these new aircraft brought with them a new set of demands that were not necessarily compatible with operating from the carriers of the day, which were far smaller than their modern equivalents.
Clearly, there was no way that the propeller-driven carrier aircraft used operationally up till that point could recover on deck without landing gear.
The new generation of sleek jet aircraft now in development was different though. With no propeller, it was reasonable to assume that a turbine-powered aircraft could land on its belly, provided it was strong enough and that the runway provided a sufficient cushioning effect.
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