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High-performance military airplanes operate from the flight decks of ships at sea primarily in one of two ways.

The first is known as Stovil, or short takeoff vertical landing.

You might picture, say, aviate B Harriers or the b model of the f35 lightning

too the other is conventional cats and traps let's call it think hydraulic or steam

powered catapults and mechanical arresting gear although increasingly these days you might find both are

electromagnetically driven. Either way, these incredible contraptions launch aircraft like the

FAA 18 Super Hornet or the C model of the F-35 from 0 to 170 knots or more in just seconds and

later do the opposite to safely recover them.

Each method has its challenges and certainly risks as the recent F-35C crash aboard the U.S.S. Carl Vincent so graphically depicted.

But which do you think is more difficult? Of course, if you ask a Harrier pilot, he or she will say Stoval Operations, and a

Super Hornet pilot will likely say cats and traps.

The trick is to find a pilot who has done both.

And that's not easy.

...