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It is nowhere near as adorable as it sounds: A cold cat shot is when you get to the end of the deck and you are still below your stall speed, which means your wings can't generate enough lift to keep you in the air. If you're only a few knots below stall, your engines might have enough power to get you going before you hit the water. Any slower than that and your only choice is to eject. And even if things go perfectly, you can still suffer freak occurrences like this guy, who got launched directly into a huge wave crashing over the bow (and, amazingly, managed to keep it in the air).

And since what goes up must come down, the fine engineers at Acme had to figure out a way to take a plane that normally needs a mile-long runway to land and stop it in just 700 feet. Their answer was to put a giant hook on the back and stretch some wires across the deck.

U.S. Navy via Wikipedia

Millions of dollars and the finest minds America had to offer.

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Now, the Navy wouldn't be a very effective fighting force if they let little things like rain or nightfall or zero visibility stop them. As big as carriers are, the ocean is still bigger, so the boat moves with the waves. Because the carrier deck is angled, your miniscule target is not only moving away from you, but also sliding slowly to the right as you're coming in to land. Now try to hit a target that's pitching up and down 30 feet every few seconds. For extra fun, try to land on a pitching deck at night. Or maybe land in a sandstorm where the carrier comes looming out of the haze a split second before you touch down and your life is in the hands of a bored Boeing programmer who's never flown a day in his or her life.