TIL the air force experimented with bouncy landing runways to eliminate the weight of landing gear.

Soapy water! And a filled kiddie pool at the end of the runway to stop.

Take a look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zZGi0Y1EPmo

You can see here how the arresting wire--which carriers have used anyway for a long time--tends to be the thing that takes up most of the speed. The plane doesn't slide against the runway so much as bounces a few times and stops.

There must be heat built up in the arresting wire system, of course, but no more than a traditional plane with landing gear doing the same. In fact, there is probably more energy transferred to the deck and the airplane skin than with rolling wheels, so the arresting wire system should have less kinetic energy turned into heat. All that heat is spread out more.

Also, not all of the energy is transferred as heat, either. Some of the momentum will make the boat go a little faster.

A plane that caught the wire was pulled down onto the flexible carpet and slowed to a halt with a runout of only a few feet. A crane then lifted the aircraft onto a trolley; the trolley was winched forward for lowering to the hangar deck by elevator or to the catapult for launching.

Sounds like a pain in the ass

To frame it another way; they were enshittified by the infinite-profit-growth fallacy and corruption of capitalism.

So, they’re not supposed to go Boing Boing Boing when landing….