10/13/2015: Flight deck members watch a F-35C Lightning II carrier variant joint strike fighters assigned to the Salty Dogs of Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 23 land aboard the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69).
The POV for this video is from the flight deck Integrated Catapult Control Station (ICCS) which is sometimes called the “bubble.”
The aircraft is later launched from a catapult aboard the ship.
Credit:Navy Media Content Services:10/4/15
According to Colin Clark of Breaking Defense:
One of the more intriguing comments on the interaction between ship and planes came from the Mighty Ike’s captain, Stephen Koehler, a former F-14 pilot who now commands one very big ship.
He noted that the ship drivers use each of the four huge propellers to best position the ship as she’s underway to give pilots the best combination of wind and takeoff speeds.
Rear Admiral John Haley, commander of Naval Air Force Atlantic, told us the aircraft was about 80 percent of the way through development testing. This was the second of three DT events. The Navy plans to declare Initial Operating Capability by the end of August 2018.
One thing that separated this from the first flights aboard the USS Nimitz was that the three-wire, the one pilots like to hit the most and for which they garner the most praise, was out of commission through the voyage.