The folks at Quinetiq have demonstrated a landing aid for SRVL on the HMS Illustrious.

The idea behind shipborne rolling vertical landing is that an F-35 can return to deck in forward flight, with some of the lift coming from the wings, and some from the lift fan, which would allow for greater “bring” back in terms of weapons loads, and less wear and tear on the engine:

For the latest trial, a demonstration visual landing aid dubbed a “Bedford array” was installed in the port catwalk adjacent to Illustrious’s flight deck. Taking inputs from inertial references to stabilise against deck motions, this is combined with a ship-referenced velocity vector in a helmet-mounted display to enable a pilot to fly an accurate approach to the deck on a constant glidepath. A second lighting array was rigged on the carrier’s flight deck, and was used during a parallel evaluation of its visual acuity.

Me, I’m dubious.

The idea of making a rolling landing on an aircraft carrier with a 60,000 lb aircraft without an arrester hook seems to me to be a dicey proposition.