"Charles Talleyrand" wrote:

Suppose someone tried to land an F4F Wildcat on a modern American
aircraft carrier. We'll give the carrier a few hours to prepare, and lets assume
the carrier is at sea and moving.

Can a WWII fighter land on a modern carrier? Can it get back in the air?

As others have pointed out, certainly. If a C-130 can do it, albeit
gingerly, an F4F certainly could.

_Safely_ landing would be the question. The pilot would have to be
conversant with the present optical systems, and some LSOs would have
to be trained for the F4F's [or other WWII aircraft you're
postulating] characteristics and landing profiles. My only question
would be can modern arresting gear be set to handle the, generally,
much lower weights of WWII carrier aircraft compared to those
operating today? [e.g., F4F ~7,500 lbs, A4M ~25,000 lbs]

OJ III