I’ve spent enough time buggering about in test flights to land tornados on carriers reliably, and even did it in SB a few times same with the F-111s
just pray to god you catch the wire cause you’ll struggle to recover if you do, despite me usually coming fast for a carrier landing. I tend to slam the elevator to help get the hook to catch the wire more reliably. which usually causes the plane to become very unstable if you miss and become airborne again. very much not textbook
it can be done if they’re going in circles but it amps the difficulty up a lot, and VTOLs are dead easy to land as long as you have an SAS mode active
worst parts about landing a plane on a carrier is that HMS Ark Royal has no AA, and I’ve been victim to R-24Ts and ambitious long range AIM-9G/L, and the Forrestal is always on the wrong team for me to use
Wings out with the catapult I think it can happen. I mean look at the big carrier capable aircraft. The USN had the A-5 and F-14 and those are huge planes
With a reduced payload and half filled fuel tanks a catapult launch might be successful.
This is very off topic, so I'll hide the details
As I’ve said before, the F-14 has way larger wings and more powerful engines compared to the Tornado. Sure, the F-14 weighs like 35% more than the Tornado, but the F-14s engines produce over 50% more thrust than those of the Tornado.
The A-5 is a similar story, its wings are more than twice as large as those of the Tornado, while having a similar weight and engine power.
F-111B was an absolute whale of a naval combat aircraft but still was carrier capable, I think F3 and GR4 could operate off carriers with modifications on the landing and takeoff parts