In article .com,
Typhoon502 writes
What I find questionable is the reserve fuel issue, though. Doesn't
operating in the hover/slow environment just guzzle fuel? If your deck
takes a hard roll as you're touching down, won't a pilot want to hop
up and wait for the boat to stabilize before trying to set down again?
I wonder what the fuel consumption in that state is compared to a
typical bolter and go-around.

The hover does mean full throttle (but it is a relatively high bypass
turbofan engine), but it doesn't need to be held for long. As it's at
slow speed, you can have one landing, one ready to land, one formating
with the carrier etc all at the same time. With a big enough deck, you
could (maybe not routinely) land several at once.

Whenever I've seen a Harrier land vertically (deck or land), they seem
to hit quite hard, how this compares to the arrested controlled crash,
I'm not sure. The undercarriage is also quite stable (3 points, quite
wide laterally and 3 points for/aft).

--
John