Mark, there are multiple references to aircraft carrier arresting gear in this thread. The arresting gear on an aircraft carrier consists of four (or three) arresting cables spread across the landing area and raised four inches off the deck as I described. The net you're referring to is called a barricade and is only used in extreme emergencies.
But alright, lets just refer to the barricade and forget the cables altogether. The differences between trying to stop an aircraft that's travelling at roughly 150 knots and a fast moving race car, sometimes in excess of 200 M.P.H. are worth considering. In the case of a funny car, there's at least some frontal area to absorb the impact with the net, but with a dragster there's next to nothing - header pipes and rear slicks are your best bet (more on this in a second). An aircraft, on the other hand, has wings that are able to engage and absorb energy from the net. In fact, the nose of an aircraft usually slides right through the barricade, thus allowing the wings to absorb all, or most of the energy. The nose of a race car, funny car or otherwise, is generally required to take the initial hit because race cars, by design, are narrow with very little additional width (like wings). Had the front end of Mark Niver's dragster passed through the opening like a jet's nose does, and the net engaged headers and/or slicks, he'd have likely walked away unscathed. So do you sacrifice net area to allow for that? And if so, what's left for the driver to engage the net, meaning: how wide is too wide?
What I think Mr. Skloss is really referring to above is the functionality of the existing nets and trying to figure out a way to make the catch net system at the shorter tracks work more like an aircraft carriers barricade system. I'm sure there are ways to do that, but my guess is it involves extending the run-out after engagement... and the problem, as I understand it, is that there isn't any more room for run-out... unless you shorten the shutdown area even more than it already is.
And lastly, getting back to the original point of the thread - the delay - contrary to your belief that "the nets that the planes are caught by are ready to fly in hours," nothing could be further from the truth. When we barricaded an F/A-18 (as described in an earlier post), we cancelled the next day's flight schedule because we can't fly without the barricade in place and it takes hours to remove the old one (because it's junk), inspect the system and replace the barricade with a new one.
One final note, an aircraft that's approaching the ship for a barricaded landing always puts the arresting hook down (unless damage to the hook is the cause of the emergency) with the hope of catching an arresting wire in addition to engaging the barricade. When that happens, as was the case with the jet I observed, the arresting gear absorbs the majority of the energy and the barricade just finishes the job... but the barricade is still junk afterward. In fact, I have a piece of it hanging in my office as a memento.
