Not what i was thinking, but it’ll do. 
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I’ve been landing sim planes on carriers since my first F-15E trap in Strike Eagle in 1985 I think?
Yeah, that’s right, F-15E on a carrier.
The first one to make it close to authentic was Jetfighter. They made it so real you had to do a sufficient number of carrier takeoffs and landings, including night traps, before they let you fly the campaign. As I was trying on my 8088 w/CGA graphics and no joystick, I did not succeed. 
F-19 was the first I had where it was authentic and possible to do, even if the plane didn’t exist. Then came the WWII titles like 1942 PAW and Aces of the Pacific which had LSOs with paddles to guide you.
Then came F-14 Fleet Defender, where you’d actually have scramble missions off the carrier to intercept incoming vampires and their Backfire launchers, locking up and ripple firing 6 Phoenix in a forlorn hope to stop your carrier from becoming scrap…
And…honestly, no one has quite matched that since. Definitely not that Top Gun game from 1996 or so.
There have been sims with carrier ops, with varying degrees of success, but none have ever matched the visceral feel F-14 FD gave me. Not the Jane’s USNF series, not Flanker/LOMAC, not Il-2, none.
Still waiting.
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I miss the old Jetfighter game, the first few were very good. After number four, they started to really, really stink. US Navy Fighters wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great. Strike Fighters had a lot of unrealized potential, great models, poor implementation.
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JF3 was definitely the pinnacle of the series. It was the most sim-like but didn’t compromise on the game aspects. It also had coop MP I think. The only one to get an expansion as well.
Another favorite was F-15 SE3. Jane’s F-15 was more or less SE4, but while I enjoyed it more in SP it lacked the coop MP that 3 had, your choice of two planes or one plane with front seat/back seat cooperation.
I really hope DCS gets it done right, and they release a USMC F/A-18D as well as the F-14.
From the little tidbits I have been privy too, ED really looks to raise the bar in this area. With VR it sounds like it wont be for the faint of heart either 
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Im looking forward to getting motion sickness from carrier launches…
Just Sayin’… lol…
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We’re still looking for “Simultaneously drop 4 GBU-31s, programmed to hit four separate targets” as the correct thing to do first in the Hornet. Then land on the boat, at night, pitching deck, poor weather.
While totally unrealistic, Battlefield 3 carrier scenes were highly attractive and minutely crafted.
As someone completely devoid of Carrier ops knowledge I found them exhilarating!
@SiThSpAwN ouch, sorry I replied to the wrong ost. It was meant as a reply to @SkateZilla.
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I’ve watched those clips…and while they are cool, I can envision them getting old after the first dozen times since they are scripted. Now what would be cool would be being on the deck or entering the flight deck through a door and actually walking up to your aircraft under your own control and seeing the specific mission sortie launching and preparing around you for that mission design. That’d be pretty nifty… Maybe even walking up to your jet and having an arming/fueling menu ready for you to change things. And if you are in VR, you have to duck so you don’t get your head chopped off by the E-2C props…
Concur- in the main game they happen once, so for me it’s totally worth it.
Didn’t Take on Helicopters actually have a walk-around gameplay section?
Yes…in fact, they had a mission where you got shot down and you had to evade capture and find your way to a rescue helo…it was one of the best missions of the campaign…
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Cool, but I actually remember a game play section where you have to perform the Helicopter pre-flight walk-around… you get a score based on what you didn’t forget.
Or was it another game? 
Yes, you could do that in TOH. I can’t remember if there was a scored mission on it or not though…but yeah, you can walk around it and it highlights things.
Oh wait…I DO have some screens of that mission:
A Loach a Loach! My kingdom for a Loach!
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If you close your eyes and imagine…the Gazelle probably feels a bit like it…
There is an ED dev whispering sweet F/A-18 development porn in the F/A-18 thread on the ED forums and you guys are talking about what? lol…
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If you close your eyes in pretty much any Helicopter, it will know, and it WILL try to kill you. Kind of like cats really LOL.
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He’s talking about LMAV video linkages and Autopilot warnings. >Assuming we don’t have collective Navy jet spidey senses
