Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
-Dylan Thomas
So you’re saying…I should wheel my deathbed into a nightclub?
I noted that it is incredible difficult to hit centerline alignment at night. With no visual horizon, at high AOA the carrier lights are subject to a large pendulum effect. Whenever you bank, the lights appear to swing sideways widely. This is very disorienting.
The uncultured yob that I am thought you were going in to the Independence Day movie speech
I suppose so unless as in the case with Thomas, you go directly from the pub to your deathbed. 18 shots of whiskey will do that to a person.
Glad to know I’m not the only one. I read an article about Tomcat pilots doing what you explained on approach and adopted that method for most, if not all, my aircraft. I also find it easier to grease and stop my aircraft when it is dirtied up.
EDIT: Reading through the entire ED thread, Rudel_chw states that his training missions no longer work with later versions of the A-4E and DCS. However, I would venture that there is much to learn by watching the YouTube videos. I also plan to use my very basic understanding of the ME to fix missions as I discover issues. The first mission is fine, albeit with the one omission stated below.
Having just finished Stephen R. Gray’s, Rampant Raider, for the second time around, I thought it high time that I dive head first into Scooterology. To that end, I downloaded Rudel_chw’s most excellent training missions. The first one, a cold and dark CV affair is a bit long (took me ~45 mins), in that he follows NATOPS. But I suggest that you do this at least once, in order to gain a fuller understanding of the Scooter’s systems. Case in point is the two waypoint doppler navigation computer, which makes the F-15E feel like Starbuck’s Colonial Viper Mk II in comparison. That is not to say that it is Flintstones tech, but an interesting introduction to how avionics developed during the Vietnam war era. I believe that Rudel_chw mentions in the first training mission that the same nav computer was used in the A-6 and A-7, so a good primer for those aircraft.
The training missions were made before version 2 of the Scooter was released, so I’m expecting a few inconsistencies. But in the case of Cold and Dark, the only thing that I found lacking was a yellow dashed box around the master caution test button. In fact I didn’t find its location, ,just above your left knee, until the second time it was called on the start engine checklist. There is a corresponding YouTube video for each Training Mission. All praise the DCS community.
Thanks for the tip; that’s one I don’t have. “one click” away.
A rave would be the best place to go i think. Loads of beer. 23 year old girls in bikinis and short skirts. Plus you wouldnt have to talk to any of them as for once THEY would be too embarrassed to talk to YOU! WIN WIN WIN
This reminds me about what I read in a book about the J34, the Swedish Hawker Hunter.
It was just too slick and a belly barn door airbrake was installed. The brake had to be retracted before landing, or it would hit the ground, so a simple electromecanical logic was applied. If the brake was deployed, it would retract when the landingear was lowered. This only affected the airbrake, not the airbrake handle.
So, many young pilots landed and forgot to retract the airbrake, since it was auto retracted. Next guy takes off in the jet and selects gear up…and the airbrake deploys.
In low speed.
In a climb.
When the Viggen was designed SAAB put some thought into this matter and designed the airbrakes to extend while the brake switch on the throttle handle was held backwards, when gear was down. Unfortunately they also designed airbrakes that were so woefully ineffective that they were disengaged completely on the JA 37 (fighter) version and the airbrake switch was put to better use.
Okay, raise your hand if you’ve ever ejected yourself while trying to hide the joystick…
Or shut down the harriers engine looking for the parking brake
I have done both of these things…