DCS F/A-18C Hornet Case I Recovery tips

Agreed. And it’s nice that it is a relatively easy jet to “bring to life” (for that purpose anyway).

Ehhhhhh. Not true.

Obviously meatball, lineup, and AOA comprise your primary scan but if you aren’t using the HUD and velocity vector to help, you’re just making it harder on yourself.

You can reference the VV in the crotch of the carrier - where the bow meets the waist - as a good starting point.

If you get low, you can put the VV a couple degrees above the deck, and if you ever see the VV slip aft on the boat, or worse behind the boat, you know you need to quickly add power.

Again it’s not your primary reference but you can use it as a tool to make appropriately measured corrections.

Also in the E/F/G, with the Precision Landing Modes, you essentially get a velocity vector that corrects for ship’s speed and glide slope, which you then put literally where you intend to land on the boat. Again, ball will still trump it but when it’s working correctly - and the ship hasn’t changed speed since they told you (which of course they have) - it’s put the thing on the thing.

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Just to check, you mean right about here?

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I was referencing the situation when the pilot uses deck spotting technique all the way to the trap without using the meatball.

I probably have expressed myself badly while saying

I should have said it would be enough.

Yep, that’s the spot.

No worries! I gotcha now.

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Not the right engine, per se, but close.

:slight_smile:

MODERATION FOR THE MODERATION GOD

TOPIC MERGERS FOR THE TOPIC MERGER THRONE

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A couple more okay-ish examples.

Here are a couple of patterns I shot last night if it helps anyone. Notice that during the downwind leg, I’m trying to keep either level or in a shallow dive while capturing a speed close-ish to that table I posted above. Once I’m in the ball park, I worry about trimming to the proper on speed AoA. Once you’ve done that the aircraft becomes pretty rock solid if you show proper care to the throttles.

As I cross parallel to the turn down on the ramp (the white line painted across the back), I begin a 30 degree bank into the boat. I’m not so much worrying about AoA here as I am about descent rate. At 45 and 90 degrees through the turn, I try and glance towards the boat to judge my turn and whether I need to tighten down or relax it. A couple of times I’m wide, a few I’m narrow. As I pass 90 degrees of bank, I transition to keeping the boat in sight and cross checking with the HUD to maintain proper descent and roll. Once I roll out in a groovy-ish position, only then do I transition to reverse control (throttle for up/down, stick/trim for fast/slow). You’ll also notice in each of these my alignment when I land is off because I fail to maintain corrections for motion of the ship.

In this one I got a bit low as I crossed the ramp, and thus landed a bit shallow

Dropped low at the last minute (noticing a trend yet :smiley: )

I was a bit low before crossing the ramp, over corrected so I was a bit shallow and high, and then cut the throttle and dropped harder than I’d like onto the wires. Not the way I’d totally recommend.

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I have to say Rhino pilots have it easy nowadays with Magic Carpet system :rage:

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Jabbers has added an addendum to his great recovery video:

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image

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The throttle ‘rock’ tip is pretty essential. I spent about an hour last night practicing AA refueling and it really clicked using that ‘rock the throttle all the time, using smaller increments’. It really works for me.

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I’m a big fan of using the ATC when refueling. Probably against NATOPS, but it works very well.

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I tried that (as goodness knows I’m not religious about using anything that would help me) but it never seemed to be good enough to keep station. On a KC-130 last night I would engage it when hooked up (at say 294 kts) but I would still creep forward. If I engaged it at 293kts I would fall back. I really only wanted to use it to relax a bit when during fuel transfer but it never really worked out for me. The Su33 (I think, early here and need coffee) has those nice ‘speed up / speed down’ on its ATC, and I remember using that - but the Hornet has no ‘adjustments’ when in ATC, does it?

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I love this part of the game and it’s getting lots of attention.
Here are my tips.

  1. Don’t chase the E bracket. Put your flight marker where you want it and use the throttle to make the E bracket come to You.
  2. Do 3 circuits, take a break. Do 3 more… take a break. But commit to doing it every time you fly.
  3. Spend some time flying around getting used to this new style of flying. Get comfy with the throttle. Take your sweet time when flying away from the boat. Always be On Speed.
  4. Cage the HUD. It helped me a lot.
    I’m no expert but I’m getting better. I used the carrier take off mission. It starts you off at 44000 lbs. If you can land or even bolter That then the Case 1 mission will seem easy.
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Has anyone linked A.E.W.'s videos? Apparently a legacy hornet pilot (20 years ago) and seems like he knows his stuff, has good things to say about the sim, and really nice tips on sightpictures and procedures for CASE I.

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Yep, I mentioned him already in the other thread here: Need Landing Tips for Hornet - #7 by damson

Also for all you deck spotters - beware:

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Unfortunately with my G940 throttle I’m not sure the rocking will work. For some unknown reason they programmed in this hysteresis that makes a change of 4% every time you reverse it. So if you push the throttle down to say 70%, and push it back up, the next value is 74%. If you push it from there to 75% and then reverse it, the next value is 71%.
This applies to the trim wheel axes on the stick and the two range wheel axes on the throttle as well.

I need to get a new HOTAS, but there is nothing I have seen in the range I want to spend. The G940 was the last entry in that segment and it has been barren since they discontinued it. :frowning: