Alrighty…so got the little guy off to school and had a few minutes to give the module another whirl this morning. Sincere apologies for not being able to just give you hours of stream of consciousness impressions, but my TO DO list after arriving home from vacation is extensive.
I fired up the Quick Start Persian Gulf carrier launch mission. This one has you on the catapult with some fuel and bombs. Since I was just planning a lap around the boat, I found the jettison button and fuel dump switch. Again, not having read much on the manual and not knowing the max trap weight, I just dropped all my stuff on the wings and dumped fuel down. There must be a timer or something on the fuel jettison switch because I found it would turn itself off after a bit (probably a good idea!)…
Launch was automatic once I got into afterburner…
After dumping stuff…
First pass I started way too high and far away from the carrier due to looking around the cockpit for switches…
Fuel dumping underway…
A bit high…and I can’t see the “ball”…
Just shooting for an onspeed on the AOA indicator…again, the plane wants to really sink if you get toward the lean side of your speed (like minus 5 knots…you better be getting back into the power)…
First little nervous pass was a bolter…a bit high and a bit too conservative on the power in close…
Was a bit late putting the power back in…staggered off the deck at 135 knots and barely made it up and away. Left the gear and configuration the same for a shorter trip around the boat…
The tighter pattern actually is much easier to fly and gives you a better feel for getting in the proper slot I feel…
Flew a little slower with a bit more AOA on the second pass…
And my first trap is a 3-wire…! Woot!
Mapped the nosewheel steering key with does give you NWS HI and allows for tight maneuvering on the deck…still just a touch of shimmy on the deck with regards to the plane/deck interaction.
Watching the “experts” come back aboard (the AI from my flight). Don’t know if they dump fuel or stuff…but they brought bombs back…
Any-who…lots of fun and this is going to be a blast in MP around the boat. Will be fun to see how damage or a single engine approach goes with some poor weather. Exciting stuff. Can’t wait to try tanking and figuring out the carrier instrument landing system. Will check out the IFLOLS a bit more too and see what the lights look at up close.