DCS F/A-18C

Yeah, then after all that I have to land on a carrier… I’ll be hugging my pedals under my desk in the fetal position :slight_smile:

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I did that on “F/A-18 Interceptor” on my Amiga 500, back in the days. In “CAP” as well, come to think of it, and that had a Tomcat too. Wasn’t that hard…
@sobek, can I borrow your denial gif? :wink:

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Bah, the plane does most of that for you. The FCS should trim for on speed, all you need to do is keep the FPM close to -3 degrees and adjust throttle based off of the FLOLS. You’ve got four wires, no cross wind, how could you miss? Now if you’ll excuse me…




runs off to hide incriminating P3D landing evidence

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Will it be like landing the SU-33 ? :older_woman:

Should be like 50x better. The US understands how to make intelligible HUD symbology.

note I did not say easier

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That’s reserved for special occasions only.

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Ah come-on, with the Su-33’s flight model you just set it to ILS mode and keep the bars aligned in the ADI and your speed appropriate and you nail it every time.

I can’t think of anything easier than this. You don’t even have to flare.

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Every time I hear @near_blind on TS landing the P3D F-14 on a carrier …

'Cause it ain’t about the landing
Why would I care?

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So real talk. There’s difference between getting on the boat, and getting on the boat “authentically”.

The former honestly shouldn’t be that hard. The carrier should have ILS to get you more or less situated. The F/A-18’s flight control system should (if I read the manual correctly), auto trim to maintain on-speed AoA and reduce stick sensitivity with the landing gear down, so all you need to do is center the needles, put the flight path marker at ~3 AoA (depends on the carrier), and work the throttle so that the needles stay centered, adjusting for alignment (the carrier ought to be moving). That sounds like a lot, but it’s really not much more than a normal landing, your margin of error is just smaller. Ironically the thing I notice most is that most players seem to be uncomfortable with the approach speed Navy jets fly at, which is usually around ~130 knots and below. If you keep the plane slow, maintain descent rate and fight the urge to flare, it’s really not terribly difficult.

The latter is trickier. The standard Navy daytime overhead pattern is designed to get as many planes on the boat as quickly as possible. It requires rather quick and precise flying, doing any number of things simultaneously at the very bottom of your jet’s performance envelope. If you everything right, you should pop out 3/4 of a mile behind the boat, on glide slope, on speed, set up for a landing. If you don’t fly it properly, particularly the base turn, then you have to do a great deal of correction with very little time and distance to do it.

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Yeah…this. That is a very “dynamic” pattern to be certain. I’ve always wondered…do they do that overhead pattern at night too…or is that strictly a day VFR thing? Because I can imagine that overhead break at night would be a setup for a spatial disorientation disaster. Flying over the ocean at night is no joke (been there, done that). I’d always take my primary students out over the ocean off of the departure end of runway 18 in Myrtle Beach at night. Usually, after the lights of the coast slid behind the wings, they’d end up getting vertigo. It was always a powerful and humbling lesson for most of them…

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They do not. There’s a separate pattern for night/inclement weather where aircraft are vectored by the carrier air traffic control center via radar, and fly an extended straight in instrument approach, switching to the FLOLS at 3/4 a mile or when visible.

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Just stick your head in the sand and we’ll dig you up when the Hornet comes out… :wink:

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You’re clearly counting on my own denial not being strong enough. Shame on you. :wink:

We will?
Oh! Oh! Yes! YES… We will…!

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At night, they move from the day CASE I to a CASE III which is pretty much an ILS straight in.

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But once you’re in the deck, my friend, you’re never the same again.

How are they going to do taxiing and parking?

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Like the video was great… but shouldn’t there have been something else revealed at time 1.11

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New dance moves?
. :jenneke:

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