I’ve got the opposite problem, I keep overshooting… And overshooting… And overshooting… Bolter after bolter after bolter… Til finally I get lucky and catch either the 4 wire or the 1 wire.
Are you trying to overhead, or going straight in? Also are you paying attention to the meatball?
Mmm… Meatballs. The kind you eat, right? Sadly, they only let me bring Cheetos into the cockpit. I despise Cheetos.
I try to get the meatball about right but I either sink too much or lose too much speed, so after a few tries I give up and go back to the flight path vector.
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Which is why you end up floating over the deck 
Try stabilizing throttle around a given AoA/airspeed and pulsing up or down without waiting to see an effect for the given input. You’ll find your adjustments get a lot more precise.
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This.
The secret sauce here though really is making sure you’re stabilized for your AoA. Even before you start your descent, slow down, throw down the flaps and gear, do whatever you need to do with the throttle to maintain ~130 in that configuration, and then trim so the FPM and AoA indexer are no longer oscilating all over the place. From there you’ll notice you can make your FPM go up or down with throttle alone.
Once you get comfortable doing that fly straight in, and when the carrier is a little more than half way between the horizon and the -5 bracket on your pitch ladder, begin a descent that puts the flight path marker just above the front of the angled deck.
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This has become a very interesting thread. As somebody who has worked with actual FA-18 squadrons, this discussion has definitely made up my mind about purchasing my own Hornet.
I’ll purchase this DCS mod when it can do the following things (in no particular order):
1 - Shoot a HARM in all 3 modes.
2 - Simulate a good ground/surface search radar
3 - Can drop dumb bombs in all bombing modes
4 - Can target and drop LGBs
5 - Can employ PGMs
5 - Can target and shoot a Harpoon
Those of you, my friends and comrades in virtual arms, may notice that all my “purchase requirements” are air-to-ground stuff. Why? Because in the timeframe that this model is portraying, that’s what we used it for. F-14s manned the CAP stations and did the bulk of the A2A mission, not Hornets.
The FA-18Cs were (are) predominantly used as strike aircraft. Attack-That’s what the big, capital “A” is for, in FA-18.
I have been racking my memory of my time in the Fleet and I cannot remember a single incidence of seeing anything more than an AIM-9Ms on an FA-18C…not even AIM-7s…I really cannot recall seeing asingle AIM-120 on an FA-18C…let alone a whole “truck full”.
My point? While some things may seem cool and will give this Hornet a good A2A advantage in Blue Flag or the Mudspike up coming carrier battle, that’s not how the real jet was/is employed by the real Fleet.
When it is finished, this is going to be an awesome jet! Until then…. 
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Franze real man, he fly jet like he fly Sasha at Olga’s house. He laugh at wimp capitalist and expensive missile. How you ever win war without guided smart phone? Franze use skill, put bomb in cross, press button, kill many enemy of Motherland. Sometime use grease pencil with vodka! This how Great Patriotic War won, like real man with real skill.
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I’m sitting on a video of @klarsnow quarterbacking @Bogusheadbox, @AeroMechanical and myself on inferior Blueflag in SARH only platforms running up the scoreboard 7/Nil on Hornets and AIM-120 equipped Eagles. ARH can only get you so far in a fight.
…Then again, all of our radars were working. 
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I can’t believe you haven’t bought it. I feel weak in my powers to discriminate purchases, especially after so many years of a Hornet dry patch. It’s like a world-class jockey doesn’t want to ride a horse again because they keep showing him brown ones!
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Hasn’t the community been waiting for an F/A-18 since 2004?
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Here we see the dawn of flightsimming: A user ragequits as he realizes how long it will be until the prerelease of the Hornet.
Edit: Some liner notes in an attempt to redeem this post: This was not a slight of ED or the Hornet, merely hyperbole on how long and eagerly people have been waiting for the latter. This was never considered off topic in the past, so if something has changed, please let us/me know so we can make adjustments.
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Just a friendly moderators reminder that we try to keep this thread on track.
And please remember to be nice to one and other.
Arguing about what features may or may not work, in the future, is pretty futile. Especially if you let yourself get worked up about it.
We’re here because we enjoy flightsims, not because we dislike them.
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I think Midway and Coral Sea are very interesting cases. As far as I know, these were the only carriers where legacy Hornets have been responsible for air-defense (admittedly F/A-18A and not C though). Being too small to carry Tomcats on deployments, they initially kept the Phantom as their fighter component and then eventually switched to the F/A-18A in 1985/86 (and were retired before the Super Hornet).
These were taking on USS Coral Sea in 1986, probably during operations off Libya.
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If i post these here, am i still on topic?
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One of the planes in those pics is called a pig for a reason…
I think two reasons.
It likes getting dirty and can make huge holes in the mud.
A pig also is an excellent way to permanently hide a human.
Hmmm now that i think of it. maybe there s 3.
A pig is bigger than a hornet and can run further… its bite is more painful than a sting
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I’m not only a member of that club, but also the president as the old commercials went.
So many jokes to make here, but family friendly and all that.
They also taste good.
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Lol, i must be off form, totally missed that when i wrote it.
You are, as usual, absolutely correct Sir!
However, I remember reading somewhere the DCS Hornet modeled is the type seen in the mid 20-naughts …2004 to 2006-ish…by which time we were shaving with razor blades made from recycled Coral Sea steel and Midway was a museum in San Diego Bay. 
My experiences were from 2000 to 2005, specifically aboard Stennis with Airwing 14 (1 x F-14 sqdrn, 1 x FA-18E sqdrn, 2 x FA-18C sqdrns) 2003 to 2005. The Tomcats and Rhinos were the primary A2A platforms. The C’s. were primarily strike platforms. So I am admittedly biased…I want to relive the halcyon days of my youth at sea…well, the hectic (but fun) early 40s.
Great photos of the FA-18Cs with AMRAM…very cool. I especially like the underwing twin launcher. That’s Bad @$$!
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