Carrier Landings...help with AOA over the deck?

[ESzczesniak]

Now that there is a nice new Nimitz/Ike carrier package for FSX, I've been trying to learn to land on these carriers (when acceleration came out, I was never happy enough to do anything more than get through the missions).  I seem to have two issues.  My biggest issues is point number two.

1. To maintain AOA and about 700 fpm, I need to be at 145-150 kts with approx 6,000 lbs of fuel.  I guess not the biggest deal, but this seems high.  I expect 135-140 kts.  Am I missing something?

2. I'm able to hold AOA (based on indexer) and glideslope over the ramp, but then my AOA indexer starts going haywire.  Once crossing the ramp, I can hold the same attitude/speed all the way to touchdown, but my AOA will bounce from too low, to too high, to right on a couple times before TD.  This seems to be creating the major issue for the "crash factor", as it seems if I don't touchdown with the AOA indexer right in the middle it counts as a crash (not to mention what happens after the "bounce" of the carrier landing).  I understand that in principle this is the way it should be, but it seems unrealistic for AOA to bounce around like this when no flight parameters change.  I assume this has something to do with modeling of ground effect, but it seems very unrealistic and essentially a crap shoot as to what happens on landing.  Any suggestions for dealing with this?

Thanks for any thoughts and input.

[SpazSinbad]

ES, Can't comment about new carrier package but have just looked at your 6,000 lb fuel weight to confirm that at Optimum Angle of Attack (in the sim) the IAS is indeed 145 knots (with a rate of descent to a runway just in case there was an issue). Angle of Attack is fixed, so Optimum is fixed - however the IAS for a given weight will vary up and down. Rate of descent is controlled by power at O AoA. The nose position controls AoA.

I would suggest that you try landing with less fuel - say half what you have - so use 3,000 lbs with less IAS for Optimum Angle of Attack. You have not mentioned the weather and wind speed and whether you have turbulence dialled in? Maybe that is irrelevant but you may have strong wind with a lot of turbulence at low level.

If you read a long series of posts about "braking problems" ['F-18 carrier brake problems'] you will see me raving on about the need for new carrier pilots to practice their carrier landings ashore before trying their luck on an FSX carrier. IF you are not used to the OAoA landing technique then it is easy enough to mess with the controls at the last second (in an automatic attempt to flare for example) rather than maintain OAoA to touchdown. Big corrections to the approach can be made some distance away but as one gets closer those corrections need to be much smaller (if you are already on speed [optimum angle of attack], with a centre meatball and lined up). Are you lined up on the angle deck centreline? All these things matter.

[ESzczesniak]

Thanks for your reply.  I am new to carriers in FSX, but have a long history of flying from carriers in the older sims like FS9 and Janes F/A-18E.  I am very familiar with AoA on approaches.  I fully understand how nose position is the primary determinent of AoA, but also know very well that descent rate also is a factor in AoA.  Making course, glideslope and speed corrections comes very natural at this point and I am able to do this well in the sim until crossing the back of the boat.  I am definitely not trying to flare, but all the stability of my approach seems to be thrown off.

I am indeed coming on centerline.  If the line won't be between the two main gear when I touchdown, I go around and usually the nose gear comes down right on center.  I do not have any wind dialed in at the moment, but the carrier is moving at 25 kts. 

I'm just having a hard time managing what I presume to be the ground effect modeling that is pushing the aircraft all around once over the back of the boat.  My approach could have been dead centered on ball on AoA/speed since the 1.0 NM mark.  Then I cross over the back of the boat and get pushed a bit high (but only barely) and the AoA drops, the shoots back up.  Sometimes I even get a little bit of a forced roll put in over the back of the boat.  I've even tried getting setup so the aircraft is trimmed for the approach and can be flown "hands off" and I get the same effect if I'm not touching the controls (of course, these are landings that would never be ideal as I don't get to make the fine adjustments to put me in the wires on perfect centerline).

[SpazSinbad]

ES, OK I take your sim experience as a 'given'. My own experience with these new Carriers is nil. If the carrier is moving at 25 knots then there is 'almost' a wind over the deck of 25 knots. However this assumes that there is NIL wind otherwise. When there is NO wind the ship is making the wind but this wind (in NIL wind) will not be down the angle deck but down the axial deck (centreline of the ship / carrier itself). This effect will increase any 'burble' effect (turbulence) caused by the island because this turbulence will stream off the island down over the ramp (presuming this is modelled in the sim itself).

When there is some natural wind the carrier will steer a course which will put the WOD (Wind Over the Deck) down the angle, meaning the ship will steer slightly to starboard of the wind direction to achieve this effect. It gets maybe complicated but the ship driver will look at a flag to see how the wind goes down the angle to simplify it.

My suggestion would be to dial in some natural wind that will go straight down the angle deck centreline. You could try to adjust for the ship direction of movement. Anyway this may move any turubulence away from being over the ramp where you seem to be having the issues you describe.

In any event my method would be to NOT land at a high AUW (too much fuel). I would land with about 3,000 lbs of fuel. Also you have not mentioned the realism settings. Adjusting those to effect better landings may be useful if otherwise you are doing good approaches as you have described. Also do you use the AoA indexer itself OR the HUD? Personally I would use the indexer. Once over the ramp hold everything presuming you are on speed, glideslope and lined up. Any correction over the deck is not good. Take the bolter if that is what happens and don't 'deck spot' at the last second to achieve a landing. Personally I am not looking at the HUD to see any last second 'burble' effect (with the main sim carrier though). Sorry - likely I won't have time to setup the new carriers to see what is happening with them. Good luck.

[Also take out any wind turbulence (at low level) from the 'weather' details & have the aircraft trimmed for the approach.]

[Razgriz]

Could you kindly make a video of it to show us what is going on?  To me it seems like your AOA indexer is going wild, but I'm not quite sure why.

[ESzczesniak]

Could you kindly make a video of it to show us what is going on?  To me it seems like your AOA indexer is going wild, but I'm not quite sure why.

In terms of what's going on, the indexer is definitely going wild.  I'll have to see what I can do about a video though.  I don't own FRAPS, so that could be an issue.

[SpazSinbad]

I am a long time user of FRAPS which works OK on any ATI cards but I have always had issues with any high end nVidia cards & FRAPS. Anyway here is an alternative found on the net: (Have not used it myself)

http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/12/taksi-open-source-alternative-to-fraps/

Find TAKSI here: http://taksi.sourceforge.net/

"Taksi is a utility that allows you to take screenshots and record video clips of your favourite games and other 3D-graphics applications. Inspired by Fraps (www.fraps.com), Taksi aims to provide an open source alternative to that great tool.

Other features:
Taksi can support live video compression with any VFW video codec your system has installed (i.e. XVid, DivX, MS Mpeg4, etc).

Supports user-specified key mapping, allowing user to assign almost any key to a particular function (such as video start/stop, screenshot trigger, etc.). Runtime re-mapping of the keys is supported via GUI: user can change keys without having to restart the game.

Custom video settings are supported (see manual.txt for more details about this).
Basically, this allows a user to specify on a per-game basis the frame rate of the captured video, and the weight of each source frame. The weight determines whether a particular frame is captured or not. This allows for creation of smoother and faster videos, when generic algorithm doesn't produce desired results.

Project info:
The project summary page can be found at SourceForge.net/projects/taksi.

Download:
Latest stable version is 0.7.6 (from June.22,2006 )
Changes include: improved mapping/hooking algorithm; full-size video capture.

List of all previous releases (including full source code) here.
Tech spec for v0.7.6:
DirectX 8, DirectX 9, OpenGL and GDI based applications are supported in this version. Video can be recorded at either full-size, or half-size in each dimension (using bilinear minification filter). Audio is not captured. There is no imposed limit on the duration of the video, only available disk space is your limit.

Supported OS: Win95/98/ME, WinNT4.0/2K/XP.
3D Graphics API: Direct3D 8, Direct3D 9, OpenGL, GDI
Screenshot file format: PNG or 24-bit BMP
Video file format: compressed or uncompressed AVI using any VFW codecs

[Razgriz]

Could you kindly make a video of it to show us what is going on?  To me it seems like your AOA indexer is going wild, but I'm not quite sure why.

In terms of what's going on, the indexer is definitely going wild.  I'll have to see what I can do about a video though.  I don't own FRAPS, so that could be an issue.

I would say start at 3/4 mile 'Call the Ball' until the 'bounce' stage of the landing.  The free version of fraps can record for 30 seconds at a time.

[ESzczesniak]

Well, I feel like an idiot.  No video at the moment, but I think I have my answer.  My joystick has a twist axis, but I use rudder pedals.  I had never unmapped the twist axis though.  Something about the roll I was getting over the ramp made me think about this, so I bumped the deadzones almost all the way up.  Since that, the Hornet has really calmed down...she's still a bit jumpy, but much better.  Seems I was introducing this myself in fact.  It's nice to be crossing the back of the boat and end up with the LSO debrief (use the Top Gun Simulations missions) "a little low at the ramp, 3 wire" and have that be it.

The default F/A-18 still is the most jumpy.  Dino's T-45C is a little bit that way and Dino's F-14D and Alphasim's EA-6B are both quite stable by comparison (don't mean that landing them is necessarily easy, but they don't jump around over the ramp).

And a couple of screenshots to celebrate, but with the prettier of the carrier borne fighters...

[Voodoo]

Ooh, nice screenshots, man!

[Intrepid]

Ooh, nice screenshots, man!

I have to second that!
Very nice screenshots indeed
Randy

[JamesChams]

Mr. ESzczesniak,

...The default F/A-18 still is the most jumpy.  Dino's T-45C is a little bit that way and Dino's F-14D and Alphasim's EA-6B are both quite stable by comparison (don't mean that landing them is necessarily easy, but they don't jump around over the ramp)....

If you haven't had a chance to read this post http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php?topic=1908.msg16018#msg16018 you will see that the original settings for the tailhook(s) were misaligned.  This fixes it for the above aircraft mentioned.  I'll look into the settings for Accelerations's F/A-18A/CaptainSim's F/A-18D's as well; might have the same issue.  If they are misaligned it might be contributing to some difficulties trapping them during landing for some users.

 

[JamesChams]

Well, in investigating the tailhook locations issues for the Acceleration F/A-18A, CaptainSim's F/A-18D & F-117A, I found that Microsoft got their Acceleration F/A-18 dead-on accurate in all its settings.  However, CaptainSim's F/A-18D's tailhook was misaligned (and I've now fixed it) and both their Launch Bar location are correctly forward but NOT dead-on accurate to their locations; they do, however, work as intended.

So, I posted a new fix here: Aircraft AI Carrier Configurations v1.3 by James F. Chams

Acceleration F/A-18A (Correcting settings)


CaptainSim F/A-18D (settings off)


CaptainSim F/A-18D (settings Tailhook Fixed)


CaptainSim F-117A (settings somewhat correct)


Enjoy!

[idahosurge]

Thanks for the tail hook updates James, I just finished updating all of my F/A-18D's.

Rod

[JamesChams]

Mr. Rod,
Glad this helped; Enjoy!