Hey Delta... here's my 2 cents worth (which is a lot like the Microbrewster's info so sry in adv. if it's duplicate).
I accomplished the Carrier Practice Mission several times, but was very dissatisfied with my performance. I'd slam the nose in sometimes and create a shower-o-sparks. Or break one of the main gear, land in excess of 750 fpm, not be centered and have the resulting roll-over (mission failure for all 3 of those, of course). My speed would be high (145+), AOA was high... no consistency… it was all goofed up. The attachment is a pic of what happened on one of my nutty-er traps.
So I decide to alter the mission in a couple ways:
1) I set the Weather Theme to Fair Wx. (lol, like the pic).
2) BINGO level set to Zero.
3) Fuel dumped to about 3600 pounds (this can be done fairly quickly by hooking up to the Cat, switching on fuel DUMP and going into MAX afterburner.) This provides plenty enough fuel to make 5 arrested landings and a couple of bolters to boot.
4) I use the "Radio Stack" view. (I was frustrated with the head acceleration/deceleration in VC so I had to come up with something else.) I zoom to like .40 and shift the eyepoint (primarily using ALT+SHIFT+ENTER/BACKSPACE and SHIFT+ENTER/BACKSPACE). At the bottom of my screen I can see the EFD (engine fuel display) on the left and the red HOOK light on the right.
At this zoom level, the meatball is difficult to precisely see in relation to the datum lights, so what I do to compensate is fly slightly low so that the meatball turns from flashing red to red (maybe even to orange and back to red... make sense?) i.e. I fly slightly below glidepath for most of the approach.
Btw, to the person who posted the how to stop the head movement in VC... blessings be upon thee.
As I understand the posts here... most have been using %N1 (fan speed) but I will be describing power settings in terms of %N2 (compressor speed) because this is what is displayed on the EFD. And when flying I usually have something else in the DDI (besides the ENG display) :-P
I launch with full flaps (why mess with them?) and ~85% power and begin a climbing left turn. On the downwind leg I level off at 1200' AGL, am heading 185 degrees and trim for level flight at 150kts (this is what I shoot for anyway). Power here isn't much to stay level... like ~ 79%.
After a minute or so downwind of the abeam point, I approach what appears to be a Spruance Class DD, and I get the "235 Paddles Contact". I make my 180 back to the carrier, using roughly ~81% power (maybe a touch more) holding altitude, while pulling just enough G to bleed my airspeed down to about 135kts. This puts me about 3 miles from the ship, below the glideslope at 1200', and I hold level flight with ~79% power.
Now I make my second (and last) trim adjustment... to 135kts. Normally I'm a trim hound, and for any airspeed/power/flap change I trim out any backpressure, but these carrier landings are the one exception to my rule. I'll trim on the first approach to 135kts and not touch trim again (if I can help it) for the next 4 landings. Once glideslope intercept is made (flashing red meatball goes to red), I'll pull power back a touch to 76 or 77% (maybe a touch more, maybe less, depends how stable my turn to final was). So now I am set up on a nice long stable ~600 to 700fpm descent, at roughly 135kts.
Now with this Fair Wx setting... this is one approach where one doesn't have to be a throttle jockey. If you can get setup on the glideslope on course, with the right airspeed and power setting early... it's like you’re riding the beam, or riding a rail. All that will be needed is minor corrections. Personally, I hate to make a throttle correction in this Wx theme (especially in the Clear Skies theme), but in the other themes (like the Wx for the actual Carrier Practice mission) sure, I have to continually adjust it.
I think my technique varies slightly from the Brewster's in that, I pitch for airspeed (instead of an Onspeed indication), then fine tune my AOA according to the AOA indexer to get the Onspeed indication, using power to control rate of descent (like he said, everything is inter-related, but if I have to say what is primarily doing what... pitch to airspeed/AOA and power for rate of descent). I picked 135kts as my initial target airspeed because the LSO calls out "Too Slow" at 125 and "Too Fast" at 145.
When I'm way out at the beginning of the 3 mile approach, I like to see the velocity vector cover up the fantail of the ship. I don't aim for this, just something I like to see. As I get closer it will "drift" toward the bow of the ship at which point I'm really ignoring it. I scan in 2 primary places: the flight deck and the HUD. Looking at the flight deck I check the meatball and alignment. Back at the HUD, the AOA indexer is making itself quite well known, and I'll check airspeed and descent rate (and maybe sneak a peek at the actual AOA). It's almost like sighting a rifle... fore then aft then back again. Whatever you do, you HAVE to keep scanning and making whatever tiny corrections that need to be made as soon as you recognize it.
Once the ship blossoms into view (inside the 3/4 mile mark) I am verifying the picture I see of the landing area with my landing parameters (AOA, rate of descent and meatball). At some point I will lose sight of the meatball as the HUD will block my view of it (shortly before flying over the fantail) and my airspeed/rate of descent is what it is... that is my total focus shifts entirely to the landing area. I do this to maintain my AOA and alignment to the centerline. In the few 10ths of a second remaining, I reconcile the landing picture I see with the picture I have in my head of what things should look like. Of course you’re so close by this point, only minute corrections can be made.
And I just continue flying it onto the deck as if there were no deck there. No flare, no nothing. I don’t try to force it down… either the hook will engage a wire or I fly a bolter (seems somewhat surreal at this point, at least until you realize which is happening). The arrest is made and as soon as I feel the hook release, I come back a touch on the power so I can taxi to launch for the next one.
Once I got this entire picture firmly emblazoned in my mind, I went back to do the actual Carrier Practice Mission. I could then consistently make 5 landings in a row without totaling my bird.
What is even more fun for me now is to fly the “Clear Skies” Wx theme and set it to about midnight on the night of the New Moon. All the room lights go off and I will turn off the cockpit floodlights. With just the stars, you really have to focus on the HUD as it can be quite disorienting (imo). LOL, I’ve even tried it with the “Major Thunderstorm” Wx theme, but I can’t claim yet to have done 5 in a row :-P.
My only real problem now is: the landings aren’t being logged. I’ve got a handsome number accomplished (as I can roughly tell by the flight time) but not one to my knowledge has been recorded in the logbook. This is the case for both the “altered” and “unaltered” Carrier Practice Mission. I mean I should be getting 5 per completion… but alas, none.
Btw I did a dilettantish video of a Night Carrier Trap (I had to make it a full moon to record it, and even then it’s pretty dark… but it’s supposed to be… it’s night!). You can see roughly what my cockpit view looks like… the adjusted “Radio Stack” view that I am using on final. Again I use this view almost exclusively and no real switching of views is necessary for the entire circuit. You can see my AOA is high, but this was before I started flying with 3600lbs of fuel or less. At any rate I didn’t bang up the nose on those (crash tolerance slider was full right, and detect crashes/damage and aircraft stress causes damage is always enabled).
Here’s the link
No comments as of yet like “Song a 10… Video a 2”. It’s youtube… but I think I can trust you guys not to be brutal :-S Btw, my camera operator is only 12 :-D
Keep workin’ on it Delta… keep ‘er on the centerline and you’ll get the hang of it. Hope this stuff helps.
Rob O.
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