Real F/A-18C Simulator

[MikeB54]

This Friday I will get an opportunity to fly an actual F/A-18C simulator.  I am about to find out if all of the time flying the Sludge Hornet and carrier approached with vLSO are going to keep me from embarrasing myself.  LOL

Mike

[Razgriz]

Good luck!  Should take some videos or pictures if they allow.  Would be awesome to see.

[wilycoyote4]

ah, lucky you, I'm jealous, haha, yes, give a report and some fotos or vids, please

[Orion]

Where?

[MikeB54]

I'm flying out tomorrow to visit my son who is an F/A-18 pilot at Miramar. His invitation was to see the Miramar Air Show but when he made the offer for sim time that was an offer I couldn't refuse. 

I'll do my best to get some photos and/or videos.  I will also post a report on the experience when I get back next week.

Mike

[Orion]

Ah, very cool.

[Sludge]

Mike...

Already sent you a request PM. Also, with my YouTube carrier pattern video I sent to ya, can you show that to your son and let us know his opinion or any comments. Would be enlightening to hear what he has to say.

BTW, I'm really jealous, San Diego is the "promised land" for me... I've been trying to get out there for years.

Take Care
Sludge

[MikeB54]

Sim time is in a couple of hours but I wanted to mention a comment my son had after watching the video and I think this is something we are all guilty of.  At least I know that I am.  The time in grove target is 12 - 18 seconds.  If you are over 20 you will get a No Grade for the pass no matter how good it was.  He also mentioned a trickk they use with the Velocity Vector during the turn to final.  It's hard to explain in words so when I get home I will set it up in FSX and post a picture.

Mike

[MikeB54]

OK, guys, here's the deal.  First off, I don't have any pictures to post.  Cameras of any kind are forbidden in the sim area.  In fact, they held on to my phone while I was in there.

The sim itself is a full cockpit sim with 360 degree projection.  I had them set it up cold and dark and from what I had learned from reading the NATOPS was actually able to get both engines started and the jet ready to fly.  Well, almost ready.  There are certain procedures in setting up the NAV and the INS that we don't simulate in FSX and I wasn't familar with.  Even without that the jet was ready to fly but military pilots live by the details so all of those things were explained and done for me before I was allowed to take off.

The sim was set up for a departure from Rwy 24R at Miramar with a carrier about 20 miles off the coast.  The first thing that caught my attention quick was how stiff the controls are.  Unless you have a joystick that is firmly attached to the desk there is no way it can have as much resistance in it to come anywhere close to the real thing.  I have a private pilots license and I am used to adding pressure to the controls to make the airplane do what I want it to do.  It doesn't work that way in the F/A-18.  You move the stick to where you want it and the on board computers take care of moving the appropriate control surfaces.  Once I got used to that it was fairly easy to fly the jet.  Not with the precision I would have liked but good enough that I didn't break anything.  The feel of the controls made it a little hard to judge but from I could tell the Sludge Hornet is right on the money as far the flight model goes.  With one small exception, elevator trim.  Normal takeoff trim settings in the real jet are 12 degrees for runway takeoffs and 16 degrees for carrier catapult launches.  In FSX I use 4 from runways and about 4.8 off the cat to get the same effect.  That may be due to aircraft lot numbers the two sims are based on.  I seem to recall that the older lot numbers use the lower trim values.  I would need to go back to the NATOPS to confirm that.

After the departure we headed to the carrier.  The biggest thing I noticed about carrier patterns is that things happen FAST.  You don't have time to really think about what happens next.  You just do it out of habit and muscle memory.  The normal procedure is to overfly the ship at 800 feet and 350 knots.  About a mile past the ship you perform the break.  Simutaneously you chop the throttles to idle, roll into a 60 degree bank left turn and descend to 600 feet.  The airspeed bleeds off pretty quickly.  As soon at you are below 250 kts you drop the gear, flaps to Full and drop the hook.  By the time you roll out on the reciprocal of the Base Recovery Course you should be at 600 feet and on speed.  Here is where I, and probably a lot of us, do things wrong.  Altitude is controlled by throttle, NOT pitch.  If you are a little high you reduce power, you don't pitch down.  The velocity vector should be within the E bracket at all times.  One thing my son mentioned to me was that when I was flying I wouldn't adjust the throttle for 5 seconds or more.  That made him cringe.  That's right, 5 seconds was too long!  I watched him fly a pattern and he never stopped moving the throttles.  Since the reaction of a jet engine is not instantaneous like a propeller you need to constantly anticipate the next power adjustment.  The distance abeam the carrier of the downwind leg you are shooting for is 1.3 - 1.4 nm.  Remember how I said in my earlier post that a short (12 - 18 seconds) time in the groove was important?  What that means is that you start your turn to final just about the time you can see the stern of the carrier.  You start the turn using about 28 degrees of bank. The nose comes down about 1 degree in the turn.  How do you tell when you are at 1 degree?  The velocity vector circle has 3 short lines coming off of it; one to the left, one at the top and one to the right.  You take the end of the top line and the end of the right line and put them on the horizon line.  Rate of decent is controlled by constant adjustments to the throttle.  You are shooting for 450 feet at the 90 and 380 feet at the completion of the turn rolling out on center line and ready to call the ball.  All the while you maintain "on speed" by keeping the velocity vector centered in the E bracket.  Another thing he mentioned about flying the ball, you never want to see a low indication.  The tip he told me that he does is to keep the ball indication one position above the datum line.  If you fly with the ball exactly on the datum line you have no room for error.  Coming in low and flat and catching a 1 wire is called "walking it on".  Let's just say that that is frowned upon.

He also set me up for some night traps.  Night catapult launches are unbelievable.  There are no visual references AT ALL.  It was like someone threw a black cover over the canopy.  All of the cockpit lighting is kept as low as possible.  To make things more challenging he set it up so the conditions were the same as when he did his first night trap in the F/A-18, a 400 foot cloud ceiling.  After the launch you go out about 3 miles climbing to 1200 feet.  The downwind turn is a lot more gentle, about 15 degrees of bank.  The downwind is flown 3 miles off the BRC at 150 kts.  There are 3 options for the turn to final, 4 miles, 6 miles or 8 miles from the carrier.  By the way, the only time he has the ILS needles up on the HUD are in bad weather or at night.  Never for normal daytime Case 1 approaches.  You maintain 1200 feet until you intercept the localizer then reduce power and start on down.  Remember, throttle controls altitude and pitch controls airspeed.  With the 400 foot ceiling I broke out just inside 3/4 mile.  At that point it's just like a daytime pass. You call the ball and fly the rest of the approach visually.

So, how did I do?  Not as well as I had hoped.  I had no Fair passes.  The best estimate is that about half of them would have been graded No Grade which isn't a "bad" grade but it isn't a good one either.  Some of the ones where I trapped probably would have been waved off.  However, I did manage to catch a 3 wire once but I almost broke the jet doing it.  The approach was high and I forced it.  My rate of descent when I trapped was about 1100 fpm.  Not enough to brake the jet, but enough that it would have needed a maintenance inspection before it flew again.

One other thing my son mentioned was that I was trying to be too smooth.  I was trying to fly it like an airplane rather than like a fighter jet.  You need to be quick and decisive with your control inputs.  There are no passengers in the back that you need to keep happy.  LOL

Anyway, I'm sure I left a bunch of stuff out.  If anyone has any questions I'd be happy to answer them.

Mike

[Orion]

Sounds cool!  Was it a full motion simulator, or was it stationary?  What sort of software were they using for the sim?  Proprietary stuff, or something like Lockheed Martin's Prepar3d?

[wilycoyote4]

Thanks for the detailed report, Mike, well written.

I think it is fair to mention we have our further flights to do following the info here.  I will for certain.

[Ost]

Nice report, thanks a lot Mike.

I had, a few years ago, the chance to fly Mirage 2000N (1,5 hour bombing mission) , Alpha jet (some TAGs and ILS procedures and Patrouille de France exibit - well... trying to for that point) and Mirage F1CT sims (also Mud mission), and it was really cool. But never had the possibility to fly naval operations as you did.

Thanks again for the report.

Ost

[Sludge]

Orion...

I would further a guess that L-3 Comm (contractors who run the sims; the company that posted the job opening I was looking at last summer) probly use their proprietary stuff. I've been to the full-motion airforce DMT F-16 sims and they are all proprietary based.

Mike...

Probly one of the best "real world" sim reports I've heard in a while. Thanks for all the well-written information.

The sim itself is a full cockpit sim with 360 degree projection.  I had them set it up cold and dark and from what I had leaned from reading the NATOPS was actually able to get both engines started and the jet ready to fly.

Great job. Most people would have NO CLUE how to do this. Did you get a PCL (pocket checklist) to help you out?

With one small exception, elevator trim.  Normal takeoff trim settings in the real jet are 12 degrees for runway takeoffs and 16 degrees for carrier catapult launches.  In FSX I use 4 from runways and about 4.8 off the cat to get the same effect.  That may be due to aircraft lot numbers the two sims are based on.  I seem to recall that the older lot numbers use the lower trim values.  I would need to go back to the NATOPS to confirm that.

Good analysis. I'm guessing its more of the FSX-factor than anything. We always have to remember, FSX was primarily designed as a "stick and rudder" flight sim and not a native FBW simulator. You can get FBW (thru many "brute force workaround" gauges), but even then some behaviors in the flight model will be suspect, as FSX is not a FBW simulator... when any conflicts exist, any flight model for FSX will "run home to mama" (back to stick and rudder calculations) by default.

I do have a question... when you took off from the cat, where did the W (waterline) and the V/Vector go? Right now, I try to get the W at 15 deg up and the V/Vector at 10 deg up. This will help me in setting a relative FSX takeoff auto-trim for the Sludge Hornet in the future.

What that means is that you start your turn to final just about the time you can see the stern of the carrier.  You start the turn using about 28 degrees of bank. The nose comes down about 1 degree in the turn.  How do you tell when you are at 1 degree?  The velocity vector circle has 3 short lines coming off of it; one to the left, one at the top and one to the right.  You take the end of the top line and the end of the right line and put them on the horizon line.

Straight up, FSX Naval Aviation GOLD. I knew about the stern of the carrier and the 28 deg of bank, but will work on this NEW velocity vector 1 degree method and see if it directly translates to FSX.

Another thing he mentioned about flying the ball, you never want to see a low indication.  The tip he told me that he does is to keep the ball indication one position above the datum line.

I heard the same thing from those Prowler and Growler guys down at the Alliance airshow. They called it "cresting the ball" and said its preferrable to have a one-ball high indication, as you can slowly walk that a tad lower and still get a fair-OK three wire pass. Whereas everything from just a bit below on-glide to low goes from BAD to extremely BAD and should not be accepted in any way during a pass.

By the way, the only time he has the ILS needles up on the HUD are in bad weather or at night.  Never for normal daytime Case 1 approaches.  You maintain 1200 feet until you intercept the localizer then reduce power and start on down.  Remember, throttle controls altitude and pitch controls airspeed.

You are shooting for 450 feet at the 90 and 380 feet at the completion of the turn rolling out on center line and ready to call the ball.

The only exception to this I would say is that I use the ICLS needles for FSX because I dont have TrackIR, so I have to use the ICLS to let me know if I'm on glideslope from the 90 and the 45 positions, since I can't "glance left" and visually acquire the meatball. Also, more than likely, the simulator used a 3.5 glideslope whereas in FSX we are stuck with 4.0, so that throws off the approach numbers. Usually, its 520 ft at the 90, and 405 for ball call. Oh, that reminds me, when did you visually acquire the meatball during Case I passes in the pattern? And what TCN distance were you at when you were at the 90?

I'm done for now, but cant express enough thanks for sharing this with us here. A great wealth of knowledge has just been gained by all!!

Thanks Mike
Sludge

[Sludge]

Mike...

This one is for Scott Printz (original FSX realistic F/A-18 HUD designer) and JR (updated realistic HUD and Gun HUD designer) and Serge (multiple BlackBox gauges, Betty warnings, and sounds designer)... how did the HUD look and sound (audible warnings) in comparison to the real thing? Did you get a similar look, indications, and alarms from the realistic FSX F-18 HUD as you did from the real simulator?

Later
Sludge

[SpazSinbad]

MikeB54, many thanks for your excellent first person description of your F-18 simulator experience. Much appreciated.