Sludge,
I didn't really pay attention to the N2 values, sorry, but I know my hand kept the throttles around 3/4 or more up, so definitely had power on the jet during the approach. Actually my friend yelled for "power" when I went to idle power briefly during one of my earlier attempts at landing. He said you should never go idle power behind the boat, the LSOs would chew you out, and he said if you are on speed and on g/s you should land under power, which helps with maneuverability, and the response time or lag of a jet engine.
The squirrely feel probably had more to me getting used to the input forces and fly by wire responses. By the end of the sim session I had already managed to lessen my oscillations, and when my buddy flew his pass it looked very controlled and stable. So the jet in experienced hands is not squirrely.
Orion,
1. Fixed based sim. They didn't have any full motion at Oceana, my buddy said he has never heard of a full motion sim for the super hornet that the navy uses, said it doesn't really add much based on what you are trying to get from the sim, again it is more for learning procedures, how to use weapons, how to deal with emergencies, or just normal cockpit duties. It is not really there for stick and rudder, or seat of the pants learning. i also thought the hydraulics of a full motion sim wouldn't be able to keep up with the fast movements of a fighter jet, or wouldnt feel right (timing would be off). Full motion is better for commercial or more stable flying aircraft I think.
2. My friend from high school and who i also played soccer with is a hornet pilot qual'd on A through F models, he setup the sim session at Oceana for me and gave me a tour of the base. He recently was stationed in oceana after a tour with vfa-27 in Japan, and then completing top gun. He is now in Oceana teaching air to air and air to ground to all the east coast squadrons, for the strike fighter weapons school Atlantic, not a bad gig.
Subs,
I have tried the walking of the throttles, but need to try more approaches. actually the hog hotas throttle friction can be adjusted to the same level as the hornet sim i found, which is cool. The one thing I immediately noticed on the hog hotas stick after flying the hornet sim was the lack of stiffness. I always felt the hog stick was pretty solid, but compared to the sim it feels very loose, but maybe that is how the A-10 actually feels, don't know.
CAPT