Carrier landing sucessful!

[Doum76]

Well i would like to thank jimi08, Razgriz and SpazSinbad for their replies on my post about steady turns, controling the Hornet and some landings advices, with their advices, the nice video linked from FSX Blue Angels, after a few days i've been sick, i go back in the Sim, and with lots of practices, i finaly can land the sexy Hornet on the Carrier! 

I now have most settings in Realism in Flight Model options seted-up to 90% and the Crash Tolerence up to 100%, Detect crashes and damages enable and Aircraft Stress causes damages checked, and i don't crash that poor F/A-18, 5 sucessful landing out of 6. Cheer! 

Mostly steady 600 f.t pattern up to the 180, about 600-550 for the last 90 up to the final, trying to keep the ball where i won't make «bobo»  I'm practicing with the Day Trap from Top Gun Sim. LSO's a little bit more detailed, and gives a grade after each passes, 2 times i ended up with a let's call OK-4 (no calling during the apprach and only comment he said on debrief was «4 wire». Nothing big for you guys, but for me, with that so much practice, it made me smile a lot, jsut felt to share the news with people.

I gotta say last night i've found an airport with PAPI4, and since a few weeks i've never really did land landings, i gotta say with that hard training and practice on a Carrier, all land landings are a real joke now, i was crashing a few times before practicing Carrier since i was kinda new in the Sims, now, i land no matter far or close i am from runaway and keep the PAPI 90% as it should be and even without lights, i make nice landings now since i got use to the rate of descent and the Donuts. Virtual beer for everyone, and total respect for all fighter pilots out there that had to go through that painful real world stuff.


-Doum

[Intrepid]

Congrats 
Randy

[SUBS17]

Now that you've figured out how to land its time to do those Hornet missions and earn some badges.

[Doum76]

Now that you've figured out how to land its time to do those Hornet missions and earn some badges.

Looking forward for it, but the website is offline for upgrade, from what i've seen, i think i'll have much more practice to do to get on that score board, but the good thing is, from  most video i've seen on Youtube while trying to catch up some hints, my landings are pretty much way better than those «CrashDummies» landings.

[SpazSinbad]

Doum76, congratulations.    Any chance you can make a video please? For the education in it. Thanks. If you want to edit the video then that is OK. Making such a video can be a chore though, so only do it if you want to show us.

[SUBS17]

Now that you've figured out how to land its time to do those Hornet missions and earn some badges.

Looking forward for it, but the website is offline for upgrade, from what i've seen, i think i'll have much more practice to do to get on that score board, but the good thing is, from  most video i've seen on Youtube while trying to catch up some hints, my landings are pretty much way better than those «CrashDummies» landings.

No I mean the stock FSX acceleration Hornet missions.

[Doum76]

No I mean the stock FSX acceleration Hornet missions.

Oh, those badges my bad, well so far i've got the landings badges up to the 400 landings, not to mention the multi-engine hours and total hours badges, that'S a lot of flying around to be able to get better at landing/carrier landings.

I used to hate landing in FS, but now in FSX and the Hornet, it's what i like most.

I've been able to get the sonic boom on it today, adds a little fun to make some flybys around the carrier and get that little boom before landing safely.

[SUBS17]

Well I'm refering to the missions which are quite challenging. The 1st the Carrier Tutorial, 2nd Carrier practice, 3rd is a patrol around Cape Canaveral whilst a rocket is launched, 4th is intercepting a UFO at groom lake and 5th is Night Carrier landing without ILS/Tacan. The Carrier practice requires 5 consecutive landings although you can inflight refuel if you need to.

[Doum76]

Well I'm refering to the missions which are quite challenging. The 1st the Carrier Tutorial, 2nd Carrier practice, 3rd is a patrol around Cape Canaveral whilst a rocket is launched, 4th is intercepting a UFO at groom lake and 5th is Night Carrier landing without ILS/Tacan. The Carrier practice requires 5 consecutive landings although you can inflight refuel if you need to.

I've done the Turtorial one, that was the first carrier mission i did, and made my fisrt part of training with the 5 passes mission, but way too tough, cloudy, windy like hell, i even tried to practice with modif. enable toc hange weather, but still a bit tough, thats why i ended up to practice with TGS missions, was a bit easier to start and master, i even retried today the 5 passes mission, hard as hell, i'm having such a hard time to keep the Hornet a steady course with the wind.

Looks like am not yet good enough for this one.
The others i haven't tried yet, trying to master the Hornet better before going in those hard missions, at least i'm doing improvement with the pattern, altitude, turnings, geting right distance, today i did practice the final approach to keep on almost perfect Ball, to recover when too low, or too high, lots of challenge for someone like me new in the aviation stuff, but at least, i just stoped and came on here, and i just made my first pattern with ending with a almost Ok-3, had a slow start, but nothing else, and traped the 3 wire.  You can be sure when i'll be able to land on FSX mission's carrier, i will be kinda proud.

[Doum76]

Well I'm refering to the missions which are quite challenging. The 1st the Carrier Tutorial, 2nd Carrier practice, 3rd is a patrol around Cape Canaveral whilst a rocket is launched, 4th is intercepting a UFO at groom lake and 5th is Night Carrier landing without ILS/Tacan. The Carrier practice requires 5 consecutive landings although you can inflight refuel if you need to.

Whoa, i just tried the Carrier Landing IMC, that is a nasty one, not easy to fly in formation and follow, but i did land the bird, had to save mission progress at 2 points where i had problem, specialy the part when the lead call in for the 130 knots and 600 descend, i had problem to follow him, at first i thought he meant slow down at 130 kias, and get a 600 r.o.d, but after 2 try i realised he meant to get down to 600 until teh call for final    sometimes i missunderstand some english stuff. But this is an awesome mission!!

[SUBS17]

Yeah that was a fun mission to beat certainly difficult since there is no ILS.

[Razgriz]

Yeah that was a fun mission to beat certainly difficult since there is no ILS.

Yeah, its tough in the storm.  I did it first time though.

[skimmer]

Its most likely setting are to high and plane jumps around a lot but when you get them right its a bit more real.Then when you get your 5 landings be sure to have the radar set to 40 miles and find the airborne refueler. You can refuel

[Doum76]

Its most likely setting are to high and plane jumps around a lot but when you get them right its a bit more real.Then when you get your 5 landings be sure to have the radar set to 40 miles and find the airborne refueler. You can refuel

Got any advice on settings, i'm having a kinda hard time to understand Trim, when use it or not, for exemple, in the mission at night in formation with your lead, would it be used to fly with or not, specialy the last part, when reaching 600 fts, and when droping for the final, i don't why, in this mission i land easier with out trim, and on some other mission better with it, maybe i set trim too high so when i give a bit too much thrust the nose raise too much and skrew up my glideslope.

[SpazSinbad]

Perhaps a 'rule of thumb' will help with controlling the Hornet. "You control the aircraft, the aircraft does not control you." Especially on approach to the carrier you must be in total control, anticipating what is required to stay on an OK approach. Nothing else will do. Similarly in flight the trim must be as close as possible to the conditions being flown; so that there are minimal forces required to stay in any steady state of flight.

Only formation teams like the Blue Angels are allowed to fly 'out of trim' for the special circumstances they fly under. Usually this means they fly with a lot of nose down trim requiring them to 'pull towards' i.e. a positive pull UP to stay in formation - so they fly smoother that way.

A carrier pilot may fly an approach with a notch (a very small amount of nose down trim for similar reasons - for smoothness) but I reckon that is not required - because a carrier approach is never smooth. :-) It is never smooth because it must be accurate all the way, every deviation from ideal must be corrected ASAP.