Sim 'gouge'

[GOONIE]

Hey guys, my buddy who is a hornet instructor is getting me into a super hornet sim next Monday at NAS Oceana, and I was hoping to get any 'gouge' you might have on flying a real hornet sim.

I know some of you have flown real hornet sims, and any tips or advice you can share with me would be appreciated. I guess what I am looking for is specifics on what not to do, or any bad habits from flying in fsx behind the boat that you realized, and had to overcome. MikeB54's sim debrief and advice is probably the best out there, but if anyone has anything to add,or things you wish you knew about flying the sim beforehand that would be helpful.

I guess one thing I am curios about after seeing the recent videos posted showing lots of stick and throttle movement during the approach, is how this works when it was also stated in Mike's post the controls are very stiff and also very sensitive to pitch and roll inputs?

I'll try to post how things go after the sim session, hoping Serges vLSO has prepared me.

-CAPT

[micro]

Bring gloves. Your hands will get sweaty.

[SUBS17]

Lucky Dude the Superhornet rocks so I can imagine the sim must be quite good.

[MikeB54]

I have one piece of advice that my son passed on to me.

 It's a fighter jet, not an airliner.  Fly it that way.  You don't have any paying customers in the back that you need to keep happy.

Enjoy 

Mike

[GOONIE]

Thanks guys for the advice. So I got one hour in a new super hornet sim today, hotel Sierra!  

The session started by doing some FCLPs at Oceana, to get a feel for the jet. The fly by wire control response and reaction took a little while to get used to, the controls are stiffer then i thought they would be, and I had to overcome a tendency to negatively oscillate. All of my FCLP passes were high, but acceptable. My first pass was so high i didnt even see the ball. After 30 mins of bouncing we heading out to the boat, and started with a straight in, which I boltered on. I had a centered ball and was on speed, but when at the ramp I added just a hair too much power and passed all the wires. I was surprised by how little throttle movements could make large glideslope corrections/changes. Very small precise movements, walking the throttles are required to stay on the ball. After the Bolter I flew a normal pattern, but was too close abeam, at 1.1 and had to use more than 30 deg of bank to get lined up in the grove. When I went wings level, I had to make huge power and pitch adjustments to get setup, which resulted in a bad start that I tried to save. No joy, i ended up getting waved off. I was pretty bummed.

We only had 20 minutes left so I asked to do some night approaches. The approach was setup straight in at 5 nm at 1200 ft, it was easier to get the jet setup and stable using the ICLS, and i was on and on inside 3nm, but again added a little to much power and shallowed out over the wires for a no grade 4 wire. I got two more passes in, one more bolter and one more no grade. The performance and reaction of the jet was a lot different  IM to AR then I experience in FSX, small corrections create a lot of reaction in the real sim, and it is easy to Bolter after flying a great pass. Several times I would see a center ball, the LSO would be giving me little power calls and then i would watch theball shoot off the lens when over the wires, it was really frustrating and challenging. My buddy said I did the best he has seen for someone who has never flown a superhornet, but I was bummed I didn't get better than a no grade pass, I guess at least I didn't hit the back of the boat.  

One thing I noticed on the HUD, might be a super hornet thing, is when you adjust trim (normal approach trim was 7.8 to 8.1), the trim value shows up on the HUD in the lower right above the tacan readout briefly. This was helpful.

Well, back to FSX flying.

-CAPT

[SpazSinbad]

Thanks for sharing your wonderful experience cap'n. You will be able to remember that for a long time I'll wager. 

[Orion]

Nice going Capt!

[Sludge]

CAPT...

Was wondering how that was gonna go... sounds like it was a very intense experience. So can you give me some feedback or ideas in comparison to the Sludge, especially in regards to handling, stick/throttle response. I read the part you had in the post about how a little throttle would make a big glideslope correction; was the Sludge "in the ballpark" of what you experienced with the Super?

I thought it was funny you were down on yourself for not getting an OK 3, even though you are a first timer. I guess if you dont expect better of yourself, you're not gonna be a good aviator (even FSX aviator), right?

Anyway, give me your thoughts as I'm still working on the next release which I think you will really like. I'll probly get you and a few others (MIKEB54, JJ, simon, JR) amongst others to be test pilots for it. But, especially you and Mike who have seen real Hornet simulator time... your inputs will be invaluable.

Later
Sludge

[GOONIE]

Sludge,

Yeah I was kind of hard on myself, but I seriously didn't think I was going to bolter so much, especially with the site picture I had At the Ramp (on speed, centered ball). Like I said, the bolters were a combination of my throttle inputs, and I am sure the real Super Hornet Sim models the hook and wires differently, to make a trap harder or more realistic versus the way it is modeled in FSX. Does anyone know if that is possible in FSX, to reduce the windows or area your hook has to hit in order to trap? I think it would make sense to tighten these ranges up to make it harder, but I have no idea how to do this, or what values to even use, just an idea.

Regarding the handling qualities of the real sim versus the Sludge Hornet, there are several. First, I must say I mainly fly the Sludge hornet, but do own the VRS Super Hornet and occasionally fly it. Now I hate saying this, but I tried flying my FSX sim last night and used both the Sludge and the VRS to see if I could correlate my experience in the real sim, and was surprised by how close the VRS comes to the sim I flew the other day, not perfectly, but I definitely noticed similar behavior and response to my inputs. That being said, I was flying a Super Hornet sim with the latest fly by wire, and I know the VRS guys have tried to replicate this fly by wire behavior as much as possible in FSX. Now regarding the Sludge Hornet, which is an Alpha / pseudo Charlie legacy hornet, I don't know how it is supposed to handle or fly based on a real simulator. I think MikeB54's inputs are more appropriate since he flew that version of the hornet.

For what it is worth here are my comparisons. I feel the Sludge hornet’s bank and pitch are very close to the sim, although the super hornet sim felt more "squirrely" behind the boat and during my FCLP, especially when turning from the 180 to the 90, and then into the groove. Basically any time I made large changes in aircraft state, it required a deft hand. But once a bank or pitch was selected, the fly by wire and trim held it there nicely. I feel the Sludge is very stable and maybe because I fly it more and my muscle memory is better, I feel I can fly a more precise pattern and anticipate power changes and bank inputs at the various points in the carrier pattern. In the sim I found myself wandering around when getting to “the start” which I don’t do when in the Sludge Hornet. Let me caveat this by saying I have a small amount of data points to compare in the real sim (4 FCLP and 2 Carrier race track patterns), compared with hundreds using the Sludge. Needless to say, in the Sim I never actually felt stable or smooth when getting to the start, but once in the groove the stick response/input is similar to the Sludge, where constant, small stick inputs are required to stay on centerline and on speed. Proper trim is critical.

Regarding the throttle, once in the groove, constant movement is necessary, but the range you are moving the throttle is very small, my estimate is about an inch or two. My friend (hornet pilot), told me he locks his elbow against his hip and “walks the throttles” (moving one side at a time) at very small intervals, basically a cm at a time to stay on glideslope. He demonstrated one pattern around the boat, to what looked like an OK3. I watched his hands and they are moving constantly, but a lot smaller range then in the videos I’ve seen. As I mentioned in my earlier post, if you move the throttle more than this when AR or ITW, you can easily bolter in the Super Hornet. I find on the Sludge Hornet I am moving the throttles more to get the ball to do what I want, it could just be me or my hardware (Warthog HOTAS). I am going to experiment more with it this week and would be really happy to try out your latest version of the Hornet when it is ready for testing. Also  my friend said throttle inputs are easier to judge in the jet, since you can feel (seat of the pants) when you’ve added too much and or too little. He also said the meatball, at least in the sim we were flying, was harder to see than in real world ops. He said the sim is better suited for procedural learning, and that it can give you a sense for flying to the carrier, but so many extra cues and not to mention resolution help make it easier in the real jet. One thing he said is pretty accurate is the night time approach, understandably  .

Well hope that was helpful, a lot of it is subjective, but I tried to capture as much as I could before the memory fades. Let me know if you have any quesitons

-CAPT

[SUBS17]

You think the VRS SH is good now wait for the Pro version which will have an even better Flight model. I am amazed that you managed to land on a carrier in an actual simulator for a real SH after just trainning on FSX and other sims. That reminds me of a Falcon 4 player a few years back did something similar in a real F-16 sim he got in and started it up without a check list and flew it. Its one thing to fly any other sim but its something very good in acheiving a landing on an actual SH sim on a carrier. I bet there were a few surprised people watching you pull that off.

[Razgriz]

You think the VRS SH is good now wait for the Pro version which will have an even better Flight model.

Hate to be the pessimist here but its not going to come out.

[SUBS17]

Tacpac, then F/A-18F with full backseat mp and then the PRO. They have already done some work on it.
And the FM will be able to do departures etc I'd compare it to DCS A-10C or Falcon 4 BMS.(already its FM is on that level but its the unstable stuff that will be possible)

LMAO

Guess Alvaro and I have been wasting our time.

http://forums.vrsimulations.com/forums/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=6485&start=15

[neutrino]

Hey, capt, thanks for the detailed description and comparisons I needed to hear that you can really control altitude with throttle (and a little stick of course). Because I found on most aircraft in FSX, that adding throttle results more in an acceleration rather than increase in lift. So although I always give power when I need to climb (unless I am fast), I end up fighting the acceleration to stay within certain speed limits and AOA.

And congrats on the good passes! Not only you showed good flying skills, but proved that FSX carrier ops are quite realistic.

[SUBS17]

I see you're flying with a Hog Hotas have you tried applying the walk the throttles technique for approach in FSX? Has anyone with a split throttle tried that?

[GOONIE]

Just got off the phone with my friend, and brought up the carrier approaches the other day, wanted to debrief some more. He said he thought by the end of the session my control inputs (throttle and stick) had really smoothed out. He also said he didn't expect me to even catch a wire at all, and that he was pretty surprised with my two No Grade 4 wires, normally people don't even come close he said, or keep getting waved off (unless the LSO takes it easy on them).  He said he was also impressed with my calls being correct "11 Rhino Ball 8.0", etc. So I brought up the fact about going high almost every time AR and ITW on my last few approaches, and realized I was making a huge mistake! I misinterpreted the LSO's "easy with it" calls. He said I was looking good (AoA, lineup, and ball) and responding to the LSO's calls for "a little power", but when the LSO repeated "easy with it, easy with it" I held my power, or was not responding correctly AR and ITW. I thought the "easy with it" call had to do with wing oscillations (bank angle), but it is a call for reducing power slightly.   Well I am sure you are all laughing, I can't believe I didn't know that, I guess I need to review the LSO calls in the NATOPS again. Well boltering and getting a four wire makes a lot more sense, and now I am really kicking my self.  

He said the LSO use different wording or sentence structure on purpose, so as to not be confusing. So you will always hear "come left" or "you're lined up right", but will never hear "come right" or "you're lined up left". The same is true for "little power" and "easy with it". He said its helps since you are operating on such few free brain cells during the approach (so focused on AoA, lineup, and meatball), that having calls that are only stated one way helps.  

-CAPT