SWS carrier question?

[eslader 1,783]

I have no idea where to put this since there isn't a SWS forum. So I'll put it here.

 

Got the Nimitz vol 2 pack from SWS as a COVID-inspired impulse buy. Been having fun figuring out how to land on a carrier which is somewhat different than my usual routine of flying PMDGs and bizjets. I fully admit that, having only done it for about an hour, I still suck. Like, I'd get kicked out of the navy levels of suck. I keep coming in too low or high, and turns out staying on centerline of a runway that keeps moving to the right is kinda hard.

But I'm having trouble understanding the vLSO grading logic. It keeps grading me B, for bolter, even though I catch a wire and stop on the deck which is pretty much the opposite of a bolter. Anyone else have that issue? Thanks in advance.

 

p3d 4.5, running the FSXBA F-18. 

[signmanbob 592]

I don't believe that "B" is for "Bolter".  They have a grading system that is A, B, orC.

No one gets an A in this lifetime unless your Tom Cruise.

"B" is very good and is what most jocks get.

"C" is very bad and you don't want many of them, even though they got me through high school.

[regis9 4,014]

C for c-ya could have a different meaning as a naval aviator.

[eslader 1,783]

According to the manual, B is bolter, (OK) is normal, OK is above average, and _OK_ is exceptional, and you only get it if you land perfectly in adverse conditions like having no engine.

 

 

[Chock 17,769]

Try changing the LSO level in the controls options, see if that makes a difference.

 

[ESzczesniak 128]

The vLSO may need to be setup with the SWS Nimitz. I think it’s programmed to recognize where the “landing area” area is, and pick wires from there. If the program thinks the “landing area” is somewhere on the ship other than where it is, it may always think you missed the wires. 
 

As for getting a good carrier landing, a lot of it is about flying a good pattern. I’d you fly a good pattern, it’ll set you up for success in the groove. DCS is the best carrier sim experience I’ve ever seen. 
 

The pattern by the numbers should loos something like:

1) Initial point 800’ on BRC 3 NM behind the ship, just off the starboard side. Speed typically 350-450 kts, but varies by type. 
 

2) Check landing area clear as you pass the ship. 
 

3) Break anywhere between the bow of the ship and 4 NM ahead. It’s a level break at 800’, aiming to be 1.1-1.3 NM abeam the ship (airframe depending for exact number). Slow down in the turn and dirty up. For some airframes, wait until wings level in case of a flap asymmetry. This you just have to practice until you get what works for you. For instance, in a legacy hornet I find a steady 2.2-2.3 g turn works well. Others like 1% of airspeed in G. 
 

4) Once on downwind, descend to 600’, slow to landing speed, and trim to on speed AOA (yellow donut). It happens quick and you should be set up in level flight, on speed and AOA, abeam the LSO station. 
 

5) Start a 25-30 degree bank angle turn (depends on airframe and abeam distance), on speed as you can see the “round down” of the ramp. You should start descending about 200 fpm to arrive “at the 90” at 450’. 
 

6) At the 90, you get to start looking out the window. Adjust bank angle to roll out lined up. Start increasing descent to  3-400 fpm. 
 

7) You should cross the wake at 370’, 20-30 degrees off final heading (8-10 degrees past BRC)

8 Roll out “in the groove” at 0.7 NM for a 15-18 second groove, about 250’. You’ll need a little power off, then on as you roll wings level. 
 

9) In the groove, it’s all about being ahead of the plane. Scan is meatball, AOA, lineup, repeat. Move the ball with throttle. Pitch changes, if trimmed well, should be minimum...basically they’ll all come from the pitch-thrust couple. In general throttle changes to get you back on glide slope need to be partially reversed to maintain. So throttle movements often look like throttle down, half throttle back up or the opposite. If the throttle isn’t almost constantly moving, you’re not flying the ball enough. 
 

That’s a Case I pattern, the VFR carrier landing. If you can’t nail the numbers consistently up to the groove, you’ll never be able to catch up on the groove. It takes practice. Be critical of yourself. Then it’s a heck of a lot of fun!

Edited April 17, 2020 by ESzczesniak

[eslader 1,783]

54 minutes ago, Chock said:

Try changing the LSO level in the controls options, see if that makes a difference.

 

Didn't seem to, but I'm seeing other errors crop up as well. For instance, I'll be sitting on Cat1, lower the launch bar, hook to the cat, then hit shift-space, and watch the yellowshirt turn toward Cat2 and go through the hand signals while I sit there never launching. If I unhook from the cat, then re-hook and shift-space again, most of the time he'll then turn toward me and I can launch.

I'm starting to wonder if something isn't corrupted. 

 

Quote

As for getting a good carrier landing, a lot of it is about flying a good pattern. 

Thanks, ESzczesniak, for the writeup. Right now, I'm having issues seeing the lights at all. I'm working to determine if that's a problem with the sim, or a problem with my expectations of what they should look like on the way down. But I'll be sure to refer to your post often as I keep learning. I just wish the vLSO grades were working properly and not telling me I boltered after snagging the cable.

 

 

 

 

[Chock 17,769]

Assuming you are using an aircraft with a HUD, i.e. something like an F/A-18, if you are having difficulty seeing the ball, another trick to getting it down okay is to plant the HUD's Velocity Vector marker on the right hand side of the arrestor wires on the deck and keep it there as best you can when you're on short final - and if you wanna get really picky, put it right on the third wire. You'll need to line up somewhat to the right of where you actually want to be at touchdown to account for the movement of the ship too of course. A little bit of bank can assist with that. That velocity Vector on the HUD is your best friend for a carrier landing, and the angle of attack marker is a close second to it!

The F/A-18 should typically come in at about 130 knots (depending on weight). But keep in mind that you'll probably be approaching the carrier as it heads into the wind. Even in calm conditions there will be a wind over the deck of as much as 30+ knots simply due to the speed of the carrier, but if the carrier is heading into a significant wind, the headwind component could be even greater. This means you will only approach the carrier at approximately 100 knots or so in terms of closing speed, and this is what fools you into messing the speed up much of the time because it seems like you are going slower than you actually are through the air if you only think about it in terms of your relative speed to the carrier.

This causes a problem which all carrier pilots are aware of, but it is one which most land-based pilot never have to deal with unless they operate from hilltop-based airfields, where a broadly similar phenomenon is encountered. The problem on a carrier approach, is an area of reduced pressure in the wake of the carrier. In effect it is similar to the wind gradient effect when approaching a hilltop runway, and it will make your aircraft lose airspeed as it approaches the fantail of the carrier and that will make you undershoot, and if you are not ready for that, you'll then overcompensate with too much thrust as you panic, and the next thing you know it's a wave off or a bolter as you get too hot and too high. Because of this, you have to remember that unlike with an airliner, you can't simply set up for a V-Ref of 130 knots and maybe add another ten knots for luck, then sit back and coast it in as you can with that 737. Navy aviators actually have to land the thing! So try to think of it as though there is a significant wind gradient and downdraft in the last few hundred yards before the touchdown point of your carrier, because that is pretty much what is the case most of the time, and the Simworks Studios carriers do simulate that.

Your touchdown zone for a Nimitz-Class carrier is only about 160 feet long from the first wire to the fourth one, so you need to make sure you have the correct angle of attack and speed when you hit the deck (AoA is important to ensure you don't bounce over the wire), and the trick to that is to know that you will drop into the fantail if you are not aware of that dead zone of air behind the carrier in its wake, so that compensating for it doesn't mess up your approach. Once you've sussed that out, you will come in okay so don't then @rse it up by being tempted to flare like you would in an airliner, that'll make you coast over the wires; instead you really need to slam the thing down without flaring at all, which seems counter-intuitive if you are used to landing on a regular runway, but, don't worry, carrier aeroplanes are built to take it, and especially the F/A-18 Superhornet, which was specifically designed to be able to bring back a lot of ordnance when it was improved over the original Hornet.

Remember, if it was easy, anyone would be able to do it, so don't get frustrated if you are not instantly brilliant at it. Yeah it will bruise your ego a bit to@rse it up at first, as you inevitably will, but as with everything else, practice makes perfect.

There are a few very good reasons why Navy aviators are the best, and being able to land on a carrier is just one of them.

Edited April 17, 2020 by Chock

[eslader 1,783]

I'm mainly using the p3d version of the FSXBA F/A18-C (which was a whole 'nother adventure getting rid of the FCS Fail warning, and I stuck that .dll file in about 20 folders before I stumbled on the right one 😉 )

Yeah, I've been doing visuals lined up slightly to the right. I'm able to pretty reliable hit within the touchdown zone (and I am compensating for the burble, which took some practice), though not consistently on the third wire. No ego bruising here, I'm just impressed with myself that I'm able to get it down on the deck, especially since I haven't figured out how to use ILS yet, so all approaches are entirely visual with no assistance whatsoever. I wonder if I'm bouncing a little bit and that is tricking vLSO into thinking I boltered just before it snags the wire. The motion gets a little wonky right at touchdown and might be just jerky enough that the bounce is skipped visually.

Unfortunately the instant replay doesn't really show whether I'm doing that or not, because it doesn't record the position of moving objects, so in the replay it looks like I'm just coming to a stop above empty ocean. I might have to set up a better recording option so I can see what's going on.

I'm starting to conclude that my problems are half (lack of) pilot skill and half something is wrong somewhere. Now it's developed the trick where it doesn't know the carrier is there. I'll go into the deck editor to configure the deck for something, but the deck editor will tell me that no carriers are loaded, even though I'm sitting on the carrier at the time. It's almost like the carrier system is partially losing connection to p3d.

 

 

[ESzczesniak 128]

12 hours ago, Chock said:

Assuming you are using an aircraft with a HUD, i.e. something like an F/A-18, if you are having difficulty seeing the ball, another trick to getting it down okay is to plant the HUD's Velocity Vector marker on the right hand side of the arrestor wires...

To address a few of the additional things that have come up here...

First for visibility of the ball, actual navy pilots have generally said you can usually make it out about 1.5 NM away. You should be clearly flying it by 0.7-0.8 NM. You wouldn’t be flying the ball at 1.5 NM in a case I pattern, but case 2 and 3 IMC patterns are straight in (with a lot of other fanfare). 

There can be some visibility issues in the sims. Some of this corresponds to hardware with resolution being a limiting factor, particularly in VR. Some of this is also P3D related. For some time, the Aerosoft Kitty Hawk was projecting the IFOLS lights behind the platform until 0.4 NM because of some way the sim handled lights (it’s since been fixed). 

If you’re really enjoying carrier ops, again I can’t recommend DCS World with either the F/A-18C or F-14B modules enough. DCS World itself is free, but either module is pay. They are PMDG levels of simulation. And on top of that, within the next 2-6 weeks, a Supercarrier module is expected with full radio comms, detailed launch, etc. and the visuals rival the previews of the new MFS. It is an amazing experience.

**EDIT: One things that is so nice about DCS carrier ops, is they're truly built in to the sim.  And are being worked on and upgraded.  The P3D carrier ops are workarounds.  It uses a basic functionality, but otherwise has a lot of "fidley" stuff to get them to work.  Third party modules, plugins, etc.  And they don't always work well.  So a lot of the stuff you're referencing, just works seamlessly to start in DCS World.**

In terms of your flight path marker, you ideally want to learn to fly well without the marker.  It may not always be there. But if using it, the aim point is at the “crotch”...the angle between the end of the angled landing zone and the bow.  This accounts for the ship motion. With that said, it is not your best friend. The data for the FPM lags, and it’s prediction algorithms are not always spot on.  The ball and AOA indexer are your friends.

The turbulent wind described comes from the island.  The effect is called “the burble”.  It does not actually change your airspeed at all (or negligibly), but the dirty air creates a down draft “in close”, causing an increased sink rate. Further out, it can actually have a slight up lift.

The ships speed definitely reduces closure rate.  Wind over the deck is almost always 28-35 kts.  In windier conditions, the ship often slows down.  There are two reasons for this.  First, wind over the deck comes down BRC, whereas the landing, or “final bearing” is 9 degrees off of this.  Navy pilots have a tough landing, but one thing is they rarely have is a crosswind.  If there’s enough wind, they’ll try to do some trigonometry and sail at an angle to the wind to result in the wind over the deck being on final bearing.

This creates an interesting numbers game.  The glide slope set in the IFOLS is actually 4-4.25 degrees typically, steeper than civilian approaches.  But because the ship moves away from the aircraft, the base of this triangle is extended (distance traveled by aircraft), while the height (aircraft altitude) stays the same.  This makes the angle more shallow.  I forget what all the math amounts to, but it comes out to somewhere right near that normal 3 degree. 

But this creates the second reason excessive wind over the deck is not desirable.  The more wind over the deck, the slower the aircraft approaches the ship.  SInce it's moving still, this extends the base leg of the triangle further and makes and even shallower effective approach angle.  This diminishes the clearance over the ramp...and we all know ramp strikes are bad.  With high wind over the deck, they actually increase the angle of the IFOLS to make sure there's a safe clearance above the ramp.

The small touch down zone makes a small window to pass through as mentioned.  To land safely, airspeed, descent rate, and lineup are all important.  But to trap, i.e. catch a wire, what really matters is that the hook passes through a specific point.  This is about an 18 inch box assuming you're on glideslope and an appropriate descent rate.  What complicates this is that the hook hangs below the aircraft and the pilot sits at the nose, pointed up in an approach configuration.  And aircraft are different.  This hook-eye distance, or H/E, can very by several feet.  And again, if you do the math, that can put the tailhook in the wrong position, when all looks perfect from the pilots perspective.  This is so important, there's actually a setting in the IFOLS for H/E that is set to the aircraft type.

And this is why AOA is all important in a carrier landing.  The H/E distance is all calculated at a normal approach attitude.  For an F/A-18C, that's about 5.1 degrees nose up (AOA 8.1 degrees, minus the 3 degree glideslope for flight path).  So all the math to figure out how high the pilot sits above the hook, and thusly where to project the IFOLS, boils down to assuming this attitude.  If you're AOA is off, so is you're H/E distance and your chance passing the hook through it's 18 inch box becomes almost zero.

There's a lot of fun stuff to talk about when it comes to trapping on the boat!  Once that is mastered, you can look at the marshal stack, "breaking the deck", spinning, etc to really make a full case I.  Then there's case III (case II is a little bit of a niche and not as common).

And if you really want to make things complicated, you can move on to rough seas/moving deck and the use of MVLOS and/or talk downs...and in particular why they're necessary over IFOLS.  Short version is the IFOLS is gyro stabilized to the "earth's plane", so it doesn't move while the deck moves.  But the gimbles it's mounted on has limits, and rough seas can overcome these limits. 

 

 

Edited April 17, 2020 by ESzczesniak

[eslader 1,783]

Yeah, I have the A10 module for DCS and it's quite impressive, but this is something I'm doing just as a challenge. I'm not really looking to drop 80 bucks on a combat sim when I have pretty much no interest in actual combat. 😉  If this works well enough to give me a fun challenge, great. If not, I'll skip it for now and go back to flying tubeliners.

 

As far as the ball in p3d goes, I don't really see it all that well until I'm pretty close to the fantail. I think it's because it's just not all that bright, so there's this dim light against the washed out colors of the p3d world. (yes I have dynamic lighting on). Might also not help that I'm on 1080 screens, not 4k. 

But there are definite problems with the carrier addon itself, and I think I may be closing in on it. Sometimes I'll be sitting on the carrier, and steering doesn't work - and not because the launch bar is down, it's not. If I reload the plane, it works again. Then I noticed that when it doesn't work, my wheels are half sunk into the deck. 

So I'm thinking maybe all of my problems stem from the carrier deck surface not always being in the same place as the carrier deck hit box. My wheels sink into the deck, the hook sinks under the detection area for the wires, and so vLSO thinks I've boltered even though the sim considers the wire grabbed and stops me.  Could that be a potential cause?

 

 

[ESzczesniak 128]

40 minutes ago, eslader said:

Yeah, I have the A10 module for DCS and it's quite impressive, but this is something I'm doing just as a challenge. I'm not really looking to drop 80 bucks on a combat sim when I have pretty much no interest in actual combat. 😉  If this works well enough to give me a fun challenge, great. If not, I'll skip it for now and go back to flying tubeliners.

 

As far as the ball in p3d goes, I don't really see it all that well until I'm pretty close to the fantail. I think it's because it's just not all that bright, so there's this dim light against the washed out colors of the p3d world. (yes I have dynamic lighting on). Might also not help that I'm on 1080 screens, not 4k. 

But there are definite problems with the carrier addon itself, and I think I may be closing in on it. Sometimes I'll be sitting on the carrier, and steering doesn't work - and not because the launch bar is down, it's not. If I reload the plane, it works again. Then I noticed that when it doesn't work, my wheels are half sunk into the deck. 

So I'm thinking maybe all of my problems stem from the carrier deck surface not always being in the same place as the carrier deck hit box. My wheels sink into the deck, the hook sinks under the detection area for the wires, and so vLSO thinks I've boltered even though the sim considers the wire grabbed and stops me.  Could that be a potential cause?

 

 

A short reply this time, but consider trying "Javier's Nimitz" for P3D.  Yes, the issues you bring up definitely make sense and could be an issue.  Javier's Nimitz is not very new, but still looks descent.  It's freeware. And became somewhat of a gold standard.  So most carrier add-ons have tested and work best with this carrier.  vLSO definitely works well.  And a second program to consider is AI Carriers (I think v2?).  It will place an AI carrier at random places in front of you through a P3D menu, so you can have a carrier basically anywhere just by a menu click or two.  Before DCS came out with the Hornet and Tomcat, I would use P3D for my carrier fix, but was using TacPack and the Superbug from VRS that replaced the AI Carriers function.