Why is stock FA-18 carrier landing so unforgiving?

[Tech Diver]

I can easily land

[Daube]

I think it's mainly a problem with the definition of the contact points of this Hornet.

First of all, the airplane sits too high, its main gear should not be so extended when the plane is sitting on the ground. If you look at real pictures, you'll notice that the main gear should be much more compressed.

From this evidence, I also belive that the whole suspension definition is flawed. Most likely the stiffness of the gear suspension is incorrect, leading to an incorrect behavior when landing, which explains the instability of the plane.

Also, one has to take into consideration that the wheels of the Hornet are not as distant as the ones of the GosHawk of the Tomcat (relatively, I mean), which could also explain why they are more stable than the Hornet.

Appart from this, when landing the Hornet on a carrier, if I have:
- a correct level of fuel (supposed to be very low)
- a correct speed
- a correct engine throttle
- a correct approach path
- a correct vertical speed at touchdown
my plane stops quite well and does not tilt left or right... but I agree it's MUCH more difficult that with other planes.

[Tech Diver]

Thanks Daube, that certainly explains a lot. When you say that you need "correct engine throttle", what do you mean? Should I keep it very low (like I am currently doing), or kick it up full just before I touch the deck (like in a real carrier landing)?

Again, the most sensitive parameter for me seems to be the flight path. If I land a couple of feet too far left, the plane rolls over to the right. If I'm too far right, it rolls to the left. There only seems to be +-1 foot allowable deviation from the center-line for a successfull landing (at least in my case).

Peter

[BAW0343]

Takes practice.

I also kick in full throttle when I touch down and usually it doesn't cause any rolling. You just really need to practice landing centerline.

Its not easy.

[Jeff.Guo]

In F/A-18's, you trap following AOA. Just keep the wings level and the amber light on.

[gavinprice02]

I struggled with the f18 carrier landing the other day, was getting so frustrated so turned realism settings right down. Was the only way I tell ya!

[neutrino]

I can agree with Daube but only to a certain extent. I tinkered a little bit with contact points and wheel stiffness, and I can say that although the Acceleration Hornet does not behave exactly as the real Hornet, the suspension and contact points are at their best possible values. So I would narrow down the conditions for a smooth carrier landing to these four:

1) Lower your fuel below 75%.
2) Maintain approach speed of about 140 kts (full flaps).
3) Make sure you are not descending too fast - your angle of descent should be about 3 degrees (the velocity vector should be a little below the middle of the horizon bar and the -5 degree pitch line). This will give you a nice descent rate (vsi) of about 650-750 fpm. Any vsi higher than 800 fpm may damage the wheels at touchdown.
4) Try to land as close to the runway centerline as possible. If the above conditions are held - a couple of meters left/right of the centerline will not hurt the landing.

Also, once you touch down with the main gear, do not do anything with the joystick, let the jet come to a stop at the attitude it currently is. You can add full military power as soon as your nose wheel touches down. Do not apply brakes, unless you feel the aircraft moving after it came to a full stop.

There are some other tricks you can do - like disabling the auto-flaps and decreasing the arresting cable tension. I can post the corrections here if you are interested.

You can watch my Hornet carrier landing video here to check some of the variables I mentioned above.

[Jeff.Guo]

Gross weight should be under 44k lbs. and AOA should be around 8.1 degrees at touch down.

...speed, flap, pitch, and VS should be adjusted to maintain that AOA. There is a max touchdown VS at 770 m/s, but if I remember correctly, it is very difficult to be under that figure with the stock hornet.

So, like I said before, don't over think it. Put the VV where you want it, keep the wings level, and keep the amber circle lit on the AOA indexer. Make sure your gross weight is under the maximum, keep flap settings on full/auto, gear and hook extended, and if you have to touch the speed break, go around. If you do it well, you shouldn't even have to adjust the throttle during approach.

[neutrino]

...There is a max touchdown VS at 770 m/s, but if I remember correctly, it is very difficult to be under that figure with the stock hornet.

If the carrier is moving and there is some headwind, you can stay on glideslope at vsi below 700 fpm (as low as 600 fpm). If the carrier is stationary and there is no headwind, you are pretty much guaranteed to crash the Hornet at something like 900 fpm

[Jeff.Guo]

Well, the drop tests shows that the hornets can withstand vertical decelerations of more than 2000 fpm.

The 770 fmp limit is mostly to prevent damage to the carrier deck, and to prolong the life span of the undercarriage of the aircraft. I would say that any landing in excess of 1000 fpm will definitely damage both the carrier and the aircraft. And considering the airspeed, I'd say anything over 1500 fpm would probably rip the hook off.

[Tech Diver]

Neutrino, I am definitely interested in seeing the modification for the arrester cable tension (even if I don't necessarily use it). If you could post it that would be great.

I guess I have been doing a couple of things wrong. For one, I have been fully loaded with fuel and I have been landing on a stationary carrier, which hurts my approach speed. Speeaking of which, my speed has also been around 150 or 160 kts; a bit high based on what others are doing. I'll go back and try it now that I know what to fix and see how it goes.

I'm a bit reluctant to change the realism value and would rather like to master the sim as is.

Thanks for all the excellent advice,
Peter

[neutrino]

Neutrino, I am definitely interested in seeing the modification for the arrester cable tension (even if I don't necessarily use it). If you could post it that would be great.

I guess I have been doing a couple of things wrong. For one, I have been fully loaded with fuel and I have been landing on a stationary carrier, which hurts my approach speed. Speeaking of which, my speed has also been around 150 or 160 kts; a bit high based on what others are doing. I'll go back and try it now that I know what to fix and see how it goes.

I'm a bit reluctant to change the realism value and would rather like to master the sim as is.

Thanks for all the excellent advice,
Peter

This is to adjust the arresting cable tension, so that the Hornet takes about a second longer to decelarate. The default value will stop the Hornet for about 2.4 seconds, which is very abrupt and is more appopriate for a stationary carrier. The new setting will increase that time to about 3.4 seconds, which is the time the real Hornets take to come to a full stop on the carrier deck.

Open up the Aircraft.cfg file for the FA-18 and place the following two lines anywhere in the file. Make sure you don't have another tailhook entry already:

[tailhook]
cable_force_adjust = 0.68

I have tested this setting by catching the 4th wire, at full weight and 150 kts, and you still land in the safe area of the deck, so don't worry that the runway will end before you stop 8-)

While still in the Aircraft.cfg file, find the sections for the leading and trailing edge flaps - [flaps.0] and [flaps.1]. There is an entry for both that states:

maneuvering_flaps=1

Change this to

maneuvering_flaps=0

There is a full explanation why these entries need to be changed here.

In short, when you set 'maneuvering_flaps=0', you can manually command Full Flaps and Half Flaps, rather than let the generic FSX auto-flap system control the flaps. The problem is that the auto-flap system (maneuvering_flaps=1) will not extend your flaps fully when you land even if you press the F8 key. They reach their maximum extension only if you are on the ground. If you switch to outside view in flight, you will notice that they are only half extended and they move ever so slightly. So with auto-flaps, you are basically always landing at half-flaps which in turn requires a much higher landing speed. With 'maneuvering_flaps=0', you can command Full Flaps (F8) and you can land at about 9 knots lower speed, which actually perfectly matches the real Hornet approach speed (about 140 kts depending on weight).

[BAW0343]

Neutrino, I am definitely interested in seeing the modification for the arrester cable tension (even if I don't necessarily use it). If you could post it that would be great.

I guess I have been doing a couple of things wrong. For one, I have been fully loaded with fuel and I have been landing on a stationary carrier, which hurts my approach speed. Speeaking of which, my speed has also been around 150 or 160 kts; a bit high based on what others are doing. I'll go back and try it now that I know what to fix and see how it goes.

I'm a bit reluctant to change the realism value and would rather like to master the sim as is.

Thanks for all the excellent advice,
Peter

Fuel should be lower then 25% instead of 75% as mentioned. I personally aim for 135kts on my approach, but may try the flap modification mentioned and try to land at 139 kts.

As long as you have the aircraft in the recommended setup I think you'll find landing a lot easier.  8-)

[Tech Diver]

Much as I resisted lessening the realism, I found that Neutrino's cable_force_adjust value change made a huge difference. That, and the disabling of auto-flaps, increased my carrier landing success rate to about 90% (from an initial 10%). I'm sure that additional practice will make that even better. Now I can actually enjoy carrier operations with the FA-18!

Thanks,
Peter

[C170b]

Try 150 knots and 600 feet on downwind and a 3 mile final at 130 knots with full flaps and gear down. 600 feet should bring on the amber light at 1 mile, then just keep it on. This is what I do and it doesn't matter what fuel level I have, it works every time.
Just my $.02 worth.