Stearmandriver

I just meant that weight of jet in general. I've flown several jets in that weight range with similar approach speeds and all of them could be stopped in a much shorter distance... and I would expect that a plane with larger wheels like the Hornet would stop better. It's ridiculous to apply max braking on a dry runway and have the plane just sort of skate along, slowly decelerating. That should be a violent, hanging in the harnesses kind of stop, with the anti-skid modulating as necessary to prevent a locked wheel. What would a high-speed abort look like with that kind of anemic braking? As it stands, I can stop a 157,000lb plane in reality with normal braking, better than I can stop the little one in the sim while literally standing on the brakes. That doesn't seem right... It doesn't much matter to me as I hardly ever fly the Hornet off a runway lol... but yeah, DCS (like most other sims) has a strange ground friction model. Even taxiing the Hornet on deck, if you stomp on the brakes there's a little slide before the plane actually stops. On a dry anti-skid deck, at taxi speed? That's... weird.

I've wondered that too, because other FBW aircraft do correct for roll asymmetry automatically. The Hornet apparently does not in real life though.

I've wondered about this too; a little 44,000lb jet should not take a mile to stop lol. I get the sense that it's a ground friction issue in DCS in general though. Anti-skid or not, stomping on the brakes on dry concrete should equal a violent stop, not a gradually decelerating slide like you're on ice...

Correct. So to recap... there used to be a way for the community to create scenery... and now there is not.

The frustrating thing about all this is that there WERE scenery building tools that used to be available for DCS, and ED removed access to them in a recent build...

Drinks?

No one said eased gun isn't dangerous. The issue is that the LSO currently grades normal small power reductions, and even no reduction at all, as Eased Gun. This is incorrect. Also, small turbofan engines like what are on modern fighters actually spool very quickly. The NATOPS docs already posted on this forum indicate that the spool time in DCS is much too long; the real-world engine can spool from flight idle to blower in something like 3 seconds. They're not JT4A-A3s. But regardless, even with the DCS engines, a bolter can easily be safely accomplished with any spool at all into the wires. TL;DR: it is not realistic or correct to issue Eased Gun grades the way the Supercarrier LSO does. That's not up for debate... the real question is why does it happen?

I've got hundreds of hours in 220hp and 450hp Stearmans... lost a total of 1 cylinder in one W-670 once. I hope I haven't jinxed myself lol... but for me, those have been pretty solid engines. ... But those are completely different from the massive engines in the warbirds and subsequent propliners. The amount of power those machines produce is nothing short of violent... it's probably amazing they run for any length of time at all haha.

Sorry, just saw this post. You can get an OK pretty reliably using the trick I mentioned of starting a power addition before touchdown, but if you're in a position not to need it, then... your call of whether it's worth it haha. Here's how I see the LSO grading right now; note that these are my perceptions and based on my understanding of flying around the boat, but I'm no expert: The LSO is actually pretty lenient. He routinely scores passes as OK even when there were enough deviations that I would expect a Fair (though again, I'm no expert, that's just how I read the NATOPS definitions). The supercarrier LSO will fairly often even grade an _OK_ - an OK underlined - which is supposed to be reserved for an exceptional pass with basically no deviations, flown under difficult conditions such as terrible weather, single-engine etc. From what I understand, most aviators fly their whole career without receiving one of these grades, and many LSOs never get to issue one. The Supercarrier has two problems right now that I suspect are related though: he often critiques either a 3pts landing, or EGIW - eased gun in wire, meaning you pulled off a big handful of power in an aggressive attempt to prevent a float and settle into a wire. I just posted in the Bugs section of the Hornet forum about the 3pts; I've come to think that the problem is that the Hornet actually DOES pitch down, all by itself, just before touchdown. You'll notice this when your AoA indexer flashes to a "Fast" indication just before touchdown. I see no reason why it would do this, real-world Hornet drivers have told me it doesn't, and real-world videos don't seem to show it. It seems to be a DCS-ism. So I think the LSO is correctly critiquing flat landings; maybe not literally 3 point as you noticed, but flat enough to be out of parameters. The real question is: why are the landings flat? Once trimmed to on-speed AoA, the FCS should maintain it to touchdown. The second issue is the EGIW critiques, and you'll get those with literally no throttle movement in close at all. If you take your hand OFF the throttle, you can still get this. So the LSO obviously isn't actually monitoring power to determine this, which makes me wonder if he's monitoring sink rate instead. Since an instantaneous greater sink rate would develop when the nose pitches down by itself, I'm wondering if that's where the eased gun trigger comes in. Anyway, the solution to both is an aggressive power addition a second before touchdown. It's not realistic unless you're sinking at that point, but it can avoid those two critiques, which will often turn an OK pass into a Cut.

Agreed, that's why I like the Bankler's mission grading... but yeah, I catch myself trying to get that OK as well.

Thanks Bignewy. Just to clarify: this behavior occurs with every touchdown of the plane. It's not touch n go related.

Hello, This has been raised many times, but mostly in the Supercarrier bugs forum, in the context of incorrect LSO grading. It was recently (in the past few days) dismissed as "correct as is", because it was determined that the LSO correctly issues the 3PTS critique when the approaching aircraft's pitch attitude drops below a certain value. That seems completely reasonable to me. ...Which is why I think it's time to look at this from an aircraft-specific standpoint, instead of a Supercarrier standpoint. The Hornet DOES pitch down by itself just before touchdown. Take a look at this short track I've attached. Pull up the controls indicator, and pay attention to these two things as we cross the ramp: 1. Just before touchdown, the aircraft pitches down several degrees. Watch the waterline symbol on the HUD; it drops from 5 degrees nose-up to about 2.5 degrees nose-up, almost instantaneously. At the same time, the AoA indexer switches to a "fast" indication. 2. On the controls indicator, you'll see no control inputs that could cause this. There is no longitudinal stick input at all, and no throttle reduction that could cause the nose to drop. I believe that this unexplained pitch-down is what's causing the 3PTS landing grades. The Supercarrier LSO is correctly grading flat landings. The question is: why do they occur? Most of us have figured out that to avoid the 3PTS and EGIW landing critiques (which typically push you into a Cut pass grade), you have to make a significant power ADDITION just before touchdown whether you need it or not, in order to counter this pitch-down. If you've got a stable pass going, this unnecessary power addition pushes you high... thus you end up choosing between a properly-flown but incorrectly graded pass, or a 4 wire in search of a better grade. Could one of the community managers run this by the team? Specifically, if this is intentional, what aerodynamic or FCS phenomenon do they believe they're simulating with this pitch-down? I've never flown a jet that did this. The two former Hornet pilots (one of which was also an LSO) that I've run this by claim that of course the Hornet doesn't do it either. So... what is it? Why does it happen? Thanks! 3wireC.trk

Absolutely, shoving the throttles forward to stop a sink from developing is not a cheat... that's just flying the ball. But my point is, in a rock-stable pass like the trap I posted above, when there is no need for a power addition, then making one will push you high. But it is also the only way to avoid having the supercarrier LSO falsely grade your pass as 3pts, or EGIW, both of which usually result in a cut pass grade. So you can make a choice between an ok 4 wire, or a badly graded but better pass. If you're making that power addition ONLY to trick the LSO's grading algorithm, then it's a cheat, is how I see it. I've seen the docs that indicate the DCS engines spool too slowly and I definitely believe them... but a bolter can still be easily accomplished with a smooth power addition after wheels on the deck; in fact, I usually find myself immediately reducing power after the addition while doing touch n gos, to keep the pitch up tendency in check (which I think they've said should be fixed soon). Sure would be nice to get pass grading fixed too, but they keep dismissing those concerns as "correct as is".

Here's a decent 3 wire pass... little long in the groove is all. Note that a DCS-ism is that tracks replay slightly differently, and this is exaggerated if you use time acceleration. Also, pass grading currently has some bugs: the LSO will frequently grade a pass as EGIW and / or 3pts, unless you start a significant power addition BEFORE touchdown, whether you need it or not. On this pass, I did not start the "cheating" power addition quite early enough, and thus the pass was scored as a cut pass for 3pts. 3wireC.trk

I was gonna do some CQ tonight anyway... I'll grab a track if no one else ups one by then.

It could be said there is a definite advantage: assuming we're talking about the same digital UFC that's in the Super Hornets, it can be configured to display the UFC or any other DDI display. It's effectively an entire extra display in the cockpit, not just a UFC.

This doesn't solve the DCS shortcoming in general, but if by chance you were flying the Hornet, I thought I'd mention that you can see your wingman's fuel state on the SA page if you have datalink turned on. TDC over his symbol on the SA page, and you'll see his fuel state in the data block in the lower right hand corner. Dunno which other modules - if any - might support that though.

@StretchHey, this is cool!. I've only logged a test pass so far (I'm on the road so no DCS'ing for a few days), but it looks like what we've been looking for. Can't wait to try out a log file upload. One thing I noticed during the manual test: the wires seem to be numbered 0 - 3 instead of 1 - 4 in the dropdown menu. Wasn't sure if that was intentional. But good work! I think this'll be fun...

But... sat imagery on a mesh, with hand placed 3d objects at a density level that makes the scenery dev happy, would certainly be an option. I have a very good idea of the amount of time that goes into scenery creation, and I think you too easily dismiss the level of commitment of the folks who enjoy it ;). One easy example of where this argument falls apart is island maps. They're mostly water, and the land masses can be rendered to a detail level that's up to the dev. There was talk in the WWII forums of a Solomon Islands map; something like this, split across several scenery devs, could be a fantastic project. I can guarantee you that people would step up to do it... yes, *gasp*, even for free!

Oh, I know, I'm sure that's the thought process at ED. I'm not sure it really holds up though, when you consider all the other sims that have had BOTH a thriving scenery-building community, AND a thriving payware scenery market. The two don't seem to be mutually exclusive, and more available maps would inevitably draw more people to the DCS ecosystem, so...

What I would like to see is the ability for users to create their own scenery, like basically every other flight sim has. It would solve a lot of these problems...

Just a heads-up, the NAVFLIR question has definitively been put to bed.

There's no need to turn off the autopilot passing through transition level / altitude. When climbing or descending, you're not in altitude hold, you're in a different vertical mode like vnav, vertical speed, level change etc. Alt Hold is (sometimes) armed, but not active until you reach the selected altitude.

That's funny, because I've been flying 73s for 7 years now and could have sworn it did. I guess since we spend so much more time in VNAV, I'm thinking of that behavior. But other airliners I've flown will very definitely recapture the corrected altitude. The 737 is an anachronism, remember... this is the plane that can't even fly a coupled missed approach with one autopilot. That said, the Hornet NATOPS doesn't seem to specify, so I'm not sure, short of feedback from someone who's done it, how we could determine correct behavior either way. But plenty of aircraft hold corrected altitude, and will chase it.

Highly recommend Bankler's Case 1 Recovery Trainer mission for carrier work... much more accurate and meaningful grading than the SC LSO. This was a nice clean pass... the SC LSO often thinks you're LUL at the start when you turn in tight enough for a proper groove time... but will still give out an OK underlined grade . But then on the Bankler's grading, you can see every parameter.