Stearmandriver

My understanding is that the 'eased gun' remark describes a power reduction; ie a pilot pulls off a handful of power to correct a balloon at the ramp and settle back into the wires. This is dangerous because it not only results in a high descent rate touchdown, but has the engines spooled down further than usual, so even with selecting mil on touchdown, they may not be fully spooled by the time you go off the deck on a bolter. The "eased gun" remark in DCS definitely does not mean you didn't go mil after touchdown... you can actually pull them to idle after touchdown and still get an OK grade (again, only in DCS). It refers - correctly, I think - to pulling a handful of power off at the ramp. It's just too sensitive to normal, very minor power adjustments.

Pretty sure if it was my butt in the jet and we weren't blue-water ops, my first choice would be not landing on the boat at all. A nice long runway sounds OK.

Yup... all you can do if you want to use AI wingmen on a mission is set a runway start, so you and wingmen start already on the cat. That works reliably. Of course you miss the whole process of being marshaled onto the cat, hooked up, and put in tension... one of the only things that currently differentiates the supercarrier from the free ones, so...

Wow, I never knew about this bug. I typically fly the middle east maps and so I guess I didn't notice as the variation is not as significant. But in aviation, everything related to course, displayed anywhere in the cockpit, is typically magnetic. There's no good reason to display it in true. So this is very weird behavior. Good to be aware of.

And then when the cat crew inevitably decides to ignore an AI aircraft and it gets stuck on the cat, you've got total gridlock...

Soo... no roadmap then? That being the case, can someone offer clarity as to why other early-access modules have these detailed roadmaps, but the SC has nothing other than vague concepts that might be coming at an indeterminate time?

Ah excellent point; you'd put the natural wind down the angle so the burble would trail off to starboard. I've only been sailing for a couple decades; that might have occurred to me. You can steal a boat's clean wind and give them your burble instead in a race if you pass upwind of them ;).

Also be sure you've got enough power on. I usually do mil vs max power launches to save fuel, and they won't shoot you unless you're right at mil.

My only question now relates to why there's a difference in burble effect based on natural wind vs apparent wind (manufactured by boat speed). Does anyone understand that? Is it even true? Seems to me, the wave created by say 25krs of air flowing over the deck/island should be the same, regardless of whether the air is moving or the boat is moving. Kind of like how an airplane can takeoff from a treadmill.

[Brutal Realism!].

Yeah agreed, WOD is the first thing I check on downloaded missions too. And it seems like it's often ignored on MP servers. Anymore I mostly do Liberation missions and while natural wind is usually light, the scripting always points the carrier into it at a speed that gives proper WOD so that's nice.

Maybe a matter of technique here; my thought would be to see and correct from the 90 onwards by adjusting bank angle as necessary. Well, I guess that's up to the individual. I'd argue not, because as Pieterras said, if there were going to be abnormal conditions for your recovery, they'd be briefed. If they developed after airborne, I figure someone would tell you. The LSO reports wind over deck in his "roger ball" on case 3s; no reason they wouldn't do that on a case 1 as well if conditions dictate. Basically, if something is weird you'd know. So I don't feel like looking at the plat is cheating, but... up to you.

An easy way to find WOD without using the editor or doing math is to jump into the LSO view and look at the platcam. WOD is shown graphically on the outline of the ship, and crosswind correction is shown too. The point of disconnect here I think is that there is no magic formula to make your approach turn work perfectly. Even if you DO know the speed of the carrier, there's enough difference in your abeam distance, groundspeed, wind variation etc. that this will never be a static exercise. You have to acquire the deck visually at the 90 and adjust as necessary from there. That's what you saw me do in my tracks. This applies on normal runways too of course; the runway itself isn't moving but wind effect on your aircraft is constantly changing through the turn / with altitude, often varying significantly as you get down into the surface friction layer. Flying just isn't a static, set it and forget it activity no matter what you do, so there's just no point in trying to nail it down to that level. One of my favorite things to do in little planes is just grind around the pattern doing stop n gos, pulling the power to idle at the numbers and using a slipping turn from the 180 to the numbers to play drag and wind correction to a power off landing. A Stearman comes down like a brick in a full slip so it's a blast... and more than once I've been asked by Cessna drivers how it's even possible to slip while turning.

Also btw, the boat speeds in my missions were 22kts and 10kts, so it sounds like they didn't get written quite correctly in the tracks. Good ole DCS tracks... who knows what other differences there were. I mean both my passes were 17 second OK underlined 3s, naturally.

Hah, nice analysis. Probably more in-depth than I've ever done for my own landings ;). I'm glad they helped but I want to point out that neither of those patterns was close to perfect, so be careful dissecting them in a hyper-detailed manner. It's likely that most of the minor differences you're finding weren't intentional. They may be related to different boat speeds / winds, but they're more likely my own human error or variability. For instance, I'm betting that 0.1nm difference in abeam distance has a lot more to do with my need to adjust turn rate for lineup than boat speed does. But all these factors are related, meaning that if you fly a variety of missions with some variability in weather, each pass will be somewhat unique. That's what makes this so interesting to me... but it also means that there's a limit to how exact your technique can be. Boat speed, wind speed, crosswind, abeam distance, aircraft weight (affecting your on-speed airspeed and therefore groundspeed)... different combinations every time. So maybe I'm simple-minded, but I gotta keep the rules to a dumbed-down level: aim for 600ft and 1.1nm abeam, 30 degree bank at the platform, 480-500ft at the 90, then start glancing at the boat and adjust bank as necessary to roll out on centerline on glideslope. Transition to ball when it's clear (I don't like the pop-up) and keep doing what's necessary until I hit the boat. If the velocity vector on the LA is what holds centerline, cool. If it needs to be at the starboard corner of the bow, great. Just do what it takes. Obviously, just keeping things simple like that is hard enough for me.

^^ Haha I just had the same experience when I intentionally slowed my boat down to make one of these tracks. My pattern timing was all messed up ;). That said, I think these show (minus my lousy groove times) what we're talking about. IF, that is, you can play the track back accurately to begin with; that often doesn't work where carriers are involved. In case it doesn't, I streamed them as well if you want to see the video (first pass is the faster boat): https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1194642417 pass_FastWndSloBoat.trk And because of track sizes, two posts required. passFastBoatSlowWind.trk

F10 map. I know of nowhere else to get it, and I don't think it's provided to pilots in real life. I think it has to be assumed, based on wind speed. (Ie if winds are calm, boat moving fast to create required WOD. If wind is strong, boat moving slower. On the other hand, you'll get blown out more during your turn, so... that partially compensates.) It can be handy to jump in the LSO view (L Alt + F9) to read wind over deck though, paying particular attention to crosswind component. If a mission designer has given you more than 5kts of crosswind, blame him for your troubles.

Ok, I'll make a track now, standby lol. But I do think at least part of the problem is that you're not maintaining centerline; on those pictures above, you've drifted well left of centerline by the time you're in close. That just makes things harder to fix. Yes, the proper place to start your turn does change depending on carrier speed. I'm still working on perfecting that one myself; I'm plagued by long groove times lol. Remember, the correct "length" of the groove is 15 - 18 seconds. It's measured in time, not distance. I might recommend you try long straight in approaches at various boat speeds. They don't have to be poor visibility case 3s, just do them in nice weather but vary the boat speed. That will force you to fly straight in and observe the varying amounts of crab required to maintain ICLS centerline. But ok, I'll try a couple tracks.

Interesting discussion. Few things jumped out: 1. Taz is not starting out lined up left. Reference the centered ICLS localizer in every initial photo he posted. He is definitely drifting left in close though. 2. This is backwards, I'm sure just a typo, but just to clarify: If the wind is coming from the east, you need to make the ship steam TO the east. Ship always points roughly into the wind. In the end though Taz, it really does come down to "make the airplane be where you want it." There is no magic formula, given the dynamics of the environment: moving jet, moving runway, ever-changing winds etc. If I'm understanding your question correctly, your concern is not with your position relative to centerline, but with the crab angle that you feel it's necessary to touch down with to remain on centerline. Touching down in a more significant crab to the right causes your nose to be aligned more towards the bow, meaning that on rollout or during a bolter, that's where the plane wants to go. Am I understanding correctly? If so, I can offer a couple suggestions. First, work HARD to maintain centerline during your whole time in the groove. The runway is always moving to the right (the ship always has at least steerageway, so some speed), so you need to either maintain a slight crab to the right during the whole groove, or make a continuous series of small right corrections to lineup. The faster the ship is moving, the more crab/corrections you'll need. On an "average" day (average wind, average boat speed) keeping the velocity vector near the crotch as David suggests is a ballpark amount of crab - but it'll never be perfect. Adjustments will be needed on every pass you fly. Make sure the HUD is uncaged when you're in the groove; it makes the VV accurate. If you fail to maintain centerline and allow yourself to drift left, you set yourself up for the problem you're describing, because by the time your lineup error becomes very noticeable (in close), you have to make a large right correction to regain centerline, which has pointed your nose even further to the right. Stay on that centerline the whole time. Then, when crossing the ramp, if you've got a significant right crab in, you've got a few choices. A quick left wing dip to align the nose with the centerline just before touchdown is one option, but has to be very minor and completed before touchdown - you don't want to touch down left wing low. (I have the feeling that in real life, the LSOs might not love this option.) You could also rudder the nose straight(er) just before touchdown, or go ahead and touchdown in the crab but be ready on that left rudder to straighten yourself on rollout or bolter. It gets instinctive after a while; I can't say exactly what I do, but I think I lean more towards rudder to somewhat align the nose just before touchdown, and further rudder on rollout if necessary. Basically, the stick controls your drift left and right of centerline, and the rudder controls the alignment of your nose with centerline at the last second/on rollout. It's work. Edit: oh, and I don't think pilots are routinely given the carrier's speed, just the BRC and wind over deck (on case 3s).

Oh yeah, I've seen that. But I mean, that's just a list of features being considered, right? It's far from a roadmap of the type we have for other modules, where features are categorized by rough timeline and order of prioritization. I mean, it's been a year and a half since the carrier launched and there have been zero feature additions, and many launch-day bugs still exist. I think it's fair enough to ask for some details on development plans, right?

I created a variety of training missions for this; 1v1, 2v2, 2 v many etc. If I want to dogfight with AI, I start us out head to head at about 15nm, co-speed and altitude, with waypoint one at the merge position. Then I set the AI's ROE to weapons hold until waypoint one. Thus the AI will respect the merge, then fight's on. It's definitely not the same as fighting a human, but for practice and muscle memory development of sensor and weapons operation, it works well.

All I'm seeing there is modifications to the human models of the deck crew? Or is that the entire roadmap?

Have you tried Sea mode of the air-to-ground radar? It'll paint any vessel as a track, and you can designate that track as a target with an SCS action towards the radar (if on right DDI, SCS right). I can't remember if reference from cursor to bullseye is given on air to ground radar as it is in air to air; if it is you can slew the radar cursor to that point and TDC depress to designate for steering info.

Hi, just wondering if there was potential to see a development roadmap for the carrier like we have for the hornet and other modules? I am just guessing but I think there'd be interest... Thanks!

A proper barrel roll is like a rolling circle - easy to describe, but it requires great familiarity with the airplane to do well. In the competition acro world where this precision is graded, it is ideally a continuous roll combined with a continuous smooth pull, so it's almost like doing a loop and a roll at the same time. There should be no pauses or dramatic rate changes in either the pitch or roll; they should both be smooth and continuous. No reason why it couldn't be done in a hornet, but a warbird or the christen eagle might be better choices, just because the barrel roll is a classic "barnstormer" sort of maneuver. To me it just feels better in a biplane, but then I'm biased... For a reference point, I always choose something that's on my wingtip and near the horizon, and that's how I've always taught it too. I've heard the 45 degree reference point technique too and it's just personal preference, but I prefer to pick a point that I'm rolling/pulling towards so that I can gauge my progress and therefore adjust roll rate so I arrive at inverted with my nose right above my reference and starting down. Then my focus shifts back to a reference point on my original heading. It's tough to explain in text, but I'll bet you can find YouTube video of it from a head-mounted gopro, and it'll make perfect sense then. Don't beat yourself up because it's hard. It's SUPPOSED to be hard. ; )