CBStu

Guys that all seems to make sense. I guess one thing different?? compared to a pattern at a land airport would be that the planes aren't doing the AOA on speed style of flying right? I will have to try the 'quick action' land approach but fly it like a carrier pattern while keeping speed at maybe 160-170 and doing a flare style landing. This is what I love about SIM flying. It's a way to try things, and learn things, at very little expense and no danger. Of course the answer for me RE; carrier pattern traps, is probably to do a 100 more so all of this becomes a little closer to 'normal'. Thanks for you thoughts and experience.

Just a curiosity. I have gotten reasonably competent at straight in carrier traps. So started trying the pattern traps. Dang it is difficult. So then I was thinking, since it is so difficult, why do they do it this way. Why in RL not have some kind of race track hold pattern 2-3 miles behind ship so the pilot would have that 2-3 miles to get on speed and do a straight in trap?

I am about a 4 month newbie and am slowly getting better at carrier approaches. I am very happy w/ the Gladiator w/ the one exception- the throttle action. I glued on an extension so I could hopefully get finer adjustments which helped some. VKB is working on a throttle unit but who knows when it will be available. So I wonder if a Warthog throttle would help. Can it be used w/ the Gladiator? Any other options I haven't come across?

I want to let all of you know that Aerogator got w/ me on the VKB forum and suggested a possible repair. So I took the stick apart and he was spot on. Under the button is the actual switch which slides into place in a channel. Unfortunately it had slid out of position so was not aligned under the visible button. I slid it in and added a small dab of glue and all is well. Thank you Aerogator!

Thanks guys.

I have no idea but I sure wish that time readout could be turned off.

In the FA 18 there is a dash toggle that de-clutters the HUD which I use on all straight in carrier approaches. (I'm not good enough to do patterns yet) But today I had a bolter and thought why not try a pattern. Went to clutter the hud again so I'd have bank angle indicator and found the switch is a one way deal.

Nope, not me.

You guessed it in the US. So, now that I know about the VKB support forum I will post there. BTW, I am sorry to have caused such a passel of posts. I really like the stick as it is a huge upgrade compared to my old Logitech. I used that button primarily to fire rockets in a P51 and have simply assigned a key board key to that function. I am sorry for the thread derail. Thanks for all the help guys

I am still doing straight-in approaches to runways and to carrier. For carrier I use the Quick Action Case 1. I immediately yank throttle to idle, yank back on the stick to get the VV well above the horizon and then work on setting up the ICLS on the display/hud. At that point the plane is usually under 250 so I drop gear, speed drops, I do some pitch up trim, and I do 1/2 flaps at 200, little more trim up, full flaps at 180, more trim up. Start to think about bringing up throttle that will need to be up by 145, and more trim up to get the VV in the E bracket. If I do flaps too early and plane heads up, I use forward stick. AOA is important but 4-5 miles from the boat, I will use stick to help get closer to the glide slope. It's just easier than using throttle.

Exactly. When ABS first appeared in cars there was often a struggle to get people to understand how to use it. In those days the hydraulics cycling was quite noticeable. A lot of people hit the pedal, got the ABS going, felt and heard the cycling, and thought something was wrong. So they released brake pressure. Now the cycling is much less noticeable. I think the hardware, and certainly the computing power, are much better so it's higher frequency, lower amplitude cycling. In any car w/ ABS the technique is hit the pedal as hard as you can and hold it. Steer if you need to. As an aside, many of the cars have graduated to also include stability control. One facet of that is the opposite of ABS- it is the ability to apply the brake. It is amazing to feel what applying one brake can do to help a car straighten out if it gets squirrely.

Uh no. Why? Read the last line in this. "Support To open a support ticket for hardware related issues* for a VKB product purchased at VKBcontrollers.com, go to your “My Account” dashboard, click “Orders”, and then click “Get Help” next to the respective product. Here’s a direct link to your Orders page. View current ticket(s) from your Dashboard here. *For software, firmware, or button-assignment related issues and questions, please use the official VKB Support forums instead (VKB developers and knowledgeable community are able to help). Important: For VKB products purchased at other retailers (e.g., Amazon, X-plane, or Dix30 Simulations, etc), please contact their respective after-sale support instead!" I see that my stick is the only one currently available (of the six models they sell) but , if I were to buy another, I would want to upgrade to the next better model...oops, not available.

A couple of thoughts and a Q. 1- Anti skid is better than a human because it can work on any wheel individually. Human can only control brakes of all wheels the same. So, if human feels one wheel locking up, the only way to stop it locking is to reduce the braking effort of all wheels to the level that one wheel (with the least traction) can support. 2- In a car w/ a bit of experience it isn't too difficult to feel a wheel locking and react. In a 33,000# plane w/ the wheels behind you I think it would be quite difficult to sense. Q- I have spent the last hour going through the FA-18 manual, Chuck's guide, forum search w/ no luck. I know I have seen a small window that can be overlaid on the screen while flying that shows control positions. Does this include throttle so I can see if we are at flight idle or ground idle? And how do I get it to display. Thanks for an interesting discussion.

On the F10 map if you click the blue circle at the airport you get a chart w/ info including runway numbers. #25 will be between 245 deg and 255 deg. W/ my newbie skill level that works for me. I am going to note mag variation posted by Ramsay to get me closer.

This thread started 12/31/17 and it is still not in production. I have a Gladiator stick from another SIM store, the top button died after 3 months. That store hasn't responded to 2 email and a phone message. I saw on the VKB website that the grip is listed for $45 but none available as is the case for most of their offerings. I doubt I will buy any more VKB stuff.

Lost sales = losing $. Most people won't wait around. They will find an alternative. If they can make 100/month and sell them all they make 100 profits. If they could sell 125/month but can only make 100, they are losing 25 profits.

As a way to get back in, maybe do the Case 1 quick action but do it straight in rather than a pattern.

Working through this. TIR was still running so I tried right click- same thing, it thinks I want to open it, but there is one already running. So I shut down TIR via task manager again. Then re-started TIR & went to the settings area. 20190227_174603 by craig stuard, on Flickr The "Automatically minimize on TRack IR Enhanced Title Launch" had been checked. I un-checked it. The "Run Minimized" wasn't checked so I left it un checked. So TIR and chrome are running just fine. Fire up DCS. All three are running just fine. All three on the task bar w/ a pink line under them. So I can select any of the three w/ the mouse. I only did one quick FA 18 flight, but so far, every program is acting like any other Win10 program. So far I am extremely happy and more testing tomorrow. Can't thank you guys enough.

See this is why I run DCS in a window. I can keep this forum running so I can have the list handy to try each of these suggestions/techniques. Thanks guys.

Shaz I will try assigning to another key Lancrr- alt tab is new to me. Is that left alt? And yes I have resized the display to see the task bar. Been that way for maybe 3 months. Makes it easy to pause DCS and access a manual or the web to get an answer on something I don't understand. Worked perfectly until TIR. I run in 'windowed display' or something in DCS settings. One of the standard common screen resolutions is 1920x XXXX and I experimented until I found that 1920x1050 gave me DCS w/ task bar under it. Somewhere on this forum the 'windowed display' was recommended for a totally different reason but it works for me for this.

Just started using Track IR and have a problem making adjustments. I fire up TIR first, do a quick F12 center to make sure it is working, and then fire up DCS. Then try to do TIR adjustments. As DCS started I noticed it wiped TIR off the screen. BTW I have my DCS screen set so the task bar is always in view while DCS is running. The TIR icon on the task bar is still there but the pink line underneath it is gone. When I click the icon, it tells me there is already TIR running, as if I were trying to start it from scratch. So, I have to exit completely to desktop from DCS, go to task mgr to kill TIR, start TIR again, and mess w/ adjustments, then start DCS again, and go to a quick action to see how my adjustments worked out. 4 cycles of this last night and not fun. This AM I went to DCS settings and reduced the screen from 1920x1050 to 1920x1000. This got me a white bar across the top which I was hoping would have the usual minimise, full screen, close buttons, but nothing there. Closed DCS and TIR, and opened TIR again. W/ TIR running, I can also open chrome, word, outlook, paint, and XPlane and all of them leave TIR running (w/ the small pink bar under the icon) so I can access it. Only DCS shuts it off so that it is running but it can't be accessed. Read through the TIR manual and didn't find anything. Any of you have any idea what is wrong here?

Detailed instructions from a real FA18 pilot here http://thedrive.com/the-war-zone/21790/f-a-18-pilot-gives-incredibly-detailed-instructions-on-how-to-actually-land-on-a-carrier

I just found this a few days ago. A real life Fa18 pilot helping out w/ DCS. Fantastic. http://thedrive.com/the-war-zone/21790/f-a-18-pilot-gives-incredibly-detailed-instructions-on-how-to-actually-land-on-a-carrier. I am still working on straight in carrier approaches but this guy's explanation gives me hope that I will actually be able to do a proper approach some day.

What the heck are all the white dots? The lines are brighter but????????

To find which wire you caught, as soon as the plane stops hit F2 for an external view and use your mouse to look rearward. I am not always quick enough but maybe 80% of the time I can see the wire moving before it is full retracted.