canned_fire Posted December 1, 2018 Posted December 1, 2018 In real life the meatball is adjusted for each aircraft type to compensate for something called Hook-to-Eye distances. Basically it compensates for different aircraft lengths and angle of attack during approach. It is done by changing the horizontal plane of the lenses therefore moving the glide-slope forward or aft along the deck. NAVAIR 00-80T-104 (NATOPS Landing Signal Officer Manual) explains this better. Back to the A-4: I found that following the meatball all the way to touch down I was consistently high and missing all the wires. I believe ED adjusted the meatball to the F-18, and because of the Hook-to-Eye, it is a little high for the A-4 (disclaimer: I don’t have the F-18 but have watched the YouTube tutorials). Since I don’t like seeing a red ball to catch the 3rd wire I changed the glide-slope from 3.5 to 2.8 at: USS_John_C_Stennis.lua GlideslopeBasicAngle = 2.8, VerticalCoverageAngle = 1.7 I don’t know if it is all in my head but it seems to make things better, at least for me. Another thing is that the NAVAIR 01-40AVC-1 (NATOPS Flight Manual A-4 E/F) from 1977 gives a different approach pattern than the F-18. Instead of initiated a descent at the 180, you would hold 600 feet until intercepting the glide slope. There is the drawing but also text: The turn from 180-degrees position will be delayed so as to intercept the glide-slope wings level at 600 feet AGL (page 3-20). This means two things, one you had to maintain 600 feet until intercepting the glide-slope and also you must not start the turn “abeam of the end of the ship” because if you do so you will intercept the glide-slope way too high. On the F-18 you should intercept the glide-slope at approximately 3/4 mile from the ship, in the A-4 procedure The straight away, wings level, should be about 1-1/2 miles long. Obviously one can apply the F-18 pattern to the A-4, and as a matter of fact I find it easier than A-4 NATOPS. I just thought somebody else would find this subject interesting. Also searching for NATOPS patterns in the Web I found one for the F-4 holding 600 feet and another similar to the F-18, so my guess is that the basic pattern changed some time around the F-4 life. Community A-4E-C Team: thanks very much for this wonderful module.:thumbup:
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