VFR pattern landing with fully loaded F/A-18C

[Lazerhawk]

Hello,

 

I'm a F/A-18C and flight sim beginner. Currently I'm practicing the VFR airfield landing pattern (800ft AGL at 350kn / turn left with 1% G / 600ft AGL at 250kn / full flaps and trim to on-speed AOA / bank left 30 degrees) in the F/A-18C.

 

By now I'm getting pretty decent at it when the plane isn't carrying any weapons.

But when the plane is fully loaded with fuel tanks, bombs, missiles etc. I'm having a hard time getting that last turn correctly (30 degrees bank left into final approach): even when I'm banking more than 30 degrees I'm not able to make the turn tight enough. I will have to pull the stick down to increase turn rate but from what I understand that should not be necessary.

 

Is there a correct way to compensate for the additional weight the plane is carrying when it comes the landing pattern procedure?

 

Best regards.

Edited February 9, 2020 by Lazerhawk

[kengou]

From the sounds of things, above a certain weight, mil power or afterburner is likely necessary to maintain on speed AoA. The jet really isn’t designed to land like that... at least dump some fuel first. Nobody would land with such a heavy load.

[Hippo]

I reckon the issue is the 10% of airspeed g break. I have never been able to get this to work correctly as it always brings me in too close on downwind. You're supposed to be 1.25 - 1.5 nm from the runway on the downwind leg.

 

I do the following. arrive at 350 knots for the break turn. Throttle to idle, speedbrake out, begin turn (relatively) gently at 2.0g and keep the turn smooth, g will drop as speed drops. halfway around the turn, around 250 kts gear down flaps to full. Speedbrake in.

 

This places me on downwind at around the right distance, and makes the turn onto final with 27 - 30 deg bank work, at most weights.

 

I don't see an issue with landing at a higher weight, as long as you don't exceed any limitations. From the NATOPS max field landing weight (flared) is 39,000 lbs. It does sound as if you might be too heavy.

Edited February 9, 2020 by Hippo

[b101uk]

the maximum weight for a flared field landing is 39,000LB if you go by the book (*) (34,000LB for restricted carrier landings, and 33,000LB for unrestricted carrier landings)

 

 

 

 

so it would be fair to assume if your notably above this you would not be doing a standard pattern entry.

 

 

I.e. you would be doing a much more sedate approach probably straight-in from much further out giving you time to get set up and calculate your landing speed.

 

 

for an F/A-18D the full flaps landing speed is ~125kts for an aircraft without external stores and with 2000LB of internal fuel giving a mass of about ~27,000LB to 27,500LB, and for each additional 1,000LB of fuel or external stores you would add about ~2.5kts, which would make the landing speed for 39,000LB ~155kts, or in the case of landing drastically overweight at say 47,000LB it would be ~175kts.

 

 

while a max weight carrier landing (34,000LB) would be ~143kts.

 

 

(*) Sep 2008 NATOPS flight manual (A1-F18AC-NFM-000)

[bear.is.flying]

The carrier pattern assumes two things:

 

1) There’s a 30 knot wind down the angled deck

2) The carrier landing zone is offset 10 degrees

 

When you do the final 180 turn of a carrier pattern, you’re intentionally going to overshoot the carrier’s path laterally so that you roll out aligned with the angled deck.

 

On land, you’ll want to be displaced a bit further out on downwind, and delay your 180 turn slightly to compensate for that lack of 30 kt headwind.

[Lazerhawk]

Thanks guys for your help! And also for pointing out the appropriate sections in the NATOPS manual. This will clear things up for me.

 

 

Thanks again and best regards.

[Hippo]

There also appears to be a bug, which is overstating A/C weight on the CHKLST page. E.g. With a loadout of 2 x aim9m + 2 x aim120 + 2 x aim7m + 2 mk83, the weight given the CHKLST page is around 5000 lbs higher than in the mission editor. This is possibly causing other unintended issues?