Struggling with the Hornet?

[Pac-Man]

Hey All, just thought I would post these in case anyone has missed them and may be struggling with the Hornet.

 

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=4160033#post4160033

 

Take care all!

[Diesel_Thunder]

Good day Pac-Man. Thank you for putting together those videos, very helpful!

 

Got one request. I just got the Hornet a few days ago, and am liking it a lot. Right now I am mostly working on my airmanship with it. Taxi and takeoffs, no problem. Straight in landing, I'm decent. My biggest struggle is doing the overhead break landing (over land, not even going to try the boat anytime soon).

 

I can make it through the initial 180° turn and get on the downwind. That turn also slows me down enough so I can drop the gear and flaps. My biggest problem I am having is that I end up ballooning once the flaps drop and either end up really nose high and too slow with excessive sink rate, or too fast and starting to climb.

 

Any chance you can do a video on the overhead break landing?

[Chipensaw]

Practice, practice, practice. What I try to do is incrementally adjust nose up trim. What I mean is, a couple of bumps, allow airspeed to drop, couple more bumps etc, etc., until I am on speed / AOA. Extend out a little farther past the boat before entering the break. If you break at 0.7NM normally, extend to 1NM or 1.2NM. Once you get it down you can close the distance back up. Don't be afraid to give the stick some input as well to keep your nose down. All this along with throttle management. I am no pro by any means, still learning myself but this helped me.

Edited April 23, 2020 by Chipensaw

[Chipensaw]

Good day Pac-Man. Thank you for putting together those videos, very helpful!

 

Got one request. I just got the Hornet a few days ago, and am liking it a lot. Right now I am mostly working on my airmanship with it. Taxi and takeoffs, no problem. Straight in landing, I'm decent. My biggest struggle is doing the overhead break landing (over land, not even going to try the boat anytime soon).

 

I can make it through the initial 180° turn and get on the downwind. That turn also slows me down enough so I can drop the gear and flaps. My biggest problem I am having is that I end up ballooning once the flaps drop and either end up really nose high and too slow with excessive sink rate, or too fast and starting to climb.

 

Any chance you can do a video on the overhead break landing?

 

I would be happy to fly with you sometime as well if you like.

[Diesel_Thunder]

I would be happy to fly with you sometime as well if you like.

 

That would be great, and thank you for offering. PM sent. :)

[CBStu]

Download Banklers mission. It puts you onto a boat but everything up to maybe 1/2 mile out would be the same as an airport landing. My procedure for Bankler is head for the boat at 350k and drop wheels and hook and flaps. The wheels and kook will actually drop but the flaps will not. Get ICLS and Tacan running. Pass the boat at 800ft and 350k. As you go over the smaller boat ahead of the carrier, chop the throttle to idle and crank in 30 deg of L bank and slight rear pull on the stick for the entire turn. You can crank in some up trim while in the turn but it is difficult for me to know how much. Your speed will drop and somewhere in the middle of the 180 deg turn it will get low enough that the flaps will drop. This will create a bit of a bobble but since you are in the 30 deg bank it is much easier to make a slight adjustment to counteract it. As you get towards a heading of 180 deg bring the plane level, start bringing in some throttle as you slow below 145 or so (final on speed will be about 130) and then let the altitude drop to 600 while on the downwind straight. You want to be doing your final up trim to get AOL correct. Also note your distance from the boat (tacan) which should be 1.2 nm. This was determined by how much rear stick you used in the turn. The final turn is my most difficult. Your distance from the boat will determine how tight to make the final turn. I am usually at maybe 20deg bank. To make things easier you can give yourself more time by going further in front of the boat or going further downwind. Bankler will down grade your score for the extra distance but who cares at this point. BTW this pattern landing is very difficult. I have done many, many 100s of them and I can get onto the boat maybe 80% of the time but half of those were actually more of a crash than a good trap.

[Diesel_Thunder]

That's an awesome mission!

 

I'm nowhere near ready for the boat, but I did have some great practice yesterday. I created a mission where I cold start at Kobuleti, and just do touch and goes. I would climb to 5k and go downwind about 15 miles. I then turn base and final, drop the gears and flaps and try to maintain AoA the whole way down. Started coming together for me as I learned to work that throttle.

 

I start the mission with full fuel and keep doing this until I hit bingo, which I set at 2,000 lbs. Did this mission twice yesterday, so burnt two tanks of gas in my practice. Today I'm going to keep at it, and lower the starting altitude in 1,000 foot steps as I progress, so today I'll only climb to 4,000 feet and go downwind around 13 miles. 1st time I did this mission, I did a few go arounds because I wasn't where I needed to be and didn't want to crash. Second time I think I only had one go around.

 

Once I am able to do this at 1,500 feet consistently, then I'll work on setting up everything on the downwind. Then I'll introduce myself to the boat.

Edited April 24, 2020 by Diesel_Thunder

[Flamin_Squirrel]

I can make it through the initial 180° turn and get on the downwind. That turn also slows me down enough so I can drop the gear and flaps. My biggest problem I am having is that I end up ballooning once the flaps drop and either end up really nose high and too slow with excessive sink rate, or too fast and starting to climb.

 

Drop gear and flaps during the break; that way all you have to do is modulate back pressure to compensate for the additional lift.

[Notso]

Good day Pac-Man. Thank you for putting together those videos, very helpful!

 

Got one request. I just got the Hornet a few days ago, and am liking it a lot. Right now I am mostly working on my airmanship with it. Taxi and takeoffs, no problem. Straight in landing, I'm decent. My biggest struggle is doing the overhead break landing (over land, not even going to try the boat anytime soon).

 

I can make it through the initial 180° turn and get on the downwind. That turn also slows me down enough so I can drop the gear and flaps. My biggest problem I am having is that I end up ballooning once the flaps drop and either end up really nose high and too slow with excessive sink rate, or too fast and starting to climb.

 

Any chance you can do a video on the overhead break landing?

 

I'm not sure how realistic it is, but when I'm doing overheads in the hornet on shore, I fly it more like a USAF overhead rather than the long slow boat pattern. I know it's supposed to be the same for the USN/USMC whether its a boat or shore based pattern so they keep the same habit patterns, but I find the USAF overheads more fun and easier to manage. So in the break, slow down to <250 on the Downwind, gear down and HALF flaps. FULL flaps is where you get the huge nose change and need for lots of trim. I fly the airspeed right at around 190-200kts off the perch (touchdown point is 45 deg behind from the wingline) and then nose down and power as required to manage the airspeed around the turn. Once on final and lined up with the runway, I work to get on a 2.5 deg glideslope and power to maintain on speed/AOA (in the staple) to touchdown. i know that's blasphemy to boat guys, but it works. :music_whistling:

[CBStu]

Drop gear and flaps during the break; that way all you have to do is modulate back pressure to compensate for the additional lift.

I agree on the flaps during the break. I drop gear earlier though since it helps slow the plane. I am not sure how long your downwind is but the one at the boat is pretty short so I like to have as much done during the initial break as possible. As I mentioned, at the boat, we approach at 350. I drop gear and hook and flaps at the same time on the upwind but the flaps will not actually drop til the plane is <250. As Flamin says, in the break you are holding some back pressure on the stick. So when the flaps drop you gain lift which is pretty much what the stick back pressure is doing also. So flaps drop, in the break all you do to compensate for the flaps is release some or all back pressure for a few seconds. BTW, in a straight-in I don't drop flaps til 190 max and prefer to wait til 180.

[Flamin_Squirrel]

???

 

I drop the gear when speed reduces below 250kts. That's the speed limit for gear, so not sure how you're doing it earlier!

[Greyman]

https://youtu.be/Xso1mMo_1Mg, an excellent video by @Lex Talionis, will be worth watching, for a suggestion as to how to practise the on-speed base turn.

 

It helped me enormously.

[Notso]

I agree on the flaps during the break. I drop gear earlier though since it helps slow the plane. I am not sure how long your downwind is but the one at the boat is pretty short so I like to have as much done during the initial break as possible. As I mentioned, at the boat, we approach at 350. I drop gear and hook and flaps at the same time on the upwind but the flaps will not actually drop til the plane is <250. As Flamin says, in the break you are holding some back pressure on the stick. So when the flaps drop you gain lift which is pretty much what the stick back pressure is doing also. So flaps drop, in the break all you do to compensate for the flaps is release some or all back pressure for a few seconds. BTW, in a straight-in I don't drop flaps til 190 max and prefer to wait til 180.

 

Be careful, the airspeed limits on both the gear and flaps is 250kts. Above that, you will overspeed the gear even though the flaps have some self-protection. Same on takeoff, you need to have the gear raised, up and locked by 250kts. DCS doesn't seem to penalize you if you screw this up, but it's outside of the NATOPS limits.

 

Edit: Sorry, I see flaming squirrel beat me to it.

[CBStu]

Be careful, the airspeed limits on both the gear and flaps is 250kts. Above that, you will overspeed the gear even though the flaps have some self-protection. Same on takeoff, you need to have the gear raised, up and locked by 250kts. DCS doesn't seem to penalize you if you screw this up, but it's outside of the NATOPS limits.

 

Edit: Sorry, I see flaming squirrel beat me to it.

Thanks guys I will check into that. Now that you mention it I do remember something about gear down at <250 only, but I have never had anything go wrong when lowering gear at 350. Maybe you are correct that that specific damage isn't modeled.

[Oscarn]

Thanks guys I will check into that. Now that you mention it I do remember something about gear down at <250 only, but I have never had anything go wrong when lowering gear at 350. Maybe you are correct that that specific damage isn't modeled.

 

I believe the landing gear doors rip off if you overspeed the gear

[Datajack]

https://youtu.be/Xso1mMo_1Mg, an excellent video by @Lex Talionis, will be worth watching, for a suggestion as to how to practise the on-speed base turn.

 

It helped me enormously.

 

This.

 

I studied this video and practiced these principles (and yes it takes a lot of practice to get right). This video is absolutely the best tool out there on how to perform a Case I recovery. Lex flew the legacy hornet in the navy. Enough said.

[BuzzU]

I'm pretty sure you can only damage the landing gear on takeoffs by waiting too long and going too fast.

 

I don't see how you can do it when landing. They won't extend until you're going slow enough.