dumb noob question about braking

[windbag]

Ok so I am new. my problem is that when I land on a runway I am unable to slow down fast enough to exit on the taxiway before skidding off the runway. I am landing at 150 knots but cant seem to brake fast enough. Any ideas?

 

In addition:

 

I have toe brakes on my rudder pedals which work great in other flight sims but I cant seem to map the axis properly.

 

Thanks

[Diesel_Thunder]

Speed brake out after touchdown. Pull back on the stick below ~125 KIAS to add more air drag from the tail. I get on the brakes around 70 kts to be able to slow down to taxi speed by the end of the runway.

 

For the brakes, you have to map the left and right pedal under the axis drop down in the control setup page. And you might have to invert the axis on each pedal as well using the Axis Tune button. Some pedals, if you don't invert the axis, pushing the pedal releases the brake instead of applying them.

Edited May 22, 2020 by Diesel_Thunder

[Falby]

150 knots is way too fast, you should be at around 135 knots on speed with a descent rate of approx 600 to 700 fpm otherwise you will stay in flight idle which is 70% rpm instead of 65% which is normal idle. Deploying speed-brake is not a bad thing either. Don't flare either the hornet is designed to be flown into the runway rather than on to the runway. I hope that makes sense!

[Harlikwin]

The other f18 ism is that the engines dont spool to min when landing. So once you are on the ground bump the throttles forward for a sec and then full back to get to goto full ground idle.

[Harker]

I have toe brakes on my rudder pedals which work great in other flight sims but I cant seem to map the axis properly.

I'll start with that. Go to Axis settings, map your toe brakes (normally X axis and Y axis, with Z being the rudder) and then hit RCtrl+Enter to open the controls indicator in-game. Tap your toe brakes and see what the response is. You might need to select the axis binding and click on Axis Tune and maybe reverse the input or set it as slider. A combination of the above will likely solve your problem.

 

As far as braking, 150 is a little fast for landing speed. Come in with full flaps (unless you have a specific reason not to) and trimmed to 8.1 degrees AOA. This should allow you to land slower. Deploy full speed brake and go to ground idle on touchdown, keep flaps to full and at around 100 knots, pull the stick fully aft in order to brake with the stabs as well. Also apply brake pressure, obviously.

Lastly, make sure that you actually go to ground idle. In the real Hornet, the throttle doesn't go all the way back during flight, it stops at Flight Idle. With weight on wheels, it can go back further, to Ground Idle. We cannot have that effect on our physical throttle at home, obviously, but it happens in the sim if you look. So if you land with your throttle already all the way back, it'll stay at Flight Idle after touchdown. So you need to move it a little bit forward and bring it back and it'll actually go to Ground Idle.

You're not supposed to land the Hornet will the throttle on idle before touchdown anyway, since you need to maintain a good glideslope, so the above paragraph shouldn't matter most of the time. Just a good thing to keep in mind.

[Arbil]

It's about weight. If you are over 33,000lbs(maybe 34,000lbs) you are supposed to flare. If you were landing on the boat you would just dump fuel until this point, on dry land you flare. Also what someone said about pulling the stick back and using the elevator surfaces to slow you down, which I think is effective down until about 100kts.

[majapahit]

DCS Hornet has horrible brakes. You notice at a. Short runways b. when your heavy - at short(er) runways - with 1. fuel 2. load out (e.g. immediate RTB after TO fully loaded)

 

Landing heavy on a short runway (Senaki Tblisi <8000ft), 1. use full flaps, 2. be as slow as possible whilst considering your weight (don't crash because of your weight if banking) 3. full airbrake at the flare 4. wheels contact immediate at runway threshold 5. raise the flaps at contact 6. try to flare a bit rolling out 7. hard full brakes on the pedals 8. full pull on the stick rolling (weight on wheels)

Edited May 22, 2020 by majapahit

[Razor18]

Ok so I am new. my problem is that when I land on a runway I am unable to slow down fast enough to exit on the taxiway before skidding off the runway. I am landing at 150 knots but cant seem to brake fast enough. Any ideas?

 

In addition:

 

I have toe brakes on my rudder pedals which work great in other flight sims but I cant seem to map the axis properly.

 

Thanks

 

 

If you pull up the controls indicator, can you see your brakes working properly when you step on them? Just to avoid reversed brake axis (common in DCS default mapping), when you actually release the brakes when stepping on the pedals. Altough if you can taxi, they are probably OK. Just checking...

Edited May 22, 2020 by Razor18

[Brun]

DCS Hornet has horrible brakes. You notice at a. Short runways b. when your heavy - at short(er) runways - with 1. fuel 2. load out (e.g. immediate RTB after TO fully loaded)

 

Landing heavy on a short runway (Senaki Tblisi <8000ft), 1. use full flaps, 2. be as slow as possible whilst considering your weight (don't crash because of your weight if banking) 3. full airbrake at the flare 4. wheels contact immediate at runway threshold 5. raise the flaps at contact 6. try to flare a bit rolling out 7. hard full brakes on the pedals 8. full pull on the stick rolling (weight on wheels)

Why raise the flaps? If the brakes are rubbish having more weight on the wheels won't help, that would only be the case if the brakes were strong enough to lock the wheels. The extra drag from the flaps should be much more beneficial.

[MAXsenna]

I'll start with that. Go to Axis settings, map your toe brakes (normally X axis and Y axis, with Z being the rudder) and then hit RCtrl+Enter to open the controls indicator in-game. Tap your toe brakes and see what the response is. You might need to select the axis binding and click on Axis Tune and maybe reverse the input or set it as slider. A combination of the above will likely solve your problem.

 

As far as braking, 150 is a little fast for landing speed. Come in with full flaps (unless you have a specific reason not to) and trimmed to 8.1 degrees AOA. This should allow you to land slower. Deploy full speed brake and go to ground idle on touchdown, keep flaps to full and at around 100 knots, pull the stick fully aft in order to brake with the stabs as well. Also apply brake pressure, obviously.

Lastly, make sure that you actually go to ground idle. In the real Hornet, the throttle doesn't go all the way back during flight, it stops at Flight Idle. With weight on wheels, it can go back further, to Ground Idle. We cannot have that effect on our physical throttle at home, obviously, but it happens in the sim if you look. So if you land with your throttle already all the way back, it'll stay at Flight Idle after touchdown. So you need to move it a little bit forward and bring it back and it'll actually go to Ground Idle.

You're not supposed to land the Hornet will the throttle on idle before touchdown anyway, since you need to maintain a good glideslope, so the above paragraph shouldn't matter most of the time. Just a good thing to keep in mind.

Thanks! Great tip 'bout the throttle, didn't know that.

 

Sent from my ANE-LX1 using Tapatalk

[Falby]

Throttle will go to ground idle if you have correct AoA and a good descent rate, I very rarely have to advance and retard it to have ground idle.

[Greyman]

probably because your throttles aren't at idle before you have touched down and have weight on wheels. if you retard the throttles after touchdown, you go straight to ground idle

[Falby]

probably because your throttles aren't at idle before you have touched down and have weight on wheels. if you retard the throttles after touchdown, you go straight to ground idle

 

Yes that's what I meant in a round about way!

[majapahit]

Why raise the flaps? If the brakes are rubbish having more weight on the wheels won't help, that would only be the case if the brakes were strong enough to lock the wheels. The extra drag from the flaps should be much more beneficial.

It depends if drag is higher than wheel surface braking.

I tested it when heavy loaded. Brake distance (in DCS Hornet) is shorter with flaps up.

[Diesel_Thunder]

Why raise the flaps? If the brakes are rubbish having more weight on the wheels won't help, that would only be the case if the brakes were strong enough to lock the wheels. The extra drag from the flaps should be much more beneficial.

 

That can be a situational thing. Flaps down provides drag, but also generates lift. Increasing lift decreases the weight on your wheels, which can reduce the effectiveness of your brakes.

 

A real life example of this was the early model of the Boeing 737 that used the JT8D engines (also used on the 727). They found that the thrust reverser not only was nowhere near as effective as planned, but also because the way the thrust deflected downward, it pushed the aircraft up. This reduced the weight on the main gear, and reduced the braking action in turn. Within 4 years they redesigned the reverser which gave much better reverse thrust and also did not push the aircraft up.

 

For me in DCS, Kobuleti has become my home airfield. I base a lot of my missions from there. I just had to lookup the runway length and it was shorter than I thought, 7,870 feet. I haven't had many issues landing any of my jets there, though I did overrun the end in my Viper once. In the Hornet I come in on AoA, generally in the touchdown zone. Speed brake out, pull back on the stick, flaps stay down. Around the time I get to the tire marks on the far end is when I get on the brakes, and I'm generally down to 80 KIAS by this point. No issues getting down to 10 kts to make the turn on the last taxiway.

 

Another thing to is you generally don't want to get on the brakes early so as not to overheat the brakes and cause them to fade or even start a fire. Not to mention that a brake overheat means more inspections and maintenance to make sure nothing was damaged. I don't think DCS models this behavior on the brakes. Energy increases with the square of speed, meaning that if you double the speed, you now have four times the energy (140 kts has four times the kinetic energy than 70 kts). And you don't want that amount of energy put into your brakes, which is why you want to bleed your speed down before getting on the brakes.

[majapahit]

It depends if drag is higher than wheel surface braking.

I tested it when heavy loaded. Brake distance (in DCS Hornet) is shorter with flaps up.

A RL Hornet fighter pilot acknowledged / did hear flaps up might give a shorter braking distance, but in RL he did not do that, because he just didn't (he wasn't taught one should imagine).

Then again I/we're DCS simulator pilots and just do not want to run over the end of the runway.

 

In FSX coming in too high with a PMDG 737/747 passenger jet one can do the glider trick, aileron hard left and rudder hard right to bleed altitude but not accelerate.

This of course does not happen in RL, but for this one time when a Boeing with stalled engines came from 35,000ft gliding in for an emergency landing and this is what he did.

[windbag]

It is so refreshing to see these responses. I just came from another software forum (unrelated) where the replies were all poison! You guys are great! Glad to be a part of this team. I'll give these suggestions a try. Thanks again.

[windbag]

That is an amazing tale. Google - Air Transat Flight 236 and Azores. He basically found a little island in the middle of the Atlantic with only basic instruments - and slipped off height to get on glide slope.

[Diesel_Thunder]

It is so refreshing to see these responses. I just came from another software forum (unrelated) where the replies were all poison! You guys are great! Glad to be a part of this team. I'll give these suggestions a try. Thanks again.

 

Definitely a great community here :thumbup:

 

 

Wanted to add a little more on braking. The brakes on most aircraft are very capable of stopping the aircraft using just the brakes. It is most certainly this way with civil aircraft. Generally you don't want to rely solely on the brakes, instead using what you have available to bring you down to a safe braking speed (drag chutes, speed brakes, aerodynamic braking, reverse thrust).

 

One of the certification tests civil aircraft have to go through is a maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) rejected takeoff (RTO) test. In this test the aircraft is loaded with ballast to bring it up to MTOW, they start a takeoff roll and once at takeoff speed, perform the RTO. Using nothing but the brakes, the aircraft must come to a stop on the runway, stand for five minutes, and then be able to taxi clear. One of the conditions of the test is that it be performed with brakes that are mostly worn out, but just within service limits.

 

Here's a short video of this being performed on a Boeing 777. Around a minute in you can see some of the fuse plugs on the wheels let go, which releases the air pressure in the tires in order to prevent tire explosions. When an event like this happens, the aircraft gets grounded and a thorough maintenance check on the gear is performed. Parts like hoses, brake parts, hydraulic actuators, fuse plugs, tires, etc. get overhauled or replaced prior to the aircraft being cleared for service.

 

Edited May 23, 2020 by Diesel_Thunder