Continued Cut Pass grades from LSO

[Mistermann]

Not sure where to post this, mods ... please move where appropriate.

 

I have been using @Bankler Case I recovery trainer for months and thought I was making improvements.  I can fairly consistently score in the 60's.  Unfortunately I must have done something to tick off my LSO officers because it seems like I can't get anything but a CUT PASS from them!  

 

I am posting two tracks for the community to check out.  One scored 65 on Bankler's training and the other 66.  Both received Cut passes from the LSO.  Can someone more wise than me PLEASE tell me what I am doing "unsafe with unacceptable deviations"?  

 

I very much appreciate any help the community can provide.

 

Thanks!

 

NOTE:  I am on the latest OB

 

Cut_Score_65_2.trk Cut_Score_66.trk

Edited May 16, 2021 by Mistermann

[Stearmandriver]

Without watching the trks yet, can I guess that these cut paases are accompanied by some flavor of EGIW, 3PTS, EGTL comments?  If so, the short answer is that it's a bug that's existed with the Hornet since the Supercarrier released.  Those critiques are normally given unless you cheat to avoid them by adding power before touchdown when you don't need it... and they'll push your pass grade into a Cut.

[Mistermann]

I'll have a look in the morning.  Thanks!

[Mistermann]

So, @Stearmandriver was correct, both passes received the following LSO grades.

 

65 Score = LSO: GRADE:C : _LULX_  _DLIC_  _LULIC_  _TMRDAR_  (LLIW)  3PTSIW  WIRE# 2 _EGIW_ 

66 Score = LSO: GRADE:C : _LULIC_  _DLIC_  (LLIW)  3PTSIW  WIRE# 3

 

3PTSIW being common between the grades. 

 

Now, as I think about that grade I am saying to myself, "the only way to get a 3PTSIW is to drop my AOA so flat that all three tires hit the deck together ... there's NO way I am doing that!"

 

So, I go back through the track and try and observe why the LSO thought they saw a 3PTSIW.

 

These images below are from the 66 Score track:

 

    

 

Okay ... that seems odd.  I wasn't moving the stick so the nose must be falling due to a defect.  Yeah, that's the problem.  It can't be me.  

 

So I went back into the track to check out the E-Bracket as I cross over the back of the boat. 

 

    

 

SERIOUSLY?!?  

 

I think I diagnosed the problem - and ... as in Real Life ... the LSO was right! 

 

 

Back to the trainer to work on maintaining AOA throughout the entire trap!  

Edited May 17, 2021 by Mistermann

[Stearmandriver]

Well, the thing is, you didn't do anything wrong.  The bug is that the DCS Hornet's nose drops sharply just before touchdown, for no reason.  It should not do that, it's a bug in the flight model. 

 

So, yes, the LSO is correctly critiquing a 3pt landing; but the airplane itself is doing something it should not do.  I asked about this a while back in the Hornet subforum, and Bignewy said he thought it was one of the things being looked at in the flight model review. 

 

The only way to somewhat prevent it is to make a significant power addition a second or so before touchdown.  This is a way to trick the system; but it can obviously destabilize the pass and push you into a 4 wire.  Frustrating, but that's what it is right now. 

[Mistermann]

Ahhhh ... that IS interesting.  Makes sense because I could have sworn I was on AOA the whole time.  It seems to abruptly decrease right before touchdown.  @BIGNEWY, should this be in the defect/bug section?

 

Thanks for the assistance, @Stearmandriver 

[Mistermann]

Well that was an exercise in frustration ... 

 

I feel like I've been training to land on the carrier "the right way" for months (literally).  I keep a log of carrier landings over on @Ansirial logbook page (highly recommend).  As you can see, I am pretty consistent with the Cut Pass. 

 

Would have been relegated to desk duty long ago with those grades!

 

Now that this appears to be a bug ( @BIGNEWY please confirm this is a known defect and is being looked into for resolution), I stopped uploading traps.  

 

In an effort to counter the tendency of the Flight Model to lower AOA at touchdown, today I tried "gaming" the system by flying an extremely slow approach keeping the E-bracket low at about 9° AOA. (Not a recommended technique at all)

 

 

Talk about some AFU approaches!  Argh ... 

 

I don't want to break the good habits that I've developed with the trainer and get into nasty techniques to overcome a product defect.

 

Candidly, I never thought I'd EVER be in a place of proficiency where I'd even care about this kind of bug.  There was once a time, not long ago, where my goal was simply to arrest on the carrier - period!  Maybe I should be happy with my progression and just stop caring about LSO grades.  Unfortunately, I'm not wired that way;  I want to better myself and my technique.  

 

ED - love you guys!  I really do.  You've made my childhood dreams of becoming a Naval Aviator as close to coming true as possible.  Any assistance with the FM under these conditions is very much appreciated.

 

Thanks.

[Stearmandriver]

You're already using Bankler's Case 1 trainer which I think is the best... if you want traditional LSO grades, you might look into the Moose Airboss script as well, which contains its own LSO scoring system that does not get as picky with the eased gun and 3pts grades, and can keep a trap loogbook for you.  It's a bit fiddly to set up, but works pretty well. 

 

I agree with you though, I'd really love to see this idiosyncracy in the Hornet fixed.  It's a small thing in the great scheme and I think the flight model feels good otherwise (I've certainly never flown a Hornet, but it feels like a jet for the most part), but this pitch down just before landing is bizarre, and it unfortunately makes it difficult to fly carrier passes with somewhat realistic techniques and grading, which is frustrating for a naval aircraft. 

 

My bug report / question is here:

 

[Mr. Crow]

I can confirm the pull down. It would be great to see this issue resolved.

 

On another note, it is possible to "game the system" by quickly pulling back on the stick, just prior to touch-down. Do not confuse this with flaring. Just a slight pull will be enough, on the last fraction of a second prior to the gears touching the deck.

 

However, if you do not want to "game the system", just disregard the 3PTS grade.

 

[Mr. Crow]

20 hours ago, Mr. Crow said:

I can confirm the pull down. It would be great to see this issue resolved.

 

On another note, it is possible to "game the system" by quickly pulling back on the stick, just prior to touch-down. Do not confuse this with flaring. Just a slight pull will be enough, on the last fraction of a second prior to the gears touching the deck.

 

However, if you do not want to "game the system", just disregard the 3PTS grade.

 

 

Here is an example of the maneuver mentioned. It is somewhat subtle, and one has to pay attention to the stabilators just prior to touch-down.

 

F-18C Carrier Landing.trk

[Mistermann]

 I just watched @Wags ACLS video where he allows the system to perform a hands off landing on the carrier.  Guess what grade the LSO gave out?

So does the real life ACLS actually perform so poorly that it can operate the jet in "unsafe with unacceptable deviations" during landing?  I'm not a Naval Aviator, so I really don't know.  I would HOPE a system as sophisticated at ACLS would not behave this way.  Again, I don't know.

That being said, I reviewed Matt's video all the way to touchdown (as I did earlier in this thread with my own landings) and sure enough, the plane drops its nose dramatically right before touchdown (between 20' and 10' there's a significant drop in AoA).  You can see it below on the HUD images.

       

ED - knows about this issue based on the tag on this thread from a year ago.

I really hope this defect is resolved before introducing the Burble.  

I see there's another thread where BigNewy acknowledges this issue and says it will be "tweaked".  Looking forward to it!

 

Edited April 25, 2022 by Mistermann
Linked BN's response from another thread.

[Kenan]

Sorry for resurrecting this several months old thread, but it appears the pitch down bug is still present? When will this be fixed?

[Nealius]

In the Hornet section any posts about these issues are "correct as is." I'm hoping they come around and see that there is a problem with the AoA and 3PTS IW despite replay tracks clearly showing the main gear landing first. Until this gets fixed I refuse to fly any of the Raven One campaigns. 

[Uxi]

Still needs to correct for Tomcat, as well. 

[Nealius]

I've been getting good grades in the Tomcat, though the LSO calls are of course still wrong. What's interesting is that if a Hornet pilot reduces throttle to snag a wire s/he will get TMDAR while the Tomcat putting out DLC to do the same will not get TMDAR. 

[Mistermann]

On 9/15/2022 at 6:05 PM, Kenan said:

Sorry for resurrecting this several months old thread, but it appears the pitch down bug is still present? When will this be fixed?

This bug has been around for years.  There's plenty of evidence showing what's happening and I appreciate ED acknowledging the problem.  For now, I've learned to "game" the system by applying power just before landing that pushes the AoA back up countering the FM defect.  I hate that I've allowed myself to do this over the years because I am going to have to "unlearn" this bad habit once this defect is finally resolved.  At this point, I think our choices are to 1) Game the system, 2) Ignore the LSO's grade.  There may be a 3rd option of using scripting like MOOSE and use the AIRBOSS routines (I haven't done that, so YMMV).

Anyway, @BIGNEWY posted in the thread I linked above (April 2022) that the team knows about the defect and will "tweak" it.

As for "when" - only the ED program managers know the answer.

[Kenan]

More than 2 months have passed since my September post and the bug is still there. I guess we will have to wait a little longer for this to be fixed...

[Mistermann]

4 hours ago, Kenan said:

More than 2 months have passed since my September post and the bug is still there. I guess we will have to wait a little longer for this to be fixed...

Well ... this issue goes back to May of 2021 for me (see OP).  And I am fairly sure that @Stearmandriver (and others) reported it long before I did.  It's really a shame that this bug is so darn hard to squash.  At this point, I just don't pay attention to the LSO grades.  I have heard the MOOSE Airboss routines are better suited to LSO scores if that's something that you're interested in trying out.

At this point, I've simply told myself this isn't being addressed due to competition with other initiatives.  Personally, I'm okay with that.  IMHO, there are far bigger fish for ED to fry than fixing the Hornet FM around the boat.   

[Uxi]

On 11/28/2022 at 9:47 AM, Mistermann said:

At this point, I've simply told myself this isn't being addressed due to competition with other initiatives.  Personally, I'm okay with that.  IMHO, there are far bigger fish for ED to fry than fixing the Hornet FM around the boat.   

As you say almost certainly am issue of priorities. Accurate behavior around the boat higher for those most interested in naval ops, of course and those who have Supercarrier are right to be... displeased at the lack of priority.  

[Mistermann]

1 hour ago, Uxi said:

As you say almost certainly am issue of priorities. Accurate behavior around the boat higher for those most interested in naval ops, of course and those who have Supercarrier are right to be... displeased at the lack of priority.  

Oh, I am with you 100%.  I have flown the Hornet/SuperCarrier almost exclusively the past 3 or so years and took the time to fully document the negative experience.  Every time I trap I am reminded the FM is bugged (regardless of LSO grade).  Nowadays, I just live with it.  Maybe that makes me "part of the problem", I don't know.

If ED asked me to review their backlog along with development estimates and value to the overall platform for each entry, I suspect I'd be choosing other tasks ahead of this particular bug like they have done over the years.

But there's no doubt, as customers, we can be displeased with a lack of progress.

There - my #forumtherapy for the day.  

[Raisuli]

On 9/19/2022 at 8:05 AM, Mistermann said:

This bug has been around for years.  There's plenty of evidence showing what's happening and I appreciate ED acknowledging the problem.  For now, I've learned to "game" the system by applying power just before landing that pushes the AoA back up countering the FM defect.  I hate that I've allowed myself to do this over the years because I am going to have to "unlearn" this bad habit once this defect is finally resolved.  At this point, I think our choices are to 1) Game the system, 2) Ignore the LSO's grade.  There may be a 3rd option of using scripting like MOOSE and use the AIRBOSS routines (I haven't done that, so YMMV).

 

The Navy and I never got along well, even when I was in it, so I don't worry too much about what the LSO thinks.  I pay more attention to my own performance (pathetic though it might be) and work on consistency.  So far I'm consistently pathetic.

It is nice to know the LSO has a hotel oscar for me, though.  Some of those landings felt like they should be better than a C.

[WinOrLose]

On 11/28/2022 at 5:47 PM, Mistermann said:

Well ... this issue goes back to May of 2021 for me (see OP).  And I am fairly sure that @Stearmandriver (and others) reported it long before I did.  It's really a shame that this bug is so darn hard to squash.  At this point, I just don't pay attention to the LSO grades.  I have heard the MOOSE Airboss routines are better suited to LSO scores if that's something that you're interested in trying out.

At this point, I've simply told myself this isn't being addressed due to competition with other initiatives.  Personally, I'm okay with that.  IMHO, there are far bigger fish for ED to fry than fixing the Hornet FM around the boat.   

It still isnt calibrated for the tomcat and I'm convinced neither like DLC.

[Wait4It]

I've been searching around for an official statement about the pitching near the deck (low AOA in the wires, 3ptsiw etc) and therefore reading this old thread.

Has there ever been an official statement whether or not this is a bug or something the actual aircraft does?
I can live with both, but would like to know if it's my flying skills or something in the game.

[draconus]

1 hour ago, Wait4It said:

I've been searching around for an official statement about the pitching near the deck (low AOA in the wires, 3ptsiw etc) and therefore reading this old thread.

Has there ever been an official statement whether or not this is a bug or something the actual aircraft does?
I can live with both, but would like to know if it's my flying skills or something in the game.

[Nealius]

Unlike the MiG29, the Hornet's FBW system should compensate for that, especially given the importance of AoA for carrier traps, which also does not apply to the MiG29. 

Should the FBW not compensate for this ground-effect over the deck, making this pitch moment normal behavior, then the LSO grading system should be tuned to recognize it as normal and give proper grades instead of these erroneous cut passes and 3PTSIW.

There is either a problem with the Hornet's pitching behavior, or there is a problem the LSO grading system. 

Edited January 15, 2024 by Nealius