Flare landing and Nose up [Solved]

[Raviar]

What is the trick to land tomcat smoothly? I know they use standard glide path with 13 units of AOA (I have to check again, I know the standard is 14.5), trimming AC didnt really helped me in order to achieve it, I can do it by light tomcat, under glide slope approach and super extra smooth touchdown which is not practical, so what is the trick inorder to keep the nose up?
the boards are out, Flap is fully down, Spoilers are not engaged

Edited September 14, 2022 by Raviar

[IronMike]

Hope this helps. Please read the video description, which contains a few corrections for a few mistakes I made, it was a quick, one-take recording.
 

 

[IronMike]

45 minutes ago, Бойовий Сокіл said:

The Viggen with the new suspension update can do this now. Hopefully HB will transfer these ground handing and suspension physics to the F14 soon.

You are not supposed to flare in the F-14. Ever. Has little to do with suspension. You also can aerobrake in the F-14, but you don't really do that either, you use full aft stick, you can use lateral stick steering and ofc you use rudders and then brakes once you engage NWS. The landing physics of the Tomcat are as should be. The ground handling and suspension issues in the F-14 relate primarily to ground friction when rolling off of a standstill. They are a compromise between too much friction and sliding around on the carrier deck.

What is shown in the video above you can do already, if you land on speed. Which is how you are supposed to land the Tomcat 10 out of 10.

Edited July 31, 2022 by IronMike

[Spurts]

Tomcat landings on a runway are shorter than anything that can't reverse thrust.  Great brakes, spoilers, clamshells open, full aft stick, and a low approach speed even when on-speed.  Done.  Sub 2,000ft rollouts every time.  Had a buddy to the shortest landing he could in a Hornet and stay put where he stopped.  I landed an A model on the same touchdown point, came to a full stop, then took off over him without hitting him.

[draconus]

22 hours ago, IronMike said:

You also can aerobrake in the F-14, but you don't really do that either, you use full aft stick, you can use lateral stick steering and ofc you use rudders and then brakes once you engage NWS. The landing physics of the Tomcat are as should be.

But if we try to aerobrake it's very hard to keep the nose up after touchdown. Also the landing distances are pretty short. You say it's all correct?

[Spurts]

Pretty sure to Aerobrake you need to disable the spoilers popping up with WoW.  It won't give you a shorter landing though.  Even in the NATOPS manual, F-14 landing distances are crazy short.

[IronMike]

1 hour ago, draconus said:

But if we try to aerobrake it's very hard to keep the nose up after touchdown. Also the landing distances are pretty short. You say it's all correct?

Yeah, and as mentioned above, it is not really something you do in the Tomcat. If you watch the first video, you can see the nose comes down really fast in comparison to other, lighter jets, say like an F-16. You land on speed, and you let the nose come down, then pull aft stick to add the stabs for your braking. You wouldn't try to maintain the nose up high. 

[draconus]

3 hours ago, Бойовий Сокіл said:

With a generally aft CG and proper shock absorbing main gear there should be a very minimal pitch down moment on a flared or min rate of descent landing.

This is what I'm talking about. You can't just model navy slam onto runway and call it a day. This is the video I was trying to find - I remember Tomcats laid like that with aerobraking.

[jojyrocks]

On 8/2/2022 at 1:16 AM, draconus said:

This is what I'm talking about. You can't just model navy slam onto runway and call it a day. This is the video I was trying to find - I remember Tomcats laid like that with aerobraking.

 

It is hard to do an aerobrake, but It is possible. I have vids of even NAVY airshow pilots doing despite NATOPS manual and all saying you are not supposed to do that. It can, you just have to adjust the throttle a bit to reduce the sink rate and just full aft stick, hold nose up, modulate and keep it till the nose touches down. Doing it is VERY difficult, it can be done. Sometimes, I can do it, If I modulate the throttle, just on the threshold of rear wheel touchdown, adjusting the sink rate and nose up attitude.

 

US Navy airshow pilots are seen doing aerobraking landing and Iranian pilots. So it would be a matter of, can it be done? I mean, even Navy pilots follow NATOPS manual and even they are seen to be doing it. You can find one video titled on youtube - NAVY Power DEMO NAS Oceana 2000 by F-14B F/A-18C CH-46 - Timestamp - 15:05

 

 

Edited September 12, 2022 by jojyrocks

[jojyrocks]

 

Another US NAVY pilot doing an aerobrake landing. Timestamp - 10:20

 

[Spurts]

In the above video it looks like they are using half flaps until the nose comes down.  Flaps drastically shift the CP of the wing and add nose down moment.  Could this be a common factor when people are seeing aerobraking rollouts?

[draconus]

16 minutes ago, Spurts said:

In the above video it looks like they are using half flaps until the nose comes down.  Flaps drastically shift the CP of the wing and add nose down moment.  Could this be a common factor when people are seeing aerobraking rollouts?

These are full flaps as used for every Tomcat landing plus spoiler breaking with WOW. No such thing as half flaps in F-14. If anything the flaps makes it harder to keep the nose up.

[Raviar]

1st, the Flare and Aerobrake is not what Tomcat suppose to do, due to reducing cost of maintenance IRIAF do it. it not standard, I knew that but I wanted to do achieve it, seems the HB Tomcat it is not really capable of doing that smoothly like you can see in many videos, however here is what I am doing for aerobraking 
for people who are interested:
1. 15 degree AOA approach 
2. DLC OFF
3. VVI below 500fpm
4. smooth touch down, and a little bit of pitch to keep the nose up

Edited September 14, 2022 by Raviar

[Spurts]

The failure of HB Tomcat to aerobrake might be related to the "sticky tires" solution needed to stop the thing from sliding off a carrier.  that extra drag with WoW pulls the nose down under normal circumstances maybe?

[Callsign JoNay]

7 hours ago, Spurts said:

The failure of HB Tomcat to aerobrake might be related to the "sticky tires" solution needed to stop the thing from sliding off a carrier.  that extra drag with WoW pulls the nose down under normal circumstances maybe?

I think that's probably the most likely explanation.