having a hardtime during base turn and final during a overhead break [newbie]

[cmbaviator]

hello gents

 

I'm new to DCS and the F18. So far i kind of do okay during the downwind to get on speed AoA but in the base turn, my Aoa gets in the 10-11° territory even with lots of power witrh my airspeed increasing and during the rollout, I start balloning like a mad man... and i'm at -5° in short final.....

 

Open to advices

 

 

 

[razo+r]

When deploying flaps, get ready to compensate for balooning. Immediately adjust it, don't wait and watch your aircraft climbing. As you've shown, you've let it happen twice, which added height to your profile instead of holding or decreasing your height (on your final for example). Add to this that you already seem to be too high to start with, leading to your 5 degree final.

You also didn't quite hold the opposite heading. While no big deal, it does after all decrease your offset distance, leading to a higher bank angle than necessary.

Edited August 14, 2022 by razo+r

[Svend_Dellepude]

I go idle on the power and extend speedbrake, when doing the first turn. At 250 i lower gear and by the end of the first turn I'm about 180 and then i extend flaps and avoid the worst balloning. After that you just trim to AoA and increase power as needed while descending to 600'.

[NickK]

The moment you bank the aircraft, the proportion of the lift vector opposing gravity reduces (until at 90 degrees of bank, there is none!) so the nose will drop. SO the moment you start your final turn, you need to apply a fistful of power to counter this effect. Similarly, as you roll out, you need to pull a bucket of power off to counteract the "ballooning" effect as more of the lift vector returns to the vertical.

Have a look at your power input as you commence the turn - you don't alter it until the nose has fallen. Anticipate this ... so as you initiate the bank, give it a handful of power. The more the bank, the more you need to give it. You should be able to balance this so that it becomes a simultaneous roll/pitch/power movement. Pull that power back off and maintain your desired AOA/descent angle. Then, as you roll out, pull the power off (quite a lot) and tune your roll rate to keep the AOA in the bracket. As you return to level flight, re-apply the power.

Summary: Initiating bank - short (significant) handful of power to counter the nose drop. Rolling out - short (significant) reduction of power to counter the ballooning effect.

Hope this helps. Now go practice

[Razor18]

I think you should adjust power BEFORE starting the bank, not simultaneously, a.k.a. "Lead the turn with power".

Same goes the other way leveling out, before you start rolling wings level you need to pull back some power.

You can't avoid ballooning or sinking, if you do power adjustment already rolling in or out.

[TimRobertsen]

Try doing the whole approach at a lower altitude. I dont remember the numbers for land/shore-landings, but Im pretty sure it is much lower. Maybe 1200' at overhead, and 800' at baseturn.

Starting the baseturn at 1600' would make a "textbook-landing" troublesome to pull off

The high-AoA during the baseturn, and balloning at the start of the final, stems from too much altitude and too much bank during the baseturn. A typical landing would look much more boring:p Your landing was more of an airshow-landing, which you pulled off nicely

[Minsky]

21 minutes ago, TimRobertsen said:

I dont remember the numbers for land/shore-landings, but Im pretty sure it is much lower. Maybe 1200' at overhead, and 800' at baseturn.

Carrier-type breaks are prohibited at AAFB. They use the "standard" pattern altitude (1500 ft AGL / 2100 ft MSL).

23 minutes ago, TimRobertsen said:

too much altitude and too much bank during the baseturn. A typical landing would look much more boring:p Your landing was more of an airshow-landing, which you pulled off nicely

He actually made a pretty decent base turn, which is 45* AOB and -7VV for the overhead pattern.

[oldcrusty]

A little motivator vid. This guy just started posting bunch of vids showing routine carrier ops, flying Growlers... well, it's all in the 'bugs' family.

I timestamped the vid, starting at commencing from 'port overhead', formation switch to right echelon then accelerating before initial, break, landing config (no ballooning ;)  ) and... waveoff for fouled deck.

https://youtu.be/eU_e-bbGaVU?t=457

[Nealius]

No ballooning on the wave off either. When I WO or bolter I have to shove the stick forward to its extreme limits to prevent overshooting 600ft.

[Razor18]

For the OP:

IMHO, first of all your lateral distance is too small. From ANY height, with this distance simply no one can turn back in without having excessive sink rate due to forced overbank in order to finish your turn inside of 0.9 NM (I guess this is your distance showm when beginning the turn to base?). You just don’t have enough turning room on a field RWY with this number. With increasing bank, the sink rate and the needed extra power to counter is increases almost exponentially over 30 degees of bank.

In the CASE I recovery pattern you start your turn at 600 feet in a distance of around 1.1-1.2 NM from the ship abeam of the rounddown. In that scenario, 30 degrees works only because you have to and WILL overshoot the BRC in order to get on the FB centerline, which means even on the ship you make a larger diameter turn, than your lateral distance from BRC at the 180. So we are already at 1.1 plus the overshoot distance from centerline. AND the carrier is moving away while you are turning. But field runways do not move away from you, giving you some extra leeway in length of the final by moving away.

If you want to fly the field pattern at 1500 feet, you should really try flying the downwind at rather 2.0 NM distance. Just to calculate distance vs height, 3.5° straight final generally means to be at 3000 feet at 10 NM distance on final, which means only 1000 feet height when you are around 3 NM out. In your video here you are at 1500, in a distance of 3.5 NM as the crow flies, so no wonder you ending up being on a glidepath of rather 5° final, just do the math.

We fly a 1000 feet pattern, and we fly around 1.5 NM lateral on downwind, this way you do not have to bank so drastically, that you start sink extensively, which you then try to power back up, which then accelerates you to 160-180, which increases your turn radius, and can never slow back down to wings level on speed AoA before touchdown.

Sorry for the long academics, long story short, try 1500 feet pattern height with 2.0 NM lateral distance, or try 1000 feet pattern height with 1.5 NM lateral downwind distance (right bottom number on your HSI. If you always want to see it in the pattern, pull up HSI rather to the right DDI, as advisory message blank exactly that number on the left DDI). If your aricraft is rather still heavy, you can even add some 0.2-0.4 NM to lateral distance, as your aircraft will have larger turning radius due to more mass and higher speed for the same AoA. If you end up being too wide/shallow in the turn, you can decrease the lateral distance however it pleases you.

Just don't put yourself between a rock and a hard place.

Edited August 16, 2022 by Razor18

[Cat107]

Here's one of the awesome kneeboard packs by Minsky: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3314314/
In this pack there is one kneeboard dedicated to Overhead Break, maybe you or someone else will find it useful:

[Raviar]

On 8/15/2022 at 12:39 PM, Minsky said:

Carrier-type breaks are prohibited at AAFB. They use the "standard" pattern altitude (1500 ft AGL / 2100 ft MSL).

He actually made a pretty decent base turn, which is 45* AOB and -7VV for the overhead pattern.

No it not prohibited, depends on Runway procedures, but generally you are right 
here is an example of 800ft pattern in two ship with 4seconds separation

 

Edited August 17, 2022 by Raviar

[Minsky]

1 hour ago, Raviar said:

No it not prohibited, depends on Runway procedures

I mean at Andersen AFB (where the OP recorded his video).

At Naval Air Stations they do them all the time, indeed.

Edited August 17, 2022 by Minsky

[NickK]

Take a half hour to watch this

HIghly recommended

[t1mb0b]

I wouldn't be too upset, you were just a little tight by the look of it.

Here's my attempt FWIW of the Nellis circuit, no where near perfect but almost kept with the aircraft.