Landing in bad weather...

[markturner1960]

Lord knows why, but I have decided to try my hand at landing the tomcat in worse weather than the standard missions. I have plenty of improving to do in that situation anyway, but i guess I am a glutton for punishment. I am using 30 knots wind and the carrier ( Forrestal) at 20knots into the wind. 

I have discovered that this (obviously!!!) makes a huge difference to how you fly the approach. my biggest issue is that its almost impossible for so far to keep any semblance of being on speed, if I do, the jet just wants to fall out of the sky. If I increase the throttle to stop this, I go high.....

Can any of you salty old Tomcat pilots help out with some tips?

[bonesvf103]

I think the main thing aside from trusting your instruments is to keep in mind that when landing, the throttle is only used for altitude/position on the glideslope (helped with DLC) and the stick is used for airspeed or in the more relevant case, maintaining the donut in the AOA.  If you do this, the jet won;t fall out of the sky.  But it becomes a hard dance when you are in Case III conditions without visual reference and so you really really have to trust those instruments AND make very small subtle but intentional control inputs.  That's what I can offer from the start.

Trying doing it ashore without ICLS or any ILS for that matter and no approach charts.  That is hell!

 

Now who's the glutton for punishment?

 

v6,

boNes

 

 

[markturner1960]

Thanks, useful, but maybe I did no explain clear enough.....I can keep the AoA right, but this means more throttle as the 30 knots headwind is turning my 125 knots airspeed into 90 knots. This in turn cause the jet to go high, so although I am on speed or nearly on speed, the jet is rising relative to the glideslope. So far and bear in mind I have not had masses of time on this, the only way I am finding to get the jet down onto the glideslope is put the stick forwards, which then screws the AoA & increases speed etc etc........It works but its really messy and I just feel that its not correct.....

[draconus]

15 hours ago, markturner1960 said:

I can keep the AoA right, but this means more throttle as the 30 knots headwind is turning my 125 knots airspeed into 90 knots. This in turn cause the jet to go high, so although I am on speed or nearly on speed, the jet is rising relative to the glideslope.

I fail to understand how slower speed makes you automatically fly higher. Nothing is really different when you don't look at the speed. You still keep the same attitude, 15 uAoA, lineup and GS - steady controlled descent around 3 degrees. I think it's mostly about throttle management skill. It's hard because you wait for the reaction and can easily overdo it, like PIO. Make small corrections like push the throttle a bit for 2s then back it off - you'll see the changes produced by thrust after 1-2s. If the throttle alone makes too much deviation you can quickly correct with DLC. Don't push the stick if the attitude is correct.

You can start with autothrottle or even full ACLS to see how it feels like, then try it yourself.

[Spiceman]

18 hours ago, markturner1960 said:

but this means more throttle as the 30 knots headwind is turning my 125 knots airspeed into 90 knots.

You need to read up on some basic flying principles, as this is just flat wrong. If you are on speed at 150 knots indicated airspeed (KIAS) based on your weight, then you are on speed at 150 KIAS. Period. You can have a 100 knot headwind, a 100 knot tailwind, and anything in between. Doesn’t matter. You will be on speed at 150 KIAS. Your ground speed will be 50 knots with a 100 knot headwind and 250 knots with a 100 knot tailwind, but you will be indicating 150 KIAS and will be on speed. Period. 
 

Are you looking at the HSD and thinking your ground speed is your airspeed? 
 

P.S. for flying an approach, your airspeed may be interesting, but that’s all it is. It plays no part in flying an approach. As an exercise, and to break what looks like may be a bad habit or misperception you’ve latched onto, mentally “cover” the airspeed indicator and ignore it. Get on speed and fly the approach without even knowing what your airspeed is, because it doesn’t matter. Use pitch/trim to maintain AOA and throttle to maintain vertical speed. AOA and vertical speed are the only things you care about. 

Edited August 17, 2023 by Spiceman

[Dannyvandelft]

To my understanding the boat would always aim to have 30 kts of wind over the deck, so if you have for example a 20 kts headwind, the boat would only be moving at 10 kts to get to the required 30.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[WarthogOsl]

This reminds me of the "downwind turn" argument in RC.  Some people can't get by the notion that a constant windspeed has no effect on how the airplane flies with respect to the air that its in.  It only effects your ground track.

[F1GHTS-ON]

+1 to @draconus said. Try setting up an approach using auto throttle AND ACLS initially. (Even getting the aircraft into the"right peice of airspace"  for the ACLS to stand a fighting chance of taking control is challenge enough!). Now sit back(!) and watch the instruments and get a feel for what the aircraft thinks is the correct speed etc. Half the battle for getting into a good ACLS start position is getting the trim, auto throttle AND geometry (heading) right. Like you, I thrive in the mental stimulus of just getting the initial parts right, the actual landing is just the icing on the cake.

Edited August 23, 2023 by F1GHTS-ON

[markturner1960]

Thanks all, very helpful.....@spiceman, yes, I am mixing up my air & groundspeed! Sorry for the confusion! I do have a small issue with trying the ACLS as suggested, as I use an FFB stick and at handover point, ( and this is a Heatblur bug I understand thats not yet been addressed...) the jet will nosedive into the sea......

I will keep trying! Thanks again! 

[bonesvf103]

When you say you are rising relative to the glideslope, that is telling me that you are flying through the glidepath.  Picture it this way:  the slope is headed diagonally down from your nose to the deck.  If you are flying at the same altitude (whether you know it or not), it may be on slope at that moment, but if you held that altitude, now the glideslope is beneath your nose and so your needles will indicate you are high even though you haven't gained any altitude.  And the glideslope needle will get lower and lower as you continue on at the same altitude.

To maintain your position on the slope, it take alot of having the donut on your AOA indexer (which is primarily controlled by pitch via stick) and power control (subtle and tiny amounts of throttle jockeying).

You should strive to use what is called a three part power corrections.  Let me allow a naval aviator to explain it:

Quote

THREE PART POWER CORRECTIONS
Landing on an aircraft carrier is essentially a matter of managing the aircraft’s rate of descent from the abeam to the carrier deck. To do this, a pilot is actually managing the energy state of the aircraft to achieve that desired rate of descent.

Consider the following example:
An aircraft is descending on a glideslope that would ideally require a 700ft per minute rate of descent. However, the aircraft is descending at 800ft per minute. This aircraft is underpowered and will soon be low on glideslope. To correct this low condition, the pilot must add power. The aircraft’s rate of descent after power correction is now 600ft per minute. This will allow it to climb (actually descend less) back up onto the glideslope. However, if this power is left on the aircraft it will eventually continue to climb above the glideslope, and so most of that power addition must be removed. When all of the added power is removed, this will of course leave the aircraft with its original problem of being underpowered. And so a second, more modest, power addition must be made. Now, ideally, the aircraft is maintaining perhaps 700ft per minute and so should be appropriately powered to maintain the glideslope.

This multiple stage throttle movement is called a "three part power correction” in naval aviation. In a more practical way of thinking, a carrier aviator controls his power (and thus rate of descent) in the carrier approach by utilizing a near continuous set of discrete three part power corrections each adding to or subtracting from the energy state of the jet. These corrections are generally represented by the following mnemonic:

When low: “A little on. A little off. And half back on” When high: “A little off. A little on. And half back off"

In actuality, this technique is as valid in a Cessna as it is in a F-14. However, rather putting in a power corrections and waiting for something to happen, carrier aviators distill this correction down to a discrete "shot" of power. This is done to avoid over controlling the power and inducing oscillations in the carrier approach, particularly on the ball where the glidelslope is incredible sensitive.

How much is a little? That is entirely subjective (and very dependent in [DCS] on your HOTAS setup), but consider about a half inch of throttle travel to be a good starting point. Most carrier aviators will also use a reference point somewhere on the throttle quadrant as an anchor, placing their wrist, little finger, etc on some portion of the cockpit that doesn’t move to give them a feel for the corrections that they are making.

Remember, these power corrections are meant to be short in duration. You don’t wait to see the effect of the correction before you remove it. Rather, you simply determine that a correction must be made, make it, then scan your instruments (and when appropriate the ball) to determine if and when another correction must be made. In practice, this results in the carrier aviator making almost continuous small corrections of a frequency that would bewilder most conventional pilots.
One last point on power corrections. There may be times, when a large correction to your energy state must be made. In these cases, it is entirely permissible to reduce your throttle as low as idle or advance it as high as mil (or rarely AB)….providing you don’t leave it there! Due to the fact that jet engines, unlike automobile engines, must spool up or down to change thrust; retarding your throttle to idle once for five seconds will net you a far greater loss of energy than reducing the throttle to idle five times for one second each. This particular action, (i.e. reducing your throttle to idle and leaving it there) is referred to as “being back in the bucket”, and the 3 to 5 seconds that it takes for the engines to spool back up to mid range may well be the longest (and if you are particularly unfortunate, the last) of your life if you do it 300ft above the waves.

I will also add one of the most valuable tips I can think of:

TRIM TRIM TRIM!

Trimming your aircraft to be on AOA is probably the single best thing next to throttle control there is to making a successful trap. When you trim your aircraft to be on AOA, you are trimming your aircraft to not only be on speed, but to have your nose pitched up in such a way that the hook dangling from the back of your aircraft is poised properly to catch that coveted 3 wire. You can tel if you are properly trimmed if you can take your hands of the controls and the aircraft will fly straight and level with the AOA indicator showing the donut. I wouldn't recommend hanging on the trim button to dump in your trim except at the start. after that, just a few clicks should do it--even better if you keep track of how many clicks you put in in case you need to back off a bit, you can get a feel as to how many clicks in the opposite direction you need to put in. Anyway, by being trimmed on speed you now have released all that back pressure from the stick and have your hook positioned in the best place for landing and can now concentrate on the ball/slope and the lineup.

v6,

boNes

[markturner1960]

Thank you for the helpful advice ! I have many hundreds of traps using the Hornet and can nail a good groove pretty well in that. I have only recently, in the last 6 months started learning to fly the F14 in earnest and its a whole different pot of halibut.......and thats just in clear ideal conditions. So I do realise that it needs a lot more "flying" and many many hours to get as good results as flying the Hornet. I have only 50 or so carrier  landings under my belt with the Tomcat by comparison......On top of that, of course, adding in the complication of challenging conditions, probably way too early in my Tomcat learning process, is the root cause here. I honestly feel that I simply dont have the in depth skill of landing and flying the F14 yet in place, to enable me to take that step to being able to cope in more difficult situations. Plus, when I posted, that was after only 2 attempts, so maybe I was a bit hasty .....Thanks again!