correct as-is Landing gear after update.

[freehand]

8 minutes ago, wiwa23 said:

It definitely is more sensitive, probably way more realistic. But I've read many reports by many about damaging the gear and a lot of them talk about being on speed, descent rate and stuff but a lot of them don't mention the weight (below 34000 for carrier trap, Below 39000 for flared field landing). In my experience it works pretty well this way. Should do more testing but it feels that it is ok like this. Maybe a bit to sensitive? Maybe crosswinds make it more prone for breaking? 

In my own missions which I create stormy seems very fragile to me I take off from the boat land at air port in cross wind landing gear breaks. I must admit my stormy weather missions are  a little over the top because feels so good in vr lol.

[BIGNEWY]

post short track replay examples of the gear breaking we can all take a look. But as mentioned above you need to keep an eye on your weight and decent rates. 

thanks

[Rissala]

On 2/25/2024 at 8:16 PM, BJ55 said:

+1

Someone needs to produce a track for this to move forward. This does not happen to me when landing under the max landing weight. Your plane in the pic has a full missile load with a drop tank. Check your aircraft weight (checklist page) before landing, and if needed, dump fuel.

The limit is not a suggestion. And with the new suspension model, you cant ignore it anymore.

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

 

[freehand]

There is no point me giving you my track as my conditions are mad lol maybe I should not take off fully loaded with gb12s on board  will try later with a sensible head on.

[Mike_CK]

16 hours ago, Jackjack171 said:

https://forum.dcs.world/tags/rate of descent too fast/

FYI, the aircraft is supposed to remain dirty on the bolter!

That’s just it: my rate of decent really wasn’t that fast. I was on slope and on AoA. And yes, I know to remain dirty but I had alarms going off after I hit so I pulled up gear and flaps until I could see what happened.

im not saying it was a perfect landing and I may very well have planted a bit hard at the end…but I feel like the Hornets gear is plenty beefy enough to handle a landing “a bit” harder than perfect 

EDIT: I should add that both times I had a clean jet (except for pylons) as all ordinance was expended and empty tanks dropped. About 4k lbs of fuel first time and 5.5k second time. So, it was a very light jet

Edited March 6 by Mike_CK

[markom]

What did checklist page say your weight was? A few "experiments" I did with the new flight model tell me that anything above 34,000 lbs means at least one bent wheel. Under that, anyone's guess. Under 33,000 (which is documented max weight for a trap), as long as you're under -900 fpm, you are good.

[Mike_CK]

I was REALLY LIGHT. I had no ordinance and between 4,000lbs to 5,000lbs of fuel on both my landings. At that weight, I would think you could drop the damn thing from 50’ up and it would be fine.

I’m sure that a perfect rate of decent  won’t bend the gear. BUT…the Hornet’s landing gear (and that of all carrier based aircraft) is designed to be robust enough to sustain landings that ARENT perfect. 

I’ve never flown an F/A-18 and I’m not a Boeing engineer; but I’m pretty confident that both of my landings were well within the parameters of what the F/A-18 was designed to take.
 

So maybe the “window” of decent rate the jet can take is a bit too small?

 

 

Edited March 6 by Mike_CK

[oldcrusty]

2 hours ago, markom said:

What did checklist page say your weight was? A few "experiments" I did with the new flight model tell me that anything above 34,000 lbs means at least one bent wheel. Under that, anyone's guess. Under 33,000 (which is documented max weight for a trap), as long as you're under -900 fpm, you are good.

I think current modelling is in the ball park... more or less     My final test:  43,500'ish lbs on the runway landing the AF way then on the boat... well, I got some fault codes on this one but no visible damage.

https://youtu.be/11CdUppYeX0?si=6ue8dcSGI1RalU0n

 

[markom]

What do you mean no damage... you can quite audibly hear the wheel damage alert on that carrier trap.

[oldcrusty]

1 minute ago, markom said:

What do you mean no damage... you can quite audibly hear the wheel damage alert on that carrier trap.

No obvious and visible damage as seen in some pics and vids (bent gear)  Sure, I can hear the beeping    and I noticed missing left main 'green'  so yeah, it's going below the deck for a while. 

[markom]

For me, the bar for "is there damage" in the game is whether it beeps at me... I don't believe external visual inspection yields the same result as it would have in real life. In other words, thank you for confirming the damage

[oldcrusty]

32 minutes ago, markom said:

For me, the bar for "is there damage" in the game is whether it beeps at me... I don't believe external visual inspection yields the same result as it would have in real life. In other words, thank you for confirming the damage

OK, my final take on this...  flying the ball with 43,000 lbs all the way to 3 wire, I would definitely expect some sort of 'stress' on certain parts of the airframe.  I simply wanted to see for myself whether reports of 'within weight limits and 700/800 f/min descent produced bent landing gear, that's all.

[Nealius]

I see "under max trap" being used a lot, but IIRC real-world USN fuel planning is to hit the ramp at max trap weight in order to maximize fuel for potential bolters or diverts. In other words, smacking the deck at -750fpm at 33,000lbs gross weight should not be breaking anything.

[MARLAN_]

7 hours ago, markom said:

What did checklist page say your weight was? A few "experiments" I did with the new flight model tell me that anything above 34,000 lbs means at least one bent wheel. Under that, anyone's guess. Under 33,000 (which is documented max weight for a trap), as long as you're under -900 fpm, you are good.

34K is max trap at the boat, 33K is for special conditions. If wheels are breaking at 34,001 lbs something is tuned incorrectly on the FM.

Additionally, you should be able to land up to 39K at the field (flared, or easy landing).

Edited March 7 by MARLAN_

[markom]

Interesting. All the docs relating to ED's F/A-18 that I've seen refer to the 33,000. I have not seen the 34,000 number anywhere.

[markom]

2 hours ago, Nealius said:

I see "under max trap" being used a lot, but IIRC real-world USN fuel planning is to hit the ramp at max trap weight in order to maximize fuel for potential bolters or diverts. In other words, smacking the deck at -750fpm at 33,000lbs gross weight should not be breaking anything.

You totally can: 

 

[Nealius]

NATOPS says unrestricted 33,000lbs, restricted 34,000lbs. Restrictions for above 33,000lbs are as follows:

(1) Glideslope - 3.5° Maximum
(2) Recovery head wind (RHW) -
     (a) 40 knots minimum - Half flaps allowed
     (b) Less than 40 knots - Full flaps only
(3) Lateral weight asymmetry - 14,500 foot-pound maximum (external pylon stores, AIM-9 wing tips,
and wing fuel)
(4) No MOVLAS recovery

I've always aimed for 33,000lbs as personal preference.

 

[BJ55]

@Rissala "Check your aircraft weight (checklist page) before landing"

As I wrote previously " I was exceeding MLW by 500lbs", probably I was decieved from the discrepancy in weight between mission resources and checklist page.

 

Edited March 7 by BJ55
After saving the reply all the text was missing

[BIGNEWY]

2 hours ago, BJ55 said:

@Rissala "Check your aircraft weight (checklist page) before landing"

As I wrote previously " I was exceeding MLW by 500lbs", probably I was decieved from the discrepancy in weight between mission resources and checklist page.

 

 

pylon weight is not included in rearm menu, it is known. 

thanks

[pokeraccio]

9 hours ago, MARLAN_ said:

34K is max trap at the boat, 33K is for special conditions. If wheels are breaking at 34,001 lbs something....

As @markom and @Nealius wrote about carrier traps limitations, is it the opposite, I would say 33K is the "normal" (Unrestricted) max trap, and 34K the "special" (Restricted) condition.

[MARLAN_]

3 hours ago, pokeraccio said:

As @markom and @Nealius wrote about carrier traps limitations, is it the opposite, I would say 33K is the "normal" (Unrestricted) max trap, and 34K the "special" (Restricted) condition.

That's wrong, the normal is 34K. The "restrictions" are things like you can't use MOVLAS, there's a list in the NATOPS, and the listed restrictions are all special situations.

Multiple F18 pilots have told me this as well, feel free to ask some yourself.

It doesn't matter what anyone here believes anyway, it clearly states 34K is an acceptable limit, whatever you believe it to mean, I guarantee its not wheels breaking (and 39K is listed as well for field landings).

I am happy that wheels are damaged if you make a very hard/bad landing, but if they're breaking at 34K that's just straight wrong.

Edited March 7 by MARLAN_

[Muchocracker]

Maximum trap weight is the #1 cause that i am seeing from most people crunching their gear, the other part is people slamming it on the deck and not flying the glideslope. 

-You have get the jet under 34 thousand pounds (use the checklist page, it also accounts for external stores automatically)
-Follow the glideslope all the way down. Easing Guns is a very common bad habit that a lot of people have (inlcuding me sometimes). Easing Guns over the roundown above the unrestricted weight is also going to exceed the strength safety margins of the gear. Keep that one also in mind. 

Edited March 8 by Muchocracker

[Urbi]

Hello folks ! I find the whole discussion inappropriate. The simulation of the damage to the model is realized via the damage model. This is as unrealistic as it can be. With the destruction of the nose wheel steering by ED just to make it easier to find the line to the Kattapult on the carrier, the model only has a fixed reference point to the ground. This is the value Maingear in the model lua for the damage model. It's the left side. Why isn't there this value for both sides? If the calculations of the two points nosegear and maingear for the load during landing (old) were divided (calculation on the model side), everything is now placed on the left maingear. In the pictures the left main landing gear is affected because the right side does not have a fixed point on the ground. The chassis on the right side is only simulated synchronously.

[Rissala]

20 hours ago, BJ55 said:

@Rissala "Check your aircraft weight (checklist page) before landing"

As I wrote previously " I was exceeding MLW by 500lbs", probably I was decieved from the discrepancy in weight between mission resources and checklist page.

 

8 hours ago, Urbi said:

Hello folks ! I find the whole discussion inappropriate. The simulation of the damage to the model is realized via the damage model. This is as unrealistic as it can be. With the destruction of the nose wheel steering by ED just to make it easier to find the line to the Kattapult on the carrier, the model only has a fixed reference point to the ground. This is the value Maingear in the model lua for the damage model. It's the left side. Why isn't there this value for both sides? If the calculations of the two points nosegear and maingear for the load during landing (old) were divided (calculation on the model side), everything is now placed on the left maingear. In the pictures the left main landing gear is affected because the right side does not have a fixed point on the ground. The chassis on the right side is only simulated synchronously.

If this is true, I take my word back. @Urbi your point makes sense.

Can we have someone absolutely smash the gear and provide a track here :D? I think that would be sufficient evidence if it truly is only the left MLG.

Edited March 8 by Rissala