Some very useful tips for case1 carrier landing

[Ddg1500]

Hello, i would like to share my valuable experience of f14 case 1 carrier landing, would try to present it in the shortest words, be free to add your own opinion

Before commencing, i would like to clarify that this article is only for players with hotas, your could still learn something if you use keybroad.

Furthermore, the correct way of landing f14 defined in this article is with dlc engaged while trimming on speed at around 140-150 knots while CATCHING the E-braket with below 10000 pounds of fuel in clean load and not smashing onto the deck.

1 TRIM THE AIRCRAFT!, tomcat isn't a FBW aircraft that has auto trim to keep you on AoA like hornet, which requires QUITE SOME trimming to keep the AoA at the correct angle, if you don't trim the aircraft, good luck, the cat would punish you with harsh temper, namely STALL, with nearly uncontrollable pitch, there is reason for trim hat to be put at the center of the stick, so TRIM THE AIRCRAFT.

2 the normal AoA you need to reach after trimming is at 8-10 degree showing at the HUD ladder at 145-150 knots, which enables you to catch the e-bracket that would stably float at 7-10 degree, at that time your don't need to worry about stalling or compressor stall of the aircraft, if you do it right, that won't happen, and you would magically realized that tomcat is surprisingly stable at this state and would not so prone to stall that much.

3 USE THE DLC, i saw to much pilots lands tomcat like hornet who thinks DLC is just a complex liability, no its not, in contrast, you will find it much harder to land tomcat correctly if without DLC, DLC could help accelerate control of sink and rise with some sporadic extent and retract, which will massively help you to control the tomcat's sink and rise without too much throttle adjustment, furthermore, the small e-bracket is much more controllable and catchable with the control of DLC, another very important thing to knows is that the E-brake on the tomcat is designed to be cateched with DLC extended, it's not designed without DLC extended and would be impossible to safely reach, SO USE DLC.

4 many guys think tomcat is suppose to land at around 160-150 knots, its not, the e bracket is too high at that speed, the tomcat is designed to land at 140-150 knots, usually 145, don't buy those wrong opinion, the aircraft could still be rising at that speed.

5 for tomcat A, a 80-85% rpm would sufficient to keep tomcat afloat in most of the cases including banking depending on the weight, the E-braket is still stable so don't worry, but you need to keep a mind of adjusting the power after coming out of banking as the excessive power would rise the E-braket, for B tomcat, the rpm would need to be around 85-87% depending on the weight, i felt that TF30 actually generate more thrust at 85% rpm that f110

6 When on the final approach, the engine rpm would need to go down to below 75% to engage sufficient sink, otherwise you would still find tomcat not sinking enough as the lift body simply generate too much lift, use dlc control to adjust the sink rate and you will be safely go onto the deck.

Finally, all what i said just now requires some good experience of landing tomcat, it would be better for you to land the tomcat on land runway before going to carrier, after some experience, you will surely be better time after time, you will get there, just like what i did, so good luck, of course there is some loose end in the article that haven't been described, i know, but i've gave you the general vital tips, it's after you to trim it yourself with your own experience to fit your demand.

 

Here is a text book example for you to reference:

 

[razo+r]

Some tips for you, OP:

Don't say anything about speed. Just say "Fly AoA". If you fly the AoA, the correct speed will be a result of that. And since you only said below 10'000lbs of fuel, 150kts might work at higher fuel loads while for lower load even your mentioned 140kts could be too fast. So just say AoA, and the speed will result of that and it's also one thing less to worry about. 

Additionally, the optimum AoA depends on the weight. So yes, you did mention under what general weight you write these tips for, but saying 160kts is wrong, which is obviously for a high weight, is not really helpful. So again, just go by AoA, "ignore" the speed. 

On top of that, the stall speed is dependant on the AoA, not speed. If you are light enough, you might even be able to fly 130kts. In order to stall you just need to exceed the critical AoA, and if you fly the correct AoA for landing, you will never exceed the critical one. 

Also, if you don't trim the aircraft, it will not result in a stall. Trimming is mainly to reduce or remove the forces on the stick. You can enter a stall regardless if you are trimming or not. You can also fly just fine without ever trimming. It will just be really exhausting, but it is possible. 

So in summary, learn how these different things interact with each other or don't even have anything to do with each other. 

[Ddg1500]

1小时前，razo+r说：

Some tips for you, OP:

Don't say anything about speed. Just say "Fly AoA". If you fly the AoA, the correct speed will be a result of that. And since you only said below 10'000lbs of fuel, 150kts might work at higher fuel loads while for lower load even your mentioned 140kts could be too fast. So just say AoA, and the speed will result of that and it's also one thing less to worry about. 

Additionally, the optimum AoA depends on the weight. So yes, you did mention under what general weight you write these tips for, but saying 160kts is wrong, which is obviously for a high weight, is not really helpful. So again, just go by AoA, "ignore" the speed. 

On top of that, the stall speed is dependant on the AoA, not speed. If you are light enough, you might even be able to fly 130kts. In order to stall you just need to exceed the critical AoA, and if you fly the correct AoA for landing, you will never exceed the critical one. 

Also, if you don't trim the aircraft, it will not result in a stall. Trimming is mainly to reduce or remove the forces on the stick. You can enter a stall regardless if you are trimming or not. You can also fly just fine without ever trimming. It will just be really exhausting, but it is possible. 

So in summary, learn how these different things interact with each other or don't even have anything to do with each other. 

Your right, there is probably some issue with that statement, but this is what is usually behaves, lots of tomcat guys don’t land in the way it should be, and if you don’t do too much deliberately static control, you are not so easy to get into stall, and you still could power up to correct it, and also fly without trimming is pretty incorrect as a little change in stick movement could result in sensitive pitch change, which is not so good for a aircraft without auto trim, I did saw guy in the GS server that pitch like crazy during the case 1 and ultimately stalled and crashed in tomcat, definitely because he don’t trim at all and also he is apparently a newbie

Edited March 20 by Ddg1500

[draconus]

20 hours ago, Ddg1500 said:

fly without trimming is pretty incorrect as a little change in stick movement could result in sensitive pitch change

Trimming is performed all the time by the pilots and yes, it is correct, but it's done mainly to reduce the force on the stick. Of course it'd be hard to control at the extremes but it doesn't make stick movements any more sensitive. You can still land or AAR untrimmed because you're still in full control, you just have the center in other place and you have to keep the stable force on the stick, which is the hard part.

[Nealius]

On 3/20/2024 at 11:32 PM, razo+r said:

And since you only said below 10'000lbs of fuel, 150kts might work at higher fuel loads

More than 10,000lbs would be over max trap weight. Empty weight roughly 42k, max trap roughly 52k, that gives 10k of fuel to work with assuming no external stores.

For easier mental math I start with this 10k fuel figure and subtract total stores to get my max trap fuel weight. Roughly 200lbs for external tanks, 250lbs for an AIM9, 600lbs for an AIM7, 1,000lbs for AIM54, 900lbs for LANTIRN, 500lbs for full gun. (Source: Mission Editor)

Edited March 25 by Nealius

[speed-of-heat]

On 3/20/2024 at 2:07 PM, Ddg1500 said:

 

3 USE THE DLC, i saw to much pilots lands tomcat like hornet who thinks DLC is just a complex liability, no its not, in contrast, you will find it much harder to land tomcat correctly if without DLC, DLC could help accelerate control of sink and rise with some sporadic extent and retract, which will massively help you to control the tomcat's sink and rise without too much throttle adjustment, furthermore, the small e-bracket is much more controllable and catchable with the control of DLC, another very important thing to knows is that the E-brake on the tomcat is designed to be cateched with DLC extended, it's not designed without DLC extended and would be impossible to safely reach, SO USE DLC.

 

 

This *here* is the most understated bit of help anyone has written, especially for people transitioning backwards from the hornet, trim is important, yep, but DLC is how I was able to control my rate of decent without either going stupidly high, or low (the department of defence regrets...) but with DLC I can actually land on the boat...