Guiding F14 to catapults on a supercarrier

[Goetsch]

In an update a while back ED added the ability for the supercarriers to have ground crew guide you to the catapults.

However, after that update F14 will not be able to access the catapults with a birth from a parking spot, saluting the ground crew on the F14 is not effective, they will not guide you, and the only way to catapult is to birth the F14 directly to the catapults.

Is this issue a long standing bug at the moment or is there some setting that I am not aware of that needs to be changed?

Edited May 6 by Goetsch

[draconus]

On 5/6/2025 at 7:51 AM, Goetsch said:

However, after that update F14 will not be able to access the catapults with a birth from a parking spot, saluting the ground crew on the F14 is not effective, they will not guide you, and the only way to catapult is to birth the F14 directly to the catapults.

No, it all works fine for the Tomcat. If you have problem it's probably mission related, so please, be specific or add a short track.

Edited May 8 by draconus

[Goetsch]

My current situation is such that I've put F18s and F14s on the supercarrier, both born from a parking space,

but only the F18s can trigger deck guidance from the ground crew by saluting.

 

Does the F14 need to have any specific settings in the mission?

[draconus]

6 minutes ago, Goetsch said:

only the F18s can trigger deck guidance from the ground crew by saluting

Try keybind Salute instead of the one from ground crew radio comms. If it's cold start - salute, wait a bit, if nothing happens, salute again.

Can you share this mission so we could test?

[Goetsch]

1 hour ago, draconus said:

Try keybind Salute instead of the one from ground crew radio comms. If it's cold start - salute, wait a bit, if nothing happens, salute again.

Can you share this mission so we could test?

Okay, I will share it in the post later, Thank you.

[Goetsch]

Here's my test

F14 supercarrier test.miz

Edited May 6 by Goetsch

[draconus]

8 hours ago, Goetsch said:

Here's my test

Sorry, can't help you with this one, I don't have Germany map. Only Caucasus, Nevada, Marianas, Syria and Persian Gulf.

[draconus]

I took a few minutes to create simple mission in Caucasus, put a CVN-71 sailing 27kts, then 4 Tomcats group including 1st unit for Player and 4 AI Hornets group. Hornets start up in the sixpack in front of you. You have to wait a few minutes on Elevator 2 and after the Hornets start taxiing the brown shirts are starting to be available returning to their spots. Then you can use Salute binding to call one (not the Salute from ground crew radio comms!) and continue with your startup.

F14 supercarrier test Caucasus.miz

Edited May 7 by draconus

[Q3ark]

Are you using the key bind or the option in the radio menu? The radio menu item only works when you’re on the catapult ready to launch, you have to use the key bind. 

[Goetsch]

16 hours ago, draconus said:

I took a few minutes to create simple mission in Caucasus, put a CVN-71 sailing 27kts, then 4 Tomcats group including 1st unit for Player and 4 AI Hornets group. Hornets start up in the sixpack in front of you. You have to wait a few minutes on Elevator 2 and after the Hornets start taxiing the brown shirts are starting to be available returning to their spots. Then you can use Salute binding to call one (not the Salute from ground crew radio comms!) and continue with your startup.

F14 supercarrier test Caucasus.miz 10.39 kB · 0 downloads

Okay, I'll reconstruct the case later, in the Caucasus map, thank you very much for your help.

16 hours ago, Q3ark said:

Are you using the key bind or the option in the radio menu? The radio menu item only works when you’re on the catapult ready to launch, you have to use the key bind. 

I just can't activate the ground crew at the parking spot to guide me TAXI to the catapult, when I birth directly from the catapult it is possible to eject, I just can't get into the catapult.

I can activate ejection for takeoff by saluting, but I can't activate TAXI by saluting.

Everything works fine for me in the F18, but I can't taxi in the F14.

[speed-of-heat]

50 minutes ago, Goetsch said:

Okay, I'll reconstruct the case later, in the Caucasus map, thank you very much for your help.

I just can't activate the ground crew at the parking spot to guide me TAXI to the catapult, when I birth directly from the catapult it is possible to eject, I just can't get into the catapult.

I can activate ejection for takeoff by saluting, but I can't activate TAXI by saluting.

Everything works fine for me in the F18, but I can't taxi in the F14.

Ejection?

[Goetsch]

57 minutes ago, speed-of-heat said:

Ejection?

Sorry English is not my first language, catapult should be accurate.

 

Edited May 8 by Goetsch

[draconus]

58 minutes ago, speed-of-heat said:

Ejection?

He means launch.

[speed-of-heat]

got it! thought i would check!

[Bealdor]

3 hours ago, Goetsch said:

Okay, I'll reconstruct the case later, in the Caucasus map, thank you very much for your help.

I just can't activate the ground crew at the parking spot to guide me TAXI to the catapult, when I birth directly from the catapult it is possible to eject, I just can't get into the catapult.

I can activate ejection for takeoff by saluting, but I can't activate TAXI by saluting.

Everything works fine for me in the F18, but I can't taxi in the F14.

 

You still haven't answered the most important question.

Are you saluting through the radio/comms menu or via the catapult salute hotkey that can be bound in the controls options?

For the F-14 only the hotkey will work but NOT the comms menu option. Which means you'll have to bind the command to your joystick or keyboard first.

For the F/A-18 BOTH methods are working.

 

Edit:

Are you saluting this way?

 

Or that way?

 

Edited May 8 by Bealdor

[Q3ark]

19 minutes ago, Bealdor said:

 

You still haven't answered the most important question.

Are you saluting through the radio/comms menu or via the catapult salute hotkey that can be bound in the controls options?

For the F-14 only the hotkey will work but NOT the comms menu option. Which means you'll have to bind the command to your joystick or keyboard first.

For the F/A-18 BOTH methods are working.

 

Edit:

Are you saluting this way?

 

Or that way?

 

This is the way

[Goetsch]

41 minutes ago, Bealdor said:

 

您還沒有回答最重要的問題。

您是透過無線電/通訊選單還是透過可在控制選項中綁定的彈射致敬熱鍵來致敬？

對於 F-14，只有熱鍵可用，而通訊選單選項不可用。這意味著您必須先將命令綁定到操縱桿或鍵盤。

對於 F/A-18 來說，這兩種方法都有效。

 

編輯：

你這樣敬禮嗎？

 

還是那樣？

 

Gosh, I'll try “LShift U” tonight.

I think that's why, I remembered that I set this button years ago for the F18 but not for the F14, so my “\” salute is not valid!

 

[Slant]

Taxiing with the Tomcat using the flight directors works fine if you use the salute keybind.

Only issues I've noticed is that flight directors seem to have problems with the dimensions of the Tomcat. Cat 1 specifically has a hard time lining me up properly, so I have to suffer through "that bump" to get aligned with the cat. But it's not a big deal.

[Dragon1-1]

Worth noting, IRL you don't need a perfect alignment. DCS uses a magic bump, but IRL, as long as your nose gear lines up with the shuttle (so that it can be hooked up) and the aircraft isn't horribly askew, the shuttle will straighten it out as it goes along the track during the launch.

OT, as mentioned the Tomcat needs to salute by keybind, and also remember that you need the plane captain to give you a signal to start the engines, and only then you can report ready to taxi.