My tests and findings practicing carrier approaches with the new stall behavior

[GTFreeFlyer]

The plane flies mostly the same and handles the same for landing, but now requires 15 degrees trim for landing (was previously 10 deg).  At 15 deg trim, wheels and flaps down, your plane will fly at 90 knots straight and level and I'm able to do the whole turn to final at 90 knots with the plane under control.  There is almost no more room to pull the elevator back.  Those of you without FFB may not know this because your stick will always have full travel from center to fully back, but the module won't give that to you.  With my Moza stick, when I trim 15 degrees, the stick moves back quite significantly and I only have about another 1/4 inch of elevator throw to the back to play with, so the plane is very near its elevator throw limits with 15 degrees of trim required for 90 knots.  It was difficult for me to catch a wire when approaching faster than 90 knots.

Remember, you need to try and not use much elevator once you are trimmed out.  Use throttle in slow & smooth movements to adjust your descent/climb rate to stay on glide path, not elevator.  Leave the elevator alone, like seriously you can unbind pitch axis if you are brave enough, as you would still be able to land the plane. (I haven't actually tried unbinding the pitch axis, but now I just put that idea into my head and might do it)

Once I cut engine and trapped, I had no elevator remaining to pull the nose up.  I had to fly the plane into the deck at 90 knots with that 15 deg trim setting.  Any faster, and I would just pass over the wires.

I tested at full fuel and 40% fuel.  I had a lot of issues and wasted a few planes landing at 90 knots with full fuel, but managed to trap it a few times.  When I switched to 40% fuel, it handled MUCH better.

Also, for those that say you can no longer get 15 degrees of trim after the new update, and that trim is reversed, there's a discussion about that in the bug forum.  I found that there is no issue with it if you change to keyboard bindings for the trim. I had to move the bindings from my hat switch to the keyboard and everything works as it should. Please don't turn this thread into a discussion about this issue as we have that already in the bug section.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.  Cheers all. 

P.S. I attached tracks of some of my tests for you to see.  I had not done carrier landings in about a month so I was a little rusty on the first few.  The last one was my best.

01 Corsair slow flight test and then carrier approach at 95 kts missed wire, full fuel.trk 02 Corsair pattern and trap, no stick travel left for flare, full fuel.trk 03 Better Corsair pattern and trap, 13 deg trim, no stick travel left for flare, full fuel.trk 04 Better Corsair pattern, waveoff, trap, 15 deg trim, no stick travel left for flare, full fuel.trk 05 Best Corsair pattern, trap, 15 deg trim, no stick travel left for flare, 40 percent fuel.trk

[Stevecat]

we are all finding this out at the same time.  good idea on the adjusting the fuel load.  I had the opposite problem with speed though: at 100 knots right off the stern, if I got any slower I would roll right and left if got closer to 90 and sliced it down on the deck.  I could not get a level touch down under 100.  That never happened before.  Edited Update:  After a few acceptable landings it appears that if you keep the flaps in the 10 degree setting you get alot more control from 100knots heading down to 90. With a full fuel load.  Just have to slow down alot sooner on final.  It's different, thats for sure....but it can be done and repeatedly the same way.  Also Update for take offs: setting the vert trim to 1 notch "nose down" seems to make take offs a little better.

Edited Sunday at 11:37 PM by Stevecat

[GTFreeFlyer]

58 minutes ago, Stevecat said:

we are all finding this out at the same time.  good idea on the adjusting the fuel load.  I had the opposite problem with speed though: at 100 knots right off the stern, if I got any slower I would roll right and left if got closer to 90 and sliced it down on the deck.  I could not get a level touch down under 100.  That never happened before.  Edited Update:  After a few acceptable landings it appears that if you keep the flaps in the 10 degree setting you get alot more control from 100knots heading down to 90. With a full fuel load.  Just have to slow down alot sooner on final.  It's different, thats for sure....but it can be done and repeatedly the same way.  Also Update for take offs: setting the vert trim to 1 notch "nose down" seems to make take offs a little better.

Strange about your low speeds.  I just did more laps and traps and was never able to catch a wire setting it down above 90 knots.  I had to be at 90 or lower.  I am not getting any issues with the wing dropping out on me when that slow.  I'm usually at 90 kts on the downwind, and I do the whole turn to final at 90 as well.  Sometimes I get it down to 85 or a little less before touchdown, but it does get squirrely at that point. 

My suggestions is to air start at (or fly up to) 5,000 feet, and get slow and configure for landing.  Trim it back to 15 degrees of elevator and see if you can just fly around hands off.  Only make small movements with the throttle to maintain altitude.  Use the elevator trim to set your airspeed (should be right around 15 degrees).  Once it is stable at 90 knots, then play with the throttle to lock yourself into a 500 fpm descent, then level out, then 500 fpm climb.  Get the hang of this.  Next, try small turns to the left and right, all while staying at 90 knots, and trying not to lose any altitude (give it a little throttle in the turn to prevent altitude loss).  It's a great exercise that will take only a few minutes and you'll get the hang of any plane with these slow flight exercises.

[GregP]

I haven't had a chance to try the update yet, but I'm a bit surprised that it has apparently affected the FM so much; the only relevant changelog item I see is related to prop slipstream effects, which I would've thought would primarily impact yaw stability, not approach numbers.  Seems odd, doesn't it? 

@Stevecat It wasn't clear to me whether you kept that 10° flap setting right through to landing, or dropped it to 50 after reaching 90 kn? I'm guessing the latter, as the former is so different from what is generally recommended that it would surely cause all kinds of other issues.