Cannot get landings at all

@lc34 ...good to see you are moving along the road of on speed. I had the same problems and the on speed stuff made me able to land the F-5 :)

The carrier stuff is all this, just at a faster pace. But know you know what to practice and that is key :)

Here's the thing, Speed isn't important. The 1G stall speed of the jet changes a lot with weight, but what doesn't change is the AOA at which that stall happens. A stall can only happen if the wing goes beyond its critical AOA, REGARDLESS OF SPEED.

 

So that's one variable taken care of, you don't need to care about speed.

 

Second Variable is AOA.. You trim the AOA to onspeed and then essentially forget about it, the jet takes care of that itself. So the jet cannot stall because the aircraft is maintaining an AOA below the wings critical (Stall) AoA, as long as you remember not to pitch the aircraft using the stick.

 

We now find ourself in a situation where speed takes care of itself because its byproduct of AoA and Weight, and AoA takes care of itself because you've trimmed the aircraft to hold the ideal landing AoA, so now as the pilot you're only left with one variable to manage which is your descent rate. This is controlled by power and is displayed to the pilot by the velocity vector on the HUD.. Essentially once you're configured and trimmed Onspeed the only thing you need to care about is where the VV is saying you will impact the ground. Put the VV on the end of the runway, and keep it there using changes in power only.. SIMPLES.

 

This!

Once I figured this out, landings became "easy".

"Easy" because flying the pattern correctly still takes a lot of work, but knowing that all you really need to worry about is power for descent rate makes things MUCH easier.

Also, I read somewhere to hold off dropping flaps until you hit 190 knots. This has made my pattern much smoother.

Full disclosure: I have probably spent upwards of 20 hours just doing airfield landings in the hornet ... now that they are acceptable I'm starting on the carrier and its a whole new ballgame lol.

Its taken me a while but just starting to get the hang of the E-Bracket stuff, i get the idea but also struggle to get it stabilised. -not using the stick to pitch just feels weird to me at the moment, I'm only practicing carrier landings rather than airfields tho so I think its taking me longer.

Sorry guys I was wondering if I posted a .miz file if someone would give me some pointers on what Im doing wrong.

 

Ive watched as many videos as I can find, Ive RTFM, and done the training missions over and over and over again but I cant seem to landing right or even consistently bad, its always totally different for me. And this is landing on both land and CVNs.

 

My main problem is always bouncing up and down with the trim, I cant seem to get it anywhere near where it needs to be even with a straight in approach to a huge airfield. If I post a file with my controls showing, would anyone care to make observations to help me figure this out?

 

My throttle management seems to be getting better, I can keep the E bracket somewhat in the same place but like everyone when I drop flaps I lose my trim and after I level out for final I jump up 100 feet again. Believe it or not Im having somewhat better luck landing on the carrier but boy is it the ugliest landing the Navy has ever seen. :music_whistling:

I can only speak for myself but I just FTFP (fly the "fantastic" plane). forget about all your settings.

Gear down

Maintain a constant approach speed

Fly the plane in and forget about the E bracket. Use thrust to stay on glide slope and fly the plane. Fly the plane. :joystick:

If you concern yourself with numbers and trim settings when you're already a little burnt out you will not learn anything because you're already psyched out. It's a lot like Golf.

There is a time and place for trim settings, number crunching and "proper procedure". Now is not it. All you want to do is nail your landings and there is no better way to do it than by just having fun and seeing what you and the jet can do. Beer or wine help ;)

Also, you're a little spoiled with the hornet. The F-15 is super delicate and it won't accept anything less than a pristine landing along with a few other jets. With the Hornet, you can slam that sucker onto any deck and you won't have an issue.

I can only speak for myself but I just FTFP (fly the "fantastic" plane). forget about all your settings.

 

Gear down

Maintain a constant approach speed

Fly the plane in and forget about the E bracket. Use thrust to stay on glide slope and fly the plane. Fly the plane. :joystick:

 

If you concern yourself with numbers and trim settings when you're already a little burnt out you will not learn anything because you're already psyched out. It's a lot like Golf.

 

There is a time and place for trim settings, number crunching and "proper procedure". Now is not it. All you want to do is nail your landings and there is no better way to do it than by just having fun and seeing what you and the jet can do. Beer or wine help ;)

 

Also, you're a little spoiled with the hornet. The F-15 is super delicate and it won't accept anything less than a pristine landing along with a few other jets. With the Hornet, you can slam that sucker onto any deck and you won't have an issue.

Excellent advice on how to have a hard time landing the Hornet. If you learn to fly it properly its about the easiest thing to land in the sim. There is a reason they spent many billions of dollars developing the real aircraft to fly in a certain way, its to reduce pilot workload and increase safety. If you fly it differently then you just end up fighting the aircraft and its FCS system. The E-bracket and the FCS AoA holding system is there to make your life easier. Learn how to use it.

Its taken me a while but just starting to get the hang of the E-Bracket stuff, i get the idea but also struggle to get it stabilised. -not using the stick to pitch just feels weird to me at the moment, I'm only practicing carrier landings rather than airfields tho so I think its taking me longer.

I'd really recommend starting at a land base. The whole aspect of having a bigger area to land which also isn't moving makes it many times easier. Figuring out the Hornet and landing it on a Carrier are two separate challenges and its much easier to nail the second one if you have the first one practiced to where you no longer need to think about it. Just IMHO though.

Excellent advice on how to have a hard time landing the Hornet. If you learn to fly it properly its about the easiest thing to land in the sim. There is a reason they spent many billions of dollars developing the real aircraft to fly in a certain way, its to reduce pilot workload and increase safety. If you fly it differently then you just end up fighting the aircraft and its FCS system. The E-bracket and the FCS AoA holding system is there to make your life easier. Learn how to use it.

That's why I said it works FOR *ME*. I've never had to fight the aircraft..... I just fly it in and land.. If I crash I do it differently. That's the beauty of this game. I could care less how many times I crash and for me, it's more rewarding to learn slowly than to try to perform a task while all these numbers and figures and rules are being process in my head and I'd argue this is why the OP was having such a hard time. If if doesn't work for him, he can try something else. It works for me. FTFP and have fun. Get into the nitty gritty of it later.

Chuck Yeager was the most unconventional pilot of his time. Are you gonna say he was a shitty pilot just because he didn't follow proper procedure?

Don't know how I will get trim set up so fast for carrier turns. How does everyone else trim it so fast?

about 20 clicks on the trim hat gets it really close for me every time. i just count them out. Might have to add on or two more to get it perfect.

I'd really recommend starting at a land base

Yes!!! Nail your ground landings first and then try it on a carrier. Once you start practicing your carrier landings forget about all the rules and just try to land the plane. Once you're solid with that move to Case 1 patterns.

Are you gonna say he was a shitty pilot just because he didn't follow proper procedure?

Yes!!! Nail your ground landings first and then try it on a carrier. Once you start practicing your carrier landings forget about all the rules and just try to land the plane. Once you're solid with that move to Case 1 patterns.

I'm guessing he knew how to follow the procedures before he diverged from them.

It's generally better in the long run to learn the correct procedure and work on your technique than try to come up with a technique that works for the wrong procedure.

Inconsistent trim response

For me the trim and landing system seems to work inconsistently:

Sometimes it is like a dream - wheels and flaps and it keeps stable then trim to the middle of the E and float down using only the throttle to control my touchdown point.

And then, perhaps half the time, it's a nightmare. Wheels and flaps at 250 and 180 - and then it bucks up chasing the E and losing all speed. When I control the buck up with pitch it works but then doesn't seem to trim up - almost like my button doesn't work. In these situations the E and the glide marker are totally unconnected - swerving past one another only as the airspeed changes. My throttle control is OK but not great: I get leading - moving the throttle early and giving the engines time to react.

I just can't make out what makes the difference - some landings are a dream and some are a nightmare and there seems to be no difference in the aircraft setup or my approach.

So I guess I have a few questions:

Why does it work sometimes, and sometimes not?

What causes that initial buck-up?

Why does the trim fail to respond on occasions?

I just can't make out what makes the difference - some landings are a dream and some are a nightmare and there seems to be no difference in the aircraft setup or my approach.

 

So I guess I have a few questions:

Why does it work sometimes, and sometimes not?

Because you're focusing on speeds. Forget about speeds, only thing you need to care about when you lower the gear and flaps is AoA.

What causes that initial buck-up?

The fact that you deploy your flaps. Flaps change the shape of your wing and therefore relation between your airspeed, pitch angle and AoA. With flaps on AUTO, your AoA for level flight at 250kts will be about 4 units (depending on your weight). With flaps full down, your AoA for level flight at 250kts would be close to 0. FCS, when you deploy your gear and flaps aims to maintain constant AoA, which is 4 units. But your effective AoA now is 0 so the FCS will command pitch up movements to increase back to 4 units. That's your buck-up.

Why does the trim fail to respond on occasions?

Because when you use your trim with gear and flaps down you're not controlling directly pitch attitude (actually, you don't even with flaps on AUTO) but rather commanded AoA. What you effectively tell the FCS when you trim up is not "pitch up" but "more AoA". But what you're doing with your stick is pitching down which decreases your AoA (that's why it seems that it doesn't work). What you need to do is to wait for your airspeed to deteriorate further. As you fly slower, your required AoA for that particular attitude will increase and at some point it will match up with what you trimmed for.

Because you're focusing on speeds. Forget about speeds, only thing you need to care about when you lower the gear and flaps is AoA.

This isn't completely true. The AOA indexer lights tell you that your are either too fast or too slow to maintain correct angle of attack at landing speed. If you drop your flaps and the plane rockets into the air, it's because you are too fast. The way I like to think about it is, don't fly to place the FPM on the E bracket, but instead fly to place the E bracket on the FPM. If you are flying gear out, flaps down with the E bracket above the horizon, and you are constantly pushing the stick forward to keep the FPM on the horizon, the AOA indexer displays will tell you that you are fast. If you take the throttle back and use the speed break as necessary to slow the aircraft down, slowly release forward stick pressure, and then start to slowly apply back stick pressure to keep the FPM from dropping, the E bracket will drop down to meet the horizon. Trim out the back stick pressure, and feed the throttle back up to stabilize pitch. From this point you should not make any pitch changes with the stick, only power adjustments with the throttle. Once you are established in this mode of flight, then you can forget about your speed and pay attention to your throttle instead.

Lol thanks guys. All this is really helpful. Honestly I think my biggest mistakes happened in the turns as I was still pitching the plane when it would go nose down. As I understand it now I need to be applying more throttle a bit before the turn to 90 to prevent that.

 

Also DONT TOUCH THE PITCH!!! :) That's going to be the hardest thing for me to forget as it (to me) feels so unnatural. I'll keep at it with these tips and videos. I'll get it soon and I know I'll laugh at this in time but yes there is much cursing lately in my household. But I am flying a Navy jet so, theres that.

First thing they teach you when you learn to fly in GA is that with landings, pitch controls airspeed, power controls descent rate.

It’s really no different in the hornet, except you have the nice e bracket giving you the perfect AOA target.

You don’t use pitch to control descent rate in any aircraft I have flown in real life. The only time I have heard this being done is in precision approaches where very small changes in descent rate can be managed with stick / yoke input and an appropriate change in power to compensate.

Of course, I only fly Cessna 152 and 172 so ymmv.

But really, anyone coming from a flying background should have no issue with the concept of the hornet landing approaches.

It’s cerainly not a navy specific thing and is a technique used everyday in flying schools around the world.

I am still doing straight-in approaches to runways and to carrier. For carrier I use the Quick Action Case 1. I immediately yank throttle to idle, yank back on the stick to get the VV well above the horizon and then work on setting up the ICLS on the display/hud. At that point the plane is usually under 250 so I drop gear, speed drops, I do some pitch up trim, and I do 1/2 flaps at 200, little more trim up, full flaps at 180, more trim up. Start to think about bringing up throttle that will need to be up by 145, and more trim up to get the VV in the E bracket. If I do flaps too early and plane heads up, I use forward stick. AOA is important but 4-5 miles from the boat, I will use stick to help get closer to the glide slope. It's just easier than using throttle.

This thread has been very useful, also Les's videos. Being an RL pilot I understand the power and AOA. What I notice the pitch up when adding flaps which normal so my response is to trim down. I think it was set in a post a few back, the rim switch sets the AOA not pitch angle. But I see something I don't understand, I set the trim value to something on the FCS page lets say 8 and then I see the FCS change it again. So should I just wait and let it settle? The problem is that the nose pitches up so much that the loss of airspeed makes me lose a lot of altitude.

I picked up a lots of good tips here that I will start practicing shortly

First thing they teach you when you learn to fly in GA is that with landings, pitch controls airspeed, power controls descent rate.

I wasn't, and I'm glad because I think it's an oversimplification; it's also not a technique that works well with all aircraft from what I can tell. Invaluable in the Hornet of course though :thumbup:

I set the trim value to something on the FCS page lets say 8 and then I see the FCS change it again.

The FCS page shows control surface position, so it will change when you move the stick/pedals. I wouldn't use it to judge trim in flight.

I wasn't, and I'm glad because I think it's an oversimplification; it's also not a technique that works well with all aircraft from what I can tell. Invaluable in the Hornet of course though :thumbup:

 

 

 

The FCS page shows control surface position, so it will change when you move the stick/pedals. I wouldn't use it to judge trim in flight.

It may well be an oversimplification and as I said, my experience is all small single engine stuff, but the technique of power for descent control should not be alien to anyone. I’m shocked that there seems to be genuine amazement and it’s some sort of weird thing only the Navy teaches.

I wasn't, and I'm glad because I think it's an oversimplification; it's also not a technique that works well with all aircraft from what I can tell. Invaluable in the Hornet of course though :thumbup:

 

 

 

The FCS page shows control surface position, so it will change when you move the stick/pedals. I wouldn't use it to judge trim in flight.

Regarding the use of power that you reference is how it works in real life.

And regarding the FCS page that is good advise and and explanation

It may well be an oversimplification and as I said, my experience is all small single engine stuff, but the technique of power for descent control should not be alien to anyone. I’m shocked that there seems to be genuine amazement and it’s some sort of weird thing only the Navy teaches.

I just found this viewpoint when searching on this topic:

Learn to do two things at once and stop this argument.

Made me laugh :)

I'm not saying it's not a valid technique, just that how successful it is is going to vary with the aircraft, going from great for SEP and Naval aircraft, to hopeless for a 747 :D

I'm not saying it's not a valid technique, just that how successful it is is going to vary with the aircraft, going from great for SEP and Naval aircraft, to hopeless for a 747 :D

pfffft. 747's can't carry AMRAAMs, so they don't count. ;)

This isn't completely true. The AOA indexer lights tell you that your are either too fast or too slow to maintain correct angle of attack at landing speed. If you drop your flaps and the plane rockets into the air, it's because you are too fast. The way I like to think about it is, don't fly to place the FPM on the E bracket, but instead fly to place the E bracket on the FPM. If you are flying gear out, flaps down with the E bracket above the horizon, and you are constantly pushing the stick forward to keep the FPM on the horizon, the AOA indexer displays will tell you that you are fast. If you take the throttle back and use the speed break as necessary to slow the aircraft down, slowly release forward stick pressure, and then start to slowly apply back stick pressure to keep the FPM from dropping, the E bracket will drop down to meet the horizon. Trim out the back stick pressure, and feed the throttle back up to stabilize pitch. From this point you should not make any pitch changes with the stick, only power adjustments with the throttle. Once you are established in this mode of flight, then you can forget about your speed and pay attention to your throttle instead.

Thanks Sargeant - That was the key bit of advice: Don't fly the FPM into the E, fly the E onto the FPM. I was chasing the E which meant the plane was all over the sky. Instead I need to concentrate on flying and configuring the plane so that the E is over where I want to go.

Thanks Sargeant - That was the key bit of advice: Don't fly the FPM into the E, fly the E onto the FPM. I was chasing the E which meant the plane was all over the sky. Instead I need to concentrate on flying and configuring the plane so that the E is over where I want to go.

Yes that helped me too, I would apply stick pressure and I wait until my speed gets to about 140 knts before I start trimming.

Who trims? Just give the stick pressure and hold the bracket.