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Landing help


galen104

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The F/A-18C is my first module, and in general my first experience with a simulator.

I'm practicing with landing training and I have a question.

When I put down the landing gear and set the flaps to full the F/A-18C climb a lot and I find difficult to control it and stay at a specific altitude.

I do not use pitch, only pitch trim and throttle, but despite the command order, it's very slow to "stabilize" and I gain altitude. What I'm doing wrong?

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most people will tell you to trim downwards. i honestly never trim and just push the stick the right amount. but generally speaking if you stay in the 0-5 degree AOA you will make it. i have always pointed my AOA at the end of the runway and keep it at the right speed. the f18 is controlled crash too because of carrier so it is forgiving on hard landings. remember a good landing is one you walk away from.

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a couple of things to try, others are more expert than me, I lower my gear at 250, I lower my flaps at 220.. and I apply nose down pressure on the stick to try and avoid the porpoise motion that happens...

 

HTH

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I do not use pitch, only pitch trim and throttle,

That technique applies for after you've already configured the airplane for landing. Use the stick during flap and gear extension, and during deceleration to approach speed. I also wait on the flap extension as the aircraft slows... helps with the ballooning.

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Flaps and gear at 250, don't be afraid to use the stick to maintain control. Remember it's you who is flying the plane, not the plane that is flying you; if it starts doing something you don't want then use your controls to stop it doing that.

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you are going entirely too fast to be dumping in flaps. 160-170 and the aircraft will stabilize on its own. Flaps are designed to give the aircraft lift at low speeds, so by adding them at a high speed it really amplifies the effect. You are welcome to come fly with me any time and I'll be glad to teach you the basics. Good luck either way

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Out of interest, are you breaking after 1nm or 2nm?

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a couple of things to try, others are more expert than me, I lower my gear at 250, I lower my flaps at 220.. and I apply nose down pressure on the stick to try and avoid the porpoise motion that happens...

 

HTH

 

 

Airbrake, keep the nose level to 180 and pop the gear and flaps. I've gotten reasonably good at catching the descent, but no, or very little, pop up attitude.

 

 

Mind you, 180 works for a VERY light aircraft (about a mile and a half from turning onto final working on CV landings...heavier aircraft, higher speed, I suspect.

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The F/A-18C is my first module, and in general my first experience with a simulator.

I'm practicing with landing training and I have a question.

When I put down the landing gear and set the flaps to full the F/A-18C climb a lot and I find difficult to control it and stay at a specific altitude.

I do not use pitch, only pitch trim and throttle, but despite the command order, it's very slow to "stabilize" and I gain altitude. What I'm doing wrong?

 

If you're gaining altitude you're probably going to fast. Bring up the checklist on the DDI (it appears in the top right, if not hit the menu button again and you'll see it). Check your weight which is shown about halfway down the checklist. You AC weight will determine your approach speed. The lighter you are the lower your speed. You should be below 34,000lbs to trap. If you are trimmed properly and have the correct speed the Hornet pretty much stays on AOA with constant minor throttle movement. You can literally take your hand off the stick and throttle fly.

 

I'm not sure what weight your at but I'll assume 34,000lbs or slightly below. Get your speed down to around 145 or so and trim the jet to keep the E bracket centered and increase or decrease your speed about 5kts at a time until the aircraft stabilizes. Never stop moving the throttle back and forth; small movements. Once you hit the correct speed the AOA will be steady and the aircraft very stable and easy to fly. You should be able to bank the jet, take your hand off the stick and it will turn very smoothly to line up on the carrier (assuming you're flying the correct CASE 1 pattern)


Edited by BoneDust
 
 

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Thanks to all, I have followed your advices. The main problem was that I was too fast.

 

Out of interest, are you breaking after 1nm or 2nm?

I'm trying with 1nm.

 

I have another questions.

1)

As you have already recommended, I should never stop moving the throttle back and forth with small movements. But how small should be the small movements? Few RPM? Sometime to stabilize (and keep the fly path) I need to do something that I would call medium movements (I can clearly hear the different engine sound), and progressively reduce to small movements. It is normal or I'm doing wrong?

 

2)

It's not specific to landing, but about turning about a correct angle. The most difficult part of the shore VFR landing (for me) is the final approach. I do a 30-degree bank while maintaining the Velocity Vector and the E bracket just below the horizon line, but normally I'm not aligned to the runway. The problem is that I do not bank at the correct angle throughout the turn. I just need practice. About this, can you advice me how to practice about a correct turn at a constant angle? With a free fly I do not have references to understand how good or bad I was (or maybe I just do know where to look).

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Correct procedure is to extend gear and full flaps at 250kts.

 

1. Different people use different throttle techniques. More movement, less movement, "walking throttles"... you will find your own method.

 

2. In visual traffic pattern you adjust bank angle by watching runway. There's no one single bank angle value that will give you ideal lineup in final. So, the scan pattern is: check runway > check AoA > adjust bank angle > repeat

 

 

You can see here scan pattern - he moves his head every few seconds to estimate relative position then turns to HUD to observe parameters.


Edited by =4c=Nikola

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What works for me re: throttle corrections is to make a correction , say forward , then back about 1/2 of the previous forward , and vice-versa . As said , continuous movements until over the roundown or threshold .

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most people will tell you to trim downwards. i honestly never trim and just push the stick the right amount. but generally speaking if you stay in the 0-5 degree AOA you will make it. i have always pointed my AOA at the end of the runway and keep it at the right speed. the f18 is controlled crash too because of carrier so it is forgiving on hard landings. remember a good landing is one you walk away from.

 

 

That's a pretty solid summary on how not to do things. You'll be fighting the FCS the whole way, and I'm confident your landings look like controlled crashes.

 

 

 

The guy is asking for advice on how to do it properly, which is trimming and learning to work the throttle to control you glideslope. Walking the throttles instead of making huge input changes will help keep the AoA under control.

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If I fly the needles I am consistently a little low...

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To OP. A little more explanation might help you.

 

The F/A-18 uses a Fly by wire or FCS (Flight control systems) that switches its behavior when you configure the plane from TO/LD config to normal flight and back. In the TO/Landing config with gear and flaps down the plane tries to maintain a certain AoA and wants to fly “onspeed” for that. What usually happens when you come back from a mission, enter the pattern and throw out gear and flaps is that you get a pitch up moment during deaccelaration as the FCS switches to onspeed AoA mode and tries to control the plane to that AoA, but your speed is still above the proper AoA speed and so plane pitches up.

 

 

How to avoid that. Keep the flight director on the horizon line with stick inputs till the speed bleeds away. But be aware that with deacceleration the pitch up quickly turns to a pitch down and so you might get behind the power curve. Additionally the FCS doesnt automatically trim the plane for the desired AoA in the E-Bracket. This means while deaccelation takes place, you need to add power - more than you first think - to avoid the plane pitching down. Once you are roughly established in a balance, trim pitch up and reduce/add throttle as necessary to keep the flight director in the E-bracket.

Practise this first in straight and level flight until you are good at maintaining alt and onspeed AoA. Keep in mind that due to the AoA onspeed your main control for climb/sink is throttle NOT pitch.

Once you are good at straight and level add some turns. You will need to add power to maintain altitude, as once you bank you need more LIFT aka more speed at the desired AoA. As there is a slight delay, its best to add the power just before banking and reducing it just before roll out to avoid ballooning.

 

If you are comfortable in doing this in level flight, now practice to establish a balanced and controlled decent at say 3° downward slope.

In all that practice, do not look at the airspeed. This plane is flown with a certain AoA NOT a certain speed. You should focus on having the plane trimmed in the E bracked and control decent/climb by adding/decreasing power by just using the flight director and E-Bracket and its movement alone.

 

Here a few things you might find helpful from my experience:

 

 

- surprisingly i find it easier to establish correct AoA onspeed trim and speed in the level breakturn to final. I enter the break at 350-400 kts, go IDLE, pop the speed brake, pull enough Gs so plane deaccelerates rapidly. Once below 250 I go gear down and full flaps, which usually happens around the 90° point. I keep pulling hard, and while pulling I already trim for onspeed AoA. When I roll out I get the speed brake back in and add power and usually can avoid a big balloon or sink.

 

 

- as I am an old VFR jockey that IRL usually trims the plane just a tad nose heavy to have some back pressure when doing airwork and pattern stuff, I tried this for the F/A-18 also. When I do such an approach I will trim the plane so that on its own the flight director would just be inside the lower part of the E-Bracket and I have to maintain a slight pull on the stick to have it in the center of it. That way I can establish a sense when and how much power I need to add or reduce. But keep in mind, this is not a proper procedure for the F/A-18 actually. It’s a made up thing to create a feedback for me I am used to from my other flying stuff.

 

 

 

And just practise. Especially if this is your first sim, you need to train, train, train and yes train. Its a complex thing and when you start your training keep it simple to avoid overload and time pressure. As said. Start with just trying to maintain straight and level flight. Move on to turns at constant alt than decents. And do not try to press yourself into correct patterns early on. Thats an element you add once you are able to control your plane. If at first you need 2500ft AGL downwind and a 8 mile final, who cares. You can shrink that later on once all the coordination settles in. wink.gif

 

 

About this:

It's not specific to landing, but about turning about a correct angle. The most difficult part of the shore VFR landing (for me) is the final approach. I do a 30-degree bank while maintaining the Velocity Vector and the E bracket just below the horizon line, but normally I'm not aligned to the runway. The problem is that I do not bank at the correct angle throughout the turn. I just need practice. About this, can you advice me how to practice about a correct turn at a constant angle? With a free fly I do not have references to understand how good or bad I was (or maybe I just do know where to look).

 

 

When you fly a VFR aprroach keep your eyes outside the cockpit 90+% of the time. If you are in the breakturn, ajust you turn by looking at your reference - which is the runway - to not overshoot/undershoot. Maintaining a nice constant bank angle from turning into base to final is just a bonus. Do corrections by looking to your reference.

 

 

Not sure which timezone you in, but if you run stable client we can schedule you some basic pattern work training lessons with the F/A-18.


Edited by Agathos_Deimon
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After a little bit of practice, I find easier to put down the landing gear at 250, and full flaps when speed drop below 200. Works pretty well even half flaps at 200 and full flaps 180-170.

I don't know if one way is technically better than the other, but both works.

I can do the landing pattern of the training mission somehow, but I just need a lot of practice..

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After a little bit of practice, I find easier to put down the landing gear at 250, and full flaps when speed drop below 200. Works pretty well even half flaps at 200 and full flaps 180-170.

I don't know if one way is technically better than the other, but both works.

I can do the landing pattern of the training mission somehow, but I just need a lot of practice..

That's what I do except I don't bother w/ 1/2 flaps, I wait and drop full flaps at 170-180. That way I only need to adjust trim once.

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