Difficulty in carrier landing vs su33?

So a buddy of mine and I were doing carrier landings in the su33 and it... wasn't that difficult actually, I mean I am sure it is hard to perfect but neither of us crashed in our first attempts.... few bolters at most.

So I was curious, do you think landing the F18 will be easier with the better avionics or will it present a different type of challenge?

From what I can tell, it should be easier. All below IMHO of course.

- Hornet has FBW that helps stabilize approach

- Hornet has the magic FPW, common to most of the western jets that makes aiming much easier as well.

- Hornet is lighter -> less inertia easier to make corrections on approach.

After a few attempts in the Su-33 (with similar results to OPs) I'm not that worried about doing it in the Hornet. I've done a lot of landings in DCS, the runway being smaller and moving doesn't make it that much harder. What I'm struggling with a lot more is aerial refuelling. Haven't done a lot of those. So far I'm finding the Su-33 with its special autopilot mode pretty forgiving, compared to the Mirage... I wonder how terrible I'll be doing in the Hornet.

Try at night with high winds on a pitching deck.

Try at night with high winds on a pitching deck.

That video is awesome, lots of tension with them trying to get the planes down.

In case anyone hasn't seen it:

It shouldn't be that hard. The heavy-duty landing gear does make it easier. Your landing is sort of a controlled crash on a carrier. Try the same landing with an F-15 and you'll be a ball of fire.

It shouldn't be that hard. The heavy-duty landing gear does make it easier. Your landing is sort of a controlled crash on a carrier. Try the same landing with an F-15 and you'll be a ball of fire.

I've tried the F-15 with a carrier landing technique, and this quote isn't wrong. Ball of fire is a good way of putting what happened.

You also have to take into account that the Nimitz class carrier we will get is a lot bigger than the good ol' Kuznetsov which means larger landing area etc.

Another thing that I found really helps with the Su-33 is adding a 20% curve to the pitch and role axis, this helps with smaller control inputs on our less than perfect gaming controls and can also really help with air to air refueling

One thing that I trust we'll have for the Hornet that the Kuznetsov is missing right now, is a usable IFOLS. I hope that the Kuznetsov will have one implemented when ED comes out with their improved models of the two carriers. :thumbup:

Who claimed to be an expert?

I think the only real expert here is neofightr, surely he must have some anecdote to tell us.

it was a joke. I read somewhere in that carrier landings are pretty much like a divorce settlement. You either give it all or you dont.

I'm not afraid to land in horrible weather conditions at night on the pitching deck. However I'm scared of multiplayer carrier ops - how suppose ED manage this??? Servers will need to have both (pacific and atlantic) fleets of carriers in same place to handle the whole amount of Hornet players... :P

I'm not afraid to land in horrible weather conditions at night on the pitching deck. However I'm scared of multiplayer carrier ops - how suppose ED manage this??? Servers will need to have both (pacific and atlantic) fleets of carriers in same place to handle the whole amount of Hornet players... :P

Just shoot down anyone in the pattern, problem solved.

I'm definitely not an expert, and certainly no ace with only a civil Air Transport background (737/747/A320), But about 15 yrs ago I was lucky enough to get a tour around the MC training facilities at Miramar and got to have a go in one of the real F-18 sims for 15mins. (Fixed base in a hemispheric dome, and surprisingly a way more immersive sense of motion than the 'box on jacks' we use for airliners).

The FPV/FPW/Bird whatever you want to call it definitely makes it easier. Somehow I managed a successful trap on my first attempt although it was with no x-wind and a stable deck. That said, as realistic as you make it, the Sim is still the Sim, and it's easier sometimes than in real life without the consequences of screwing it up.

Just shoot down anyone in the pattern, problem solved.

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:problem solved, or better to say,completely erased

My dad has 400 carrier landings and he says that day traps in good weather are no problem and quite fun. Not true about bad weather, and especially at night. No one sat around the bar and suggested going out to get some extra night traps.

he has flown my sim (DCS and FSX Super Hornet w/ Nimitz and VLSO) and siad the sim is harder than real life because you have no seat-of-the pants feel. If you don't have a hyper sensitive HUD scan, you can lose 50 feet altitude in the pattern without even knowing it. That would greatly hamper a proper pass behind the boat when you are going from the 180 through the 90. You roll out behind the boat way below glideslope and your pass is toast.

But, in the sim, you can still recover and grab a wire and survive. But, you can't then say, wow, that wasn't that hard. Well, in real life, they wouldn't even have allowed you to continue the pass because of how unsafe it was.

So, if you are using VLSO in FSX, to fly a really good pass, where you are hitting all the windows and then fly a centered ball all the way down, making perfect centerline corrections, well, that is really, really hard.

Most guys will get aboard in DCS with the F-18 and think they are doing right but would have had their wings yanked in the Navy for being horribly unsafe.

Most guys will get aboard in DCS with the F-18 and think they are doing right but would have had their wings yanked in the Navy for being horribly unsafe.

Yupp. It would be great to have a greenie board in our logbook to stress us for perfect traps little more. ;)

I'm not afraid to land in horrible weather conditions at night on the pitching deck. However I'm scared of multiplayer carrier ops - how suppose ED manage this??? Servers will need to have both (pacific and atlantic) fleets of carriers in same place to handle the whole amount of Hornet players... :P

Easy, every time you spawn you'll also spawn yourself a new carrier and nobody else will see it so they can't land on it. You could even make it follow you. Would be interesting to see a Nimitz ran aground on top of the inguri dam operating as an airbase.:megalol:

But, in the sim, you can still recover and grab a wire and survive. But, you can't then say, wow, that wasn't that hard. Well, in real life, they wouldn't even have allowed you to continue the pass because of how unsafe it was.

 

So, if you are using VLSO in FSX, to fly a really good pass, where you are hitting all the windows and then fly a centered ball all the way down, making perfect centerline corrections, well, that is really, really hard.

 

Most guys will get aboard in DCS with the F-18 and think they are doing right but would have had their wings yanked in the Navy for being horribly unsafe.

Yes, exactly!

Getting aboard is one thing, but a virtual LSO would add another layer and require a lot more precision. Doing this on-speed without any significant line-up or glideslope corrections is a lot tougher.

When one of our Tomcat SMEs came by to test the Tomcat module for the first time (I'm a Heatblur Tomcat tester and the Pilot tested at my house :) ), I was amazed at how much better his passes look than mine (Tomcat is tough to land). However, this SME also was an LSO and his passes looked amazingly good to me, but he didn't think they'd pass muster.

On one trap everything looked perfect and I was commenting on how smooth it looked and his reply: "Well this was actually a taxi 1 wire, so it better be the only one of the cruise if I wanted to keep flying in real life..."

So it would probably be very different if there is virtual grading of the passes.

-Nick

Very true. One of the biggest differences between RW and sim flying is you don't have someone pointing out your mistakes.

So it would probably be very different if there is virtual grading of the passes.

Agree. Again - maybe we really should ask for "greenie board" to be added to the logbook in the wishlist thread?

Sry for x-post and not being serious, but that landing 'style' is too incredible to be missed:

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3270694&postcount=14491

:D

You got the 3 wire too, nice!