turn into final - tips?

Hey, I've been practicing carrier landings for a while now, and I can land it, or should I call it bring the hornet to a stop on the deck, but doing it properly and following the pattern is another thing.

I already improved a bit from how I used to land in fsx, but still far from perfect.

I can trim to on speed and keep my altitude no problem, even control my rate of descent with the throttle, maybe I just need a little more practice on that, but no biggie.

my issue is with the turns. turning into downwind after the break there's a lot going on, so it's a little overwhelming. I have to reach for the landing gear and flaps all while trying to maintain the 1% G and still keeping an eye on my vertical speed and horizon line so I don't lose altitude, and of course another eye on my heading so I don't miss the reciprocal heading, and also constantly control throttle so I don't stall near the end of the turn and lose a lot of altitude, which has happened quite often. but ok, I know what I have to do, guess I just need to practice as well

but my main problem is turning into final. I've seen many vids, including those form lex which helped a lot, and I do what he says, increasing power before starting the turn, and decreasing before leveling out, but it's nearly impossible for me to do this while keeping the correct descent rate and 30º bank, and end up the turn aligned and on the correct altitude. when I'm on the turn and the vertical speed starts getting too high (losing altitude too fast), I increase power, but it's harder to control the descent rate with the throttle when you are rolling at 30º, and this will cause my bank angle to change, so I have to correct my roll on the stick, and most often I will overcorrect (because the stick spring seems too strong to do smooth movements, it wants too hard to stay centered) eventually I end up adding too much power to not lose too much altitude, that I end up going higher than 200kts and my turn gets too wide, and when I try to level out my nose will pitch up too much, even though I cut my power to idle prior to leveling.

so I almost always end up on final way beyond the runway center line, wrong altitude and wrong speed, and so I have to ignore my aoa trim and start correcting pitch with the stick like crazy in order to land the plane, which sometimes leads to a bolter due to hook skipping, or less often, leads me to crash onto the back of the boat. I most often manage to catch a wire, but it's really ugly and would probably get me demoted back to cleaning toilets. :doh:

so any tips for these turns?

Post a track file so we can see what's going on.

Based on what you're describing, my advice is to keep practicing and keep messing up. I know that's an overly simplified answer, and probably a frustrating one as well, but I had to keep making multiple passes, and I had to fail multiple times, before I was able to trap consistently. Then, it took even more practice before I was able to line up properly in the groove and then make an OK pass.

As you keep practicing, try breaking it down and going back to the basics starting at the break. Once you nail that down comfortably, proceed to trimming for onspeed AOA in the downwind, leveling out and maintaining 600ft msl. I think a lot of your problems could be solved simply by getting more comfortable flying the Hornet after you dirty up. Once you're comfortable there, then you can practice your final turn into the groove.

I may have an easier time with my passes, but I have my fair share of bolters and crap passes that probably would make an LSO want to quit and dive overboard. Just keep at it and have fun! :)

I'm looking to get a new stick soon and if I get the warthog I would get an extension at the same time so it's not so stiff, the extension gives you more leverage. I think around 150cm would be a good balance for the hornet, choppers and ww2.

If your not hitting the gates (Think of them like goals to hit) as you come around into the groove then wave yourself off, like it's done in real life. The whole point of this is to come into the lineup (Groove) at the correct height and on speed ready to come down the glide slope.

Also, make sure your not trying to hold a perfect throttle position when coming around into the groove, It sounds like your over compensating the throttle and ending up going from 0 to 100%. If you watch any videos you can see the pilots working the throttle around 50 to 90%.

In Lex's video you can see him trying to hold a rough 500 feet per minute decent when turning in from downwind using the throttle. Readjust this descent and turn in at the 90 degree if needed.

Try case 1 with ICLS setup so you can see if your coming into the groove at the correct height.

As is implied in your own post, the crucial element of base turn merging into the groove is speed, thus is your throttle hand, thus is how quick and precise your throttle hand is in executing the planned flight path.

Managing and anticipating the speed is by rather fast jerking the throttles, by relative Big initial movement of correcting up or down, but then watching very carefully (together with all the other stuff) when your speed reaches the planned anticipated speed and then slowly 'rolling' into your planned speed, thus your throttle hand slowing down, you're now 'oscillating' your throttle hand around the 'on speed' which you're now - also - 'determinating' for the exact number, and in the back of your mind the consideration of the spooling up and spooling down of your massive engine.

The 'window' of 'on speed' is but a couple of knots, spool under and you drop like a brick, spool over and you'll do 160 kts all of a sudden (or worse I can remember when starting to train, mind you the final turn in might be a 'high' of 170-180kts or more when heavy, depending on correcting your altitude when catching the ICLS groove), where you'll simply blow yourself off away from the deck.

(Of the cuff, if (ideal) 'on speed' settled and descending in the groove would be for instance ~134kts in a given fuel load, configuration load, temp etc and which final number you determine because of the movements of your aircraft, 128ktn drops you like a brick and passing 138ktn blows you out of the groove, which makes your speed 'correction window' about from 131-137kts you'll have to stay in when maneuvering yourself onto the deck, whilst, while you're at it, meanwhile also determining that precise 'on speed' number of the day going down, which is quite the handy number for a smooth trapping)

So, whilst keeping your eyes on the VV, or rather watching through the VV and steering your plane to the upper right quadrant of the landing deck (this is with ICLS ON and flying VR, it's very hard to see the ball, but do not follow the needles if your ship is bouncing, you fly in-between-the-bouncing-needles),

you continually keep an(other) eye on the speedbox and in particular the 'rate-of-change' in the speedbox, where, because of the anticipation aspect, the 'rate-of-change-of-the-speed' in the speedbox, within the 'on speed margin' that is, is more important than 'the-speed-of-the-moment' shown.

And indeed, you train yourself to get used to the massive amount of information you have to process when you're passing 90 in the base leg,

and then you catch wire #3.

2 cts

... so any tips for these turns?

Practice, using Jabber's Case I Carrier Recovery Tutorial as a guide

with Bankler's CASE 1 Recovery Training mission

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3641751&postcount=1

and perhaps using this RL case 1 landing for cadence/rhythm

https://youtu.be/TIVy1c3mCek?t=753

priceless feedback, thanks guys, I'll keep practicing and bear in mind everything that's been said.

when I'm more comfortable I'll post a track and maybe a vid.

cheers

You might want to check these great videos from a former Hornet driver:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPqnAPcQSxyCqJ0CZu9qMmg/videos

I had a problem with turning into the groove where I would consistently exit the crosswind turn far wide if I kept my AOB at 30*. I learned that not controlling my decent rate had a trickle down effect which caused me to be fast in the turn which caused me to overshoot. When I controlled my descent rate to -100-400fpm, locked my AOB to 30* til the 90 and then make small adjustments I was able to roll out in the groove each time. Also turning on ICLS helps too.

Catch us on discord/join our social group, be happy to help ya out personally ..

https://forums.eagle.ru/group.php?groupid=217

wilco!