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Su-27 Slightly Outdated Manual?


JonasBacker

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Hello Gentlemen, I´ve just spent the last week trying to understand the Su-27, using the manual and training mostly. I've noticed that the manual displays different letters on the HUD from what i see ingame, i dont know if this is related to a choice you have (choose eng/rus letters/language) or if it´s just the manual (which i believe is still the beta manual?) that is a bit outdated. My main concern was that when switching the radar off to use the IRST tracking, the manual points to a letter "T" on the left side of the hud while ingame i find there to be the letters "EO" instead, and they are also in different locations on the screen. I think it means that i have activated my Electro-optical system, but would like to make sure, so that i dont radar lock a F-15C, whilst on my ninja adventures.

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The current manual probably uses most of the pictures from the previous version (pre-PFM).

There are some minor inconsistencies but if you use the right key, it triggers the right function.

 

I don't use the English HUD symbology but EO most certainly stand for EOS (Electro Optical System).

You can try the sensors training mission to make sure you have the right system activated. The warning lights panel differentiate an EOS passive lock from a Radar lock (two different lights).

 

The manual is not final ;)

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  • 1 year later...
Ah, I found it. It's in the Flaming Cliffs folder. But it's still lacking in the landing procedure department. There is no talk about the flare, when to deploy/release the drag chute...

 

Landing procedure:

 

Landing in the Su-27 requires a 3-degree glide slope, with 5 m/s vertical velocity sink rate. When you have the 'landing' navigation mode active, any airfield that has a Russian ILS system will display the director and offset circules on the HUD. Fly so that the smaller circle is lined up with the larger circle on the HUD.

 

The HUD will also display a desired IAS and altitude. Nearly always the desired IAS will be 240 Km/h and the desired altitude at the point at which you intercept the glide slope will be 1,000m altitude or thereabouts.

 

Note that for the altitude reading to be accurate, you must calibrate your pressure altimeter to the QFE setting given to you by approach traffic control at your destination airfield.

 

Ignore what the HUD says about desired speed. In the real Su-27, landings above 23,000 Kg all-up weight are not permitted and pilots have to dump fuel to get to or below this weight limit. Since the fuel dump command in our Su-27 doesn't work, we have to compensate for higher weights. Note that the 23,000Kg weight limit assumes no weapons and roughly 2,000Kg of fuel remaining.

 

For a safe landing you must maintain the 3-degree glide slope and 5 m/s sink rate. What can therefore be varied is your IAS on the final approach. Personally I tend to intercept the glide slope at anything up to 400 Km/h. On finals I have the flaps, gear and airbrake extended. My speed over the runway threshold is usually about 280-310 depending on weight, with heavier weight --> faster final approach.

 

Flare so that at touchdown your sink rate is no more than 2-3 m/s, again the heavier you are the lower your sink rate should be at touchdown.

 

There are a couple of schools of thought with regards to chute usage, with none really being any more valid than any other. Most of the runways we have in DCS World (Caucasus or NTTR) are long enough that you won't need the chute: simply hold the nose in the air (but not above 14 degrees or you'll drag the tail on the ground) until it drops then when your speed is below ~100 Km/h gently apply the brakes as necessary.

 

Alternatively, for short field use, as soon as you've touched down drop the nose and pop the chute. Stay off the brakes until your speed drops to 80 Km/h (the minimum that can be calculated by the flight system) then drop the chute and use brakes as necessary.

 

A few final points:

 

1. Don't be afraid to use the brakes. The Su-27 has a nice wide, stable track and very tough tyres. If you need to use the brakes turn 'em on and use them.

 

2. Be cautious about using the chute in strong cross-wind conditions, it can cause the aircraft to weathervane strongly following touchdown and can make things worse than using the brakes on their own.

 

Hope this helps...


Edited by DarkFire

System Spec: Cooler Master Cosmos C700P Black Edition case. | AMD 5950X CPU | MSI RTX-3090 GPU | 32GB HyperX Predator PC4000 RAM | | TM Warthog stick & throttle | TrackIR 5 | Samsung 980 Pro NVMe 4 SSD 1TB (boot) | Samsung 870 QVO SSD 4TB (games) | Windows 10 Pro 64-bit.

 

Personal wish list: DCS: Su-27SM & DCS: Avro Vulcan.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Thanks DarkFire!

I just saw your reply.

 

I did a lot of experimenting, and I now have no trouble landing (at least with the ILS).

The way I do it is that I intercept the glideslope at 400 KMH at 1000M like you said, extend gear and flaps, adjust trim and throttle to achieve an AoA of 7° (I come from the F-15...) Once I have the "right" AoA (which roughly gives me a speed of 280-300), I manage the rate of descent mostly with the throttle only, to bring and maintain my aircraft datum on the ILS indicator on the HUD.

At 30M AGL, I start flaring with the same amount of thrust, and if done correctly, my rate of descent is now 1M/S. 5-8M AGL, I extend the airbrake (which takes quite some time to fully extend), which brings my speed and altitude down. I compensate with a higher pitch, but touchdown always occurs at 1M/S. Throttles to idle, and aerobrake or dragchute under 280 KMH, depending on the runway length.

 

What I can't manage to do consistently is the visual landing. Staying on the glideslope without the Russian ILS or pitch scale we have on Western aircraft is a real challenge to me. What visual cues can I use to stay on the 3° glide?

 

Regarding the tires, yes, they are now super strong! They used to blow up quite easily until recently, especially when I was trying landing with a full load for fun. :pilotfly:

 

Landing procedure:

 

Landing in the Su-27 requires a 3-degree glide slope, with 5 m/s vertical velocity sink rate. When you have the 'landing' navigation mode active, any airfield that has a Russian ILS system will display the director and offset circules on the HUD. Fly so that the smaller circle is lined up with the larger circle on the HUD.

 

The HUD will also display a desired IAS and altitude. Nearly always the desired IAS will be 240 Km/h and the desired altitude at the point at which you intercept the glide slope will be 1,000m altitude or thereabouts.

 

Note that for the altitude reading to be accurate, you must calibrate your pressure altimeter to the QFE setting given to you by approach traffic control at your destination airfield.

 

Ignore what the HUD says about desired speed. In the real Su-27, landings above 23,000 Kg all-up weight are not permitted and pilots have to dump fuel to get to or below this weight limit. Since the fuel dump command in our Su-27 doesn't work, we have to compensate for higher weights. Note that the 23,000Kg weight limit assumes no weapons and roughly 2,000Kg of fuel remaining.

 

For a safe landing you must maintain the 3-degree glide slope and 5 m/s sink rate. What can therefore be varied is your IAS on the final approach. Personally I tend to intercept the glide slope at anything up to 400 Km/h. On finals I have the flaps, gear and airbrake extended. My speed over the runway threshold is usually about 280-310 depending on weight, with heavier weight --> faster final approach.

 

Flare so that at touchdown your sink rate is no more than 2-3 m/s, again the heavier you are the lower your sink rate should be at touchdown.

 

There are a couple of schools of thought with regards to chute usage, with none really being any more valid than any other. Most of the runways we have in DCS World (Caucasus or NTTR) are long enough that you won't need the chute: simply hold the nose in the air (but not above 14 degrees or you'll drag the tail on the ground) until it drops then when your speed is below ~100 Km/h gently apply the brakes as necessary.

 

Alternatively, for short field use, as soon as you've touched down drop the nose and pop the chute. Stay off the brakes until your speed drops to 80 Km/h (the minimum that can be calculated by the flight system) then drop the chute and use brakes as necessary.

 

A few final points:

 

1. Don't be afraid to use the brakes. The Su-27 has a nice wide, stable track and very tough tyres. If you need to use the brakes turn 'em on and use them.

 

2. Be cautious about using the chute in strong cross-wind conditions, it can cause the aircraft to weathervane strongly following touchdown and can make things worse than using the brakes on their own.

 

Hope this helps...

Steinsch

Flying Virtual F-15s since 1989

YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/c/CommanderSteinsch

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Thanks DarkFire!

I just saw your reply.

 

I did a lot of experimenting, and I now have no trouble landing (at least with the ILS).

The way I do it is that I intercept the glideslope at 400 KMH at 1000M like you said, extend gear and flaps, adjust trim and throttle to achieve an AoA of 7° (I come from the F-15...) Once I have the "right" AoA (which roughly gives me a speed of 280-300), I manage the rate of descent mostly with the throttle only, to bring and maintain my aircraft datum on the ILS indicator on the HUD.

At 30M AGL, I start flaring with the same amount of thrust, and if done correctly, my rate of descent is now 1M/S. 5-8M AGL, I extend the airbrake (which takes quite some time to fully extend), which brings my speed and altitude down. I compensate with a higher pitch, but touchdown always occurs at 1M/S. Throttles to idle, and aerobrake or dragchute under 280 KMH, depending on the runway length.

 

What I can't manage to do consistently is the visual landing. Staying on the glideslope without the Russian ILS or pitch scale we have on Western aircraft is a real challenge to me. What visual cues can I use to stay on the 3° glide?

 

Regarding the tires, yes, they are now super strong! They used to blow up quite easily until recently, especially when I was trying landing with a full load for fun. :pilotfly:

 

Sounds like you're doing well with it. It varies with weight & speed but 7 degrees AOA sounds about right for most landing conditions.

 

As far as a non-ILS approach is concerned, ultimately the Su-27 is fairly forgiving because adjustments can be made fairly easily as you approach the runway. That being said, a good setup is important: aim to intercept what would be the glide slope at the correct place & altitude: you should be at roughly 1,000m altitude, lined up with the runway axis, at roughly 15Km distance. Your "return" navigation mode can help here: select your destination airfield and I'm pretty sure that the range-to-waypoint corresponds to the middle of the active runway for that airfield. So, you want to be at 1,000, lined up, at 15Km range.

 

Place the runway threshold in the lower 1/3rd of your HUD and adopt the standard 5 m/s sink rate approach. It won't be 100% accurate but it'll be good enough to get you to the runway threshold at a very acceptable altitude & sink rate. Visualising the runway threshold in the lower 1/3rd of your HUD can also help with landing if your HUD is damaged and not working.

 

As you do more and more landings, ILS or not, you'll get a good feel for the sort of altitude you should have at various points during a standard 15Km approach. After 50 or 60 landings it'll become so second nature that you'll be able to automatically adopt a correct approach path without the ILS. You'll also develop a feel for where the aircraft is really going without having a flight path marker.

 

Cross-wind landings are the one time where I wish the Flanker did had a flight path marker. You learn to live without it and judge wind drift by visually estimating your radial deviation from the runway axis but expect to make gentle corrective course adjustments throughout your final approach. Anything over a 10m/s cross-wind component gets really interesting, & not in a good way. That being said, 10m/s = 19kts crosswind. At that sort of wind strength I'd be inclined to think about an alternate landing field anyway.

 

Hope this helps :)

System Spec: Cooler Master Cosmos C700P Black Edition case. | AMD 5950X CPU | MSI RTX-3090 GPU | 32GB HyperX Predator PC4000 RAM | | TM Warthog stick & throttle | TrackIR 5 | Samsung 980 Pro NVMe 4 SSD 1TB (boot) | Samsung 870 QVO SSD 4TB (games) | Windows 10 Pro 64-bit.

 

Personal wish list: DCS: Su-27SM & DCS: Avro Vulcan.

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To expand a little bit on visual approaches, try setting up a good instrument approach at a field with the HUD ILS.

 

If you get on slope and stabilized nicely, either pause the game, or take a screenshot.

 

Now you have a pretty good sight picture.

 

What you want to do, is try to pick out the point on the runway where you'd like to touch down. At 15 km, this may be hard to see, and you can just substitute the near end of the runway.

 

Now look at your cockpit, and find a feature like a bolt, a scratch, a cable, or some other fixed part of the cockpit that lines up with where the touchdown point appears on the HUD/Canopy.

 

Memorize this feature.

 

Then in the future, when you want to be approximately on slope for a visual approach use 1000m AGL(runway) at 15 km out as a starting point, then line up your memorized marker with your desired touchdown point, and keep it there as you fly in.

 

You can download a free copy of the FAA basic airmanship manual, and read up on the correct procedures for landing a fixed wing aircraft. It goes into more detail. For that matter, the manual has a lot of info on good piloting in general, and includes quite a few diagrams. It's surprisingly well written for a government document.

Callsign "Auger". It could mean to predict the future or a tool for boring large holes.

 

I combine the two by predictably boring large holes in the ground with my plane.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Darkfire, Esb,

 

Thank you for your tips! They all work great and are now part of my landing routines.

I feel so comfortable landing the flanker that I made a couple of tutorials for a French audience:

 

If you could tell me what I could do better, I'd much obliged!

Steinsch

Flying Virtual F-15s since 1989

YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/c/CommanderSteinsch

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Darkfire, Esb,

 

Thank you for your tips! They all work great and are now part of my landing routines.

I feel so comfortable landing the flanker that I made a couple of tutorials for a French audience:

 

If you could tell me what I could do better, I'd much obliged!

Nice job on both! You could, perhaps, come over the inner marker at a slightly slower speed for your weight but that's about all I'd suggest. You're down to around 270 km/hr by touchdown, anyway.

 

Now see if you can "feel" it. Set up a mission with almost no fuel, wait for it to run out and deadstick in for the landing. The sight picture will be different because you'll be trading altitude for airspeed (steeper descent) but it's great fun and a great way to get a feel for landing the aircraft without any aids at all.

 

A quick video. Just jump to the end, if you'd like:

 


Edited by Ironhand

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU1...CR6IZ7crfdZxDg

 

_____

Win 10 Pro x64, ASUS Z97 Pro MoBo, Intel i7-4790K, EVGA GTX 970 4GB, HyperX Savage 32GB, Samsung 850 EVO 250 GB SSD, 2x Seagate Hybrid Drive 2TB Raid 0.

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Great speed management, Iron!

 

It looks fun, I'll give it a try.

 

Regarding my landing speed, I agree with you. 8° of AoA works well too.

I just know that if I go above 8, I tend to mess up my flare and end up touching too hard, or over-correcting with thrust and ballooning over the runway. I found 7-8° of AoA to be the sweet spot to smoothly reduce my descent rate to 1m/s at an acceptable landing speed.

Steinsch

Flying Virtual F-15s since 1989

YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/c/CommanderSteinsch

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Great speed management, Iron!

 

It looks fun, I'll give it a try.

 

Regarding my landing speed, I agree with you. 8° of AoA works well too.

I just know that if I go above 8, I tend to mess up my flare and end up touching too hard, or over-correcting with thrust and ballooning over the runway. I found 7-8° of AoA to be the sweet spot to smoothly reduce my descent rate to 1m/s at an acceptable landing speed.

:) I think you'll find that, once you can land consistently without engines, you can land successfully just about anywhere in most situations.

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU1...CR6IZ7crfdZxDg

 

_____

Win 10 Pro x64, ASUS Z97 Pro MoBo, Intel i7-4790K, EVGA GTX 970 4GB, HyperX Savage 32GB, Samsung 850 EVO 250 GB SSD, 2x Seagate Hybrid Drive 2TB Raid 0.

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Darkfire, Esb,

 

Thank you for your tips! They all work great and are now part of my landing routines.

I feel so comfortable landing the flanker that I made a couple of tutorials for a French audience:

 

If you could tell me what I could do better, I'd much obliged!

 

Excellent piloting and two very good landings. Very nice training videos :thumbup:

 

The only recommendation I'd make for what you were doing in the videos is that if you're cruising then the best throttle setting is 85%-87% RPM (depending on altitude) in order to get the best combination of speed & fuel efficiency. I'd recommend reading these threads for why:

 

Fuel efficiency experiments: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=147556

Flight range analysis: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=151731

 

As far as AOA on landing is concerned, 7-8 degrees is absolutely fine. The only time where maybe I'd consider going higher would be for a very heavy landing on a short runway where I wanted an absolute minimum speed touch down and a short roll out. Even then you'd have to be careful not to go above 14 degrees pitch to avoid tail strike.

System Spec: Cooler Master Cosmos C700P Black Edition case. | AMD 5950X CPU | MSI RTX-3090 GPU | 32GB HyperX Predator PC4000 RAM | | TM Warthog stick & throttle | TrackIR 5 | Samsung 980 Pro NVMe 4 SSD 1TB (boot) | Samsung 870 QVO SSD 4TB (games) | Windows 10 Pro 64-bit.

 

Personal wish list: DCS: Su-27SM & DCS: Avro Vulcan.

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