F-14 Night Can't See The Carrier Well at All

This isn't so much a problem with the Supercarrier as I think it is an issue with the F-14. When trying to land on the carrier at night there are two major issues. I can't see the carrier without a label. When trying to make it more realistic and using F-10 to remove all labels I have major issues finding the carrier if I get more then 10 miles out at night. The compression makes the sea look weird and you can't see the speck that is the carrier even when circling. Not to mention the glow reflection on the windshield is very frustrating when making your landing approach.

You need the HUD to land on the carrier at night or in bad weather. But the orange halo masks the carrier until it's too late and you're about 5 miles out and then it is sometimes too late. Wave off or die. Is this a problem actual F-14 pilots had? The F-18 is much more clear and crisp and these problems besides the compression with the sea at night are non existent.

Just curious and suggestions?

stop trying to do visual approaches at night,

the real US Navy prohibits it.

Turn down HUD brightness.

When I do a case 3 approach at night in clear weather, I can't see the boat (except the long range lineup system laser) until at about 2nm. I've never flown around a real carrier at night, but I've spent plenty of time flying real aircraft over oceans, and I certainly wouldn't expect to see a ship 10nm away unless it was lit up in a big way. It's DARK out there. Every photo or video I've seen of a carrier at night makes it look like they don't run flight ops while lit up like a xmas tree... which makes sense.

The ICLS is intended to get you to the start, in good position, and works great. Fly the needles to 3/4nm and you'll see the boat plenty well enough to transition to the ball.

stop trying to do visual approaches at night,

the real US Navy prohibits it.

I'm trying my best. After slamming into the carrier a few times I made 1 good landing attempt. Seems like I boltered, but I landed in once piece. Don't know what communication step I skipped, but here's the video of the whole thing for those who are interested.

I'm trying my best. After slamming into the carrier a few times I made 1 good landing attempt. Seems like I boltered, but I landed in once piece. Don't know what communication step I skipped, but here's the video of the whole thing for those who are interested.

you prey much skipped all the calls you need to make for a case 3

i dont thing you read the manual

IMO you not ready for carrier landings

after launch you where wildly pitching up and to +15 to -15 the whole time you in the air and blacking out every 5 min i dont know why you are doing that

what you flew was not a case 3 looked more like a visual approach at night

you complete ignored your ICLS needles

you made no attempt to fly on speed

at the last seconds when you noticed the carrier you where not lined up, too low too fasted, too shallow on glide slope, hi over the wire then you dove for the deck

what i see in that video is some one who dose not have control over their jet

landing on a carrier takes very precise control of the jet and has a very small margin for error

you need to slow down take things slow learn the basics first master them then move on to more complex things

for you right now after what i saw in that video you need to learn how to fly strait and level with out using auto pilot. then learn how to make a turn. this is where you are at in your learning process

This isn't so much a problem with the Supercarrier as I think it is an issue with the F-14. When trying to land on the carrier at night there are two major issues. I can't see the carrier without a label. When trying to make it more realistic and using F-10 to remove all labels I have major issues finding the carrier if I get more then 10 miles out at night. The compression makes the sea look weird and you can't see the speck that is the carrier even when circling. Not to mention the glow reflection on the windshield is very frustrating when making your landing approach.

 

You need the HUD to land on the carrier at night or in bad weather. But the orange halo masks the carrier until it's too late and you're about 5 miles out and then it is sometimes too late. Wave off or die. Is this a problem actual F-14 pilots had? The F-18 is much more clear and crisp and these problems besides the compression with the sea at night are non existent.

 

Just curious and suggestions?

You don't need to see the carrier. You have instruments (ICLS!) to perform a zero visibility carrier approach. You don't even need the HUD for that, as you get the same information on the VDI, although having it on the HUD helps of course, so try to turn down the HUD brightness and activate the red night filter.

Carrier landings in moonless nights or fog are scary IRL!

Welcome to the Flightsim Community! Here are a couple of videos that I think will help a lot.

This one is in the F-18 but but it has a great explanation of case 3 procedures and coms:

This one is a F-14 night time landing tutorial. It's a good tutorial and a bad landing. I highly recommend use of auto-throttle for F-14 carrier recoveries as demonstrated in the video.

I've found the Grim Reapers' videos like the ones above and also Matt Wagner's videos to be very, very helpful in learning to fly these modules.

Also, you didn't actually bolter. A bolter is when the hook fails to catch a wire and you fly off the end of the angled deck and have to go around again. Jester gets a little confused sometimes.

Welcome to the Flightsim Community! Here are a couple of videos that I think will help a lot.

 

This one is in the F-18 but but it has a great explanation of case 3 procedures and coms:

 

This one is a F-14 night time landing tutorial. It's a good tutorial and a bad landing. I highly recommend use of auto-throttle for F-14 carrier recoveries as demonstrated in the video.

 

I've found the Grim Reapers' videos like the ones above and also Matt Wagner's videos to be very, very helpful in learning to fly these modules.

 

Also, you didn't actually bolter. A bolter is when the hook fails to catch a wire and you fly off the end of the angled deck and have to go around again. Jester gets a little confused sometimes.

Thank you

I will say that I appreciate the advice and to answer some questions. I'm using a Logitech X-52 HOTAS and the spring on the stick is really squishy not like my cyborg EVO. The EVO isn't good because the throttle is on the stick making it a pain to use so I don't use it anymore but at least it has a nice firm spring. At this point I'm stuck with what I've got and need to learn how to make the best of it because money will be tight for awhile so I can't afford a new stick and throttle. I know it will take time and practice I was used to other flight sims that were super easy like Microsoft Flight Sim 2000 and Falcon, and Hornet. It's nice that DCS makes you actually get more involved and I'm dealing with that learning curve. I know I'll get it when I have time to practice.

To be blunt, your entire process needs work. My advice is to break the carrier landing process into a few different major skills that you can learn one at a time and put together when you have gotten a handle on them separately.

The first step is to get a handle on just flying the aircraft. From take-off to landing it was clear that you were always a few steps behind the jet. Spend some time doing by the book landings on a airbase. Spend some time just flying around to get a feel for more subtle, more precise stick inputs. Get yourself to a point where you are not struggling to keep the jet under control.

Next, you need to learn how your navigation systems work. The airplane has all the tools you need to navigate to and land on the carrier without even seeing it. It falls on you to learn these systems and the best way to do it is by the book. Don't try to find shortcuts on youtube. Don't try to rush the process. Learn how to use TACAN (which will guide you to the carrier) and learn how to use ICLS (which will get you on the deck. It will take some work on your part but that is kinda what you signed up for when you got into DCS in the first place.

Finally, you really, really, really need to understand what "on speed" means and why it is pretty much the most important thing in carrier landings. The only reason you landed in that video without destroying your plane is because DCS's damage model isn't there yet. If it were more realistic, you would have wrecked that plane by landing way, way, way too fast. Getting on speed means setting up your aircraft so that it can hold the desired angle of attack as you control your descent to the deck. It isn't going to be easy and will take a lot of practice but like I said before, you signed up for that when you got into DCS.

Overall, I think your issue is that you are trying to do one of the more difficult things without seeming to understand all the parts of the process that go into it.

statrekmike is absolutly right with his assessment!

I want to stress this out especially:

Next, you need to learn how your navigation systems work. The airplane has all the tools you need to navigate to and land on the carrier without even seeing it. It falls on you to learn these systems and the best way to do it is by the book.

IRL your eyes would be adjusted to the night; to emulate this in DCS just up your gamma to 2.5.

Turn you cockpit lights down and the carrier lights will be visible by the time you need to call the ball IF you have done all the radio calls properly.

This isn't so much a problem with the Supercarrier as I think it is an issue with the F-14. When trying to land on the carrier at night there are two major issues. I can't see the carrier without a label. When trying to make it more realistic and using F-10 to remove all labels I have major issues finding the carrier if I get more then 10 miles out at night. The compression makes the sea look weird and you can't see the speck that is the carrier even when circling. Not to mention the glow reflection on the windshield is very frustrating when making your landing approach.

 

You need the HUD to land on the carrier at night or in bad weather. But the orange halo masks the carrier until it's too late and you're about 5 miles out and then it is sometimes too late. Wave off or die. Is this a problem actual F-14 pilots had? The F-18 is much more clear and crisp and these problems besides the compression with the sea at night are non existent.

 

Just curious and suggestions?

It's not a bug and it is pretty well simulated; CV's simply don't announce their position with Disco lights, not even in peace time.

Read up on some posts to identify when CASE III procedures are in effect, this here is the best post I've seen so far:

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=280143

Real life Naval Pilots almost all dread and hate coming back to a Carrier at night, and especially when the weather is bad. Medical supervision indicated that the heart rate of a pilot increases during combat operation, even in Life-or-death dog-fighting, but not even close to as much as on a night, bad weather trap on a carrier. To simplify: its hard and its dangerous. This is one of the reasons you have to jump through so many hoops to fly naval jets.

Good luck! :thumbup: