Kuznetsov landing pattern... or not?

[DarkFire]

I'd like to point out that on the MiG-29K video you can just about make out the altitude of 800m as he lines up. That would imply a what is likely a 1000m ASL pattern.

 

Good spot :thumbup: so it looks like the pattern used by the Su-33 pilots is larger and a higher altitude circuit than for the F/A-18.

 

Edited to add: if the pilot is at 800m just after the turn on to finals then if my trigonometry is correct, for a 3 degree glide slope that would equal a final approach of ~8.9Km. Interesting, though at 260Km/h that would be a very lengthy 125 second approach. Hmm, I don't think that makes a lot of sense. I would postulate that the naval pattern uses a steeper decent than the standard 3 degree glide slope.

Edited August 29, 2019 by DarkFire

[Harlikwin]

I'm doing my best to not being nationalistic here. But I figure its going to look something like what the USN or RN have done. Militaries tend to be pragmatic and no one really wants to reinvent the wheel and there are many good reasons the USN does those patterns like they do. The Chinese basically copied US carrier ops down to the various shirt colors. Why? Probably because are pragmatic and they figure that the navy thats been doing fixed wing carrier ops the continually for the last 80 or so years has good reasons for doing them that way. And while I think there are probably real aversions in the Russian navy to copying the US, they probably did in many aspects. Is it going to be identical? Probably not. But it will likely be adapted from those methods that make sense for them.

 

So really, Coxy's technique that he posted is probably going to be about as right as anything else unless we see some evidence to the contrary, which sounds unlikely based on the posts from the russian side of the house.

[Ironhand]

Assuming a point 7Km from touchdown, which is roughly half of the standard 15Km straight-in approach, and a speed of 260 Km/h = 72 m/s, that equates to 97 seconds to touchdown.

 

60 seconds for the MiG-29K would equate to 4.3 Km at 260 Km/h approach speed.

 

I wish those RT videos of the Kuznetsov showed more. We could probably calculate a fairly accurate set of parameters for the circuit :detective:

 

Edited to add: having watched the MiG-29K video again I'm sure the HUD is saying that he's at 0.25M which under standard conditions would = 85m/s which would mean a final approach of 5.1 Km. Interesting.

 

Been doing some reading in the Russian manuals and read something to the effect of “set your descent angle to...” which seemed a curious phrase. Where do you get a descent angle in the cockpit? I thought I was mis-translating. But I think that’s what the indicator on the right side of the HUD in that one video is. It’s indicating a descent angle of “5 degrees”. If you do the math, that puts him just short of 7km from the carrier if his height is 600m at that point.

 

The Russian “box” is the rectangular pattern flown for landing and seems to come in two sizes—small and large. Turns are based in most cases on the fixed bearing numbers (for lack of a better description) on the outside of the HSI ring. The standard varies from aircraft to aircraft in terms of bank angles, etc and altitudes are determined by the airfields’ requirements. So the carrier would have its own requirements based on aircraft type. And there’s the rub. We don’t know the specifics. A HUD video of a complete circuit would be a godsend but, even there, one for a MiG would offer a somewhat different view from that of a Sukhoi.

[DarkFire]

Been doing some reading in the Russian manuals and read something to the effect of “set your descent angle to...” which seemed a curious phrase. Where do you get a descent angle in the cockpit? I thought I was mis-translating. But I think that’s what the indicator on the right side of the HUD in that one video is. It’s indicating a descent angle of “5 degrees”. If you do the math, that puts him just short of 7km from the carrier if his height is 600m at that point.

 

The Russian “box” is the rectangular pattern flown for landing and seems to come in two sizes—small and large. Turns are based in most cases on the fixed bearing numbers (for lack of a better description) on the outside of the HSI ring. The standard varies from aircraft to aircraft in terms of bank angles, etc and altitudes are determined by the airfields’ requirements. So the carrier would have its own requirements based on aircraft type. And there’s the rub. We don’t know the specifics. A HUD video of a complete circuit would be a godsend but, even there, one for a MiG would offer a somewhat different view from that of a Sukhoi.

 

Yes, the indicator on the right hand side of the HUD does appear to be a descent angle. I'd be willing to bet that it's also designed to take AOA in to account, i.e. it measures actual TVV descent angle.

 

Given how huge the Su-33 is it would be sensible for it to have a 1,000m entry altitude box with a 5-9Km final approach.