So many Cobra questions

[Nealius]

When I watch real world videos of the Cobra, there's very little altitude gain, with the nose going 120° back, then nosing over to level again.

 

When I try this in DCS, usually entering around 450kph, I get a huge increase in altitude. Then when I stuff the nose from 120° back, the nose falls through the horizon, settles at the -90° point for a couple seconds, but my stick has zero authority to bring it back up. The nose ends up going past -90° so that it's now pointing the opposite direction I entered the maneuver in, and now I'm in an inverted falling leaf.

 

Is there a specific speed I should be entering the Cobra in to prevent a) massive altitude gain, and b) a stall?

[DarkFire]

450Km/h is very fast for entry to the Kobra. 350-400Km/h is much safer. When you engage direct control mode the aircraft has a tendency to pitch down suddenly, and this tendency becomes much stronger as IAS increases.

 

Secondly, and more importantly, you must only remain at very high AOA while your IAS remains above the minimum controllable flight speed. If you let your speed decay below minimum the control surfaces will have no authority which causes the nose to drop to -90 pitch and which usually results in the negative AOA situation and unrecoverable (at low altitude) inverted departure.

 

Have a look at this training video by Ironhand:

 

[Nealius]

Wait, pitch down moment? When I engage direct control mode I get a large pitch up moment even without touching the stick.

[AeriaGloria]

Trim it out then press direct control. There is a reason the switch is in front of the throttles, you are supposed to switch into direct mode at idle power. You can use the stick limiter “Y” key move your elevator fast enough to avoid a negative AOA departure in an emergency

[DarkFire]

Wait, pitch down moment? When I engage direct control mode I get a large pitch up moment even without touching the stick.

 

That's weird. It's not supposed to do that at all :huh: try resetting the ACS (alt-F9 I think?) before entering direct control mode.

[BlackPixxel]

Wait, pitch down moment? When I engage direct control mode I get a large pitch up moment even without touching the stick.

 

Su-27 pitches down, Su-33 pitches up when disabling ACS.

[DarkFire]

Su-27 pitches down, Su-33 pitches up when disabling ACS.

 

Oh of course, I'd forgotten that this is the -33 forum :doh:

 

Yes, the canards on the -33 make it pitch up instead of pitching down when entering direct control mode. The strength of the pitch up moment is still proportional to air speed, and 450 Km/h is still too fast.