Aircraft Carrier Landings...

[makisekurisufcker]

How? More accurately, what do the callouts mean? Like "call the ball" and all that? I assume that indicator on the left, the arrows and circle, are very important? What do they mean?

[joe.alton1]

What you want to do is just make sure the hook catches the wire. You'd slow down really fast and can if not careful hit the ground and explode. The circle on the left should be green until you're really close to landing, and then you just want to get down and catch a wire.

[Gouda]

Hey there!
The arrows and circle are indicators for your Angle Of Attack. At an AOA of 8 degrees for example your nose will point 8 degrees higher than your actual flight path. To perform a good carrier landing, you should trim your aircraft to hold the correct angle of attack, indicated by the circle. If the arrow pointing up lights up, you will need to trim your plane more upwards, if the arrow down lights up, you should trim down to get the perfect AOA. Once you have a good attack angle, you´ll want to use your throttle for altitude adjustments. Adding throttle will give you more lift, which will make you decend slower and vice versa. Contrary to using your stick for altitude adjustments, using your throttle will not affect your AOA or airspeed a lot, which makes it handy for landing.
Press down on the stick and reduce the throttle a bit as soon as you´re over the deck to cancle the groud effect.

There is a device on the deck of most aircraft carriers with a yellow light in the middle and a line of green lights on the side.
If the yellow light is in a line with the green lights it means you´re on the correct altitude, if it´s below the green line you´re too low, if it´s above you´re too high.
The yellow light is known as the "Ball"
As soon as you´re 0.75 miles away from the carrier, you should let the carrier guy know you have the yellow light in sight by calling out "Ball"
If you cannot see a yellow light on the device (probably because you´re too high, maybe Bob just forgot to screw in a new light bulb tho) you´ll need to call out "Clara" instead.

I hope this answers your questions!
The Gouda Crook

[makisekurisufcker]

Originally posted by Der Gouda Ganove:

Hey there!
The arrows and circle are indicators for your Angle Of Attack. At an AOA of 8 degrees for example your nose will point 8 degrees higher than your actual flight path. To perform a good carrier landing, you should trim your aircraft to hold the correct angle of attack, indicated by the circle. If the arrow pointing up lights up, you will need to trim your plane more upwards, if the arrow down lights up, you should trim down to get the perfect AOA. Once you have a good attack angle, you´ll want to use your throttle for altitude adjustments. Adding throttle will give you more lift, which will make you decend slower and vice versa. Contrary to using your stick for altitude adjustments, using your throttle will not affect your AOA or airspeed a lot, which makes it handy for landing.
Press down on the stick and reduce the throttle a bit as soon as you´re over the deck to cancle the groud effect.

There is a device on the deck of most aircraft carriers with a yellow light in the middle and a line of green lights on the side.
If the yellow light is in a line with the green lights it means you´re on the correct altitude, if it´s below the green line you´re too low, if it´s above you´re too high.
The yellow light is known as the "Ball"
As soon as you´re 0.75 miles away from the carrier, you should let the carrier guy know you have the yellow light in sight by calling out "Ball"
If you cannot see a yellow light on the device (probably because you´re too high, maybe Bob just forgot to screw in a new light bulb tho) you´ll need to call out "Clara" instead.

I hope this answers your questions!
The Gouda Crook

Thanks a ton! I'm screwed!

[Gouda]

No problem!
It may not be easy to get it right in the beginning, but if you practise it you´ll surely be able to pull it off consistently sometime.

[makisekurisufcker]

Originally posted by Der Gouda Ganove:

No problem!
It may not be easy to get it right in the beginning, but if you practise it you´ll surely be able to pull it off consistently sometime.

Yeah, I'll just have to run it a lot I guess.

Also, how do you trim the aircraft? I didn't know you could trim anything that's not the helicopter.

[Gouda]

Tbh I´ve never played this game, so I don´t know if or how you can trim it.
This game looks interesting, so I scrolled trough the community site, saw your question, and thought I could help you out.
I did however play other simulators and there the trim knob is usually located on the flight stick.
Maybe I´ll get a vr setup to try it for myself someday!

best regards
the Gouda Crook

[makisekurisufcker]

Originally posted by Der Gouda Ganove:

Tbh I´ve never played this game, so I don´t know if or how you can trim it.
This game looks interesting, so I scrolled trough the community site, saw your question, and thought I could help you out.
I did however play other simulators and there the trim knob is usually located on the flight stick.
Maybe I´ll get a vr setup to try it for myself someday!

best regards
the Gouda Crook

Oh no worries. I don't think there's trim knobs in this, but I could be wrong. I'll look around though!
Thanks again! It's really a fun game to play!

[ZbuffeR]

There are very good video tutorials about aircraft landings on VTOL VR:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a78yYii7GG0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBZJcCvSw_I

[makisekurisufcker]

Originally posted by ZbuffeR:

There are very good video tutorials about aircraft landings on VTOL VR:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a78yYii7GG0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBZJcCvSw_I

Oh sick thanks.

[Pappito]

Some dude actually copies random stuff then "I've never actually played the game". Jesus. Ok, basically when you "call the ball" you'll see on the left of your hud the indicator that looks like a ball inside two columns.

If the ball is lined up to the 2 center lines on either side of the columns you are "on the ball". If the ball is below the two lines, you are too low; above the two lines and you are too high.

Approach the carrier crosswind (perpendicular to the front of the carrier) and make a left hand turn. Once you make the left turn, imagine that you are on a high school track shaped course around the carrier. You're basically going to run (fly) down once side of the track, turn left, and run down the other side to finally land on the carrier. On your crosswind approach, you should try to be 1000 ft ASL, then down to 800 ft, then 300 ft as you approach the carrier.

Try to imagine a laser beaming down from the center of your aircraft to the spot just before the wires on the deck. Don't focus so much on the 8 degree AoA, though that can be ok. Really you can be down to 3 degrees AoA and still be fine.

You'll gradually reduce your speed so that when you're on final/decision approach (say 1/4 mile to the carrier) you're going at 200 kt. Don't try to flare up so much when you go to hit the deck like you would on a run way. Carrier landings are meant to be HARD. Once your hook catches the wire, you're basically going to do a 3 point landing (all 3 gear hit at the same time).

Then just practice practice practice. And remember this game is pretty sensitive as the tower will needlessly have you wave off for no reason and sometimes gives you bad call outs. Ultimately, as PIC "on the ball" it's your ass in the seat landing the plane. And thankfully there's no real CAG to chew you out if you goof.

[Gouda]

That´s not stuff I´ve copied, I´ve played other flight sims so why shouldn´t I help out here? The principles of a carrier landing are the same no matter the sim (as long as it´s realistic or at least semi realistic)