acc F-18

[Cirrus N210MS]

does anyone know if the F-18s fuel Deal Opens? for air to air refuel ?

[Killbilly]

If you mean the retractable probe, it does. There is a lever in the cockpit down on your port side panel. Give it a click. :wavey:

[N332DW]

unfortunaly you dont see the state of the probe on others aircraft in MP, instead what you see is the current state of your probe rendered on others...

[jimjones]

How the heck does one stop this plane on landing on a normal airfield?
Wasn't there a song having words to the effect "Slip Sliding Away" which perfectly fits to this plane when I try to stop.

My rare successes on stopping was to have a long runway and occasionally tap the brake. Most times I end up doing 180's, 360's and crashes. Nuts!!! Really terrible instability on the ground. It's a chore to even control this beast while taxiing, and with sensitivity way down.

I don't know what the problem is in full, but I'm sure poor FSX ground handling of planes is a big factor. Put that improvement high on the list of FS11 improvements.

Jim

[Dangerous Beans]

Once the main wheels have touched down keep the front wheel off the ground so your using the fuselage as an air brake, be careful not to strike the tail though. once you get down to about 60 knots let the front wheel touch down then ease on the brakes.

[jimjones]

Beans, that is helpful advice, yet when those front wheels touch and brackes are applied all h..l breaks loose. I assume when you say to apply brakes gently you mean a little at a time since brakes are either on or off.

Has anyone any tweaks to the model to help?

Jim

[Nils]

I guess your poor ground handling experience depends on how you control the plane. Do you use a joystick, gampad, keyboard..?
(Wheel) brakes are only applied if you press the key/button (by default the period key), so the length of the key press determines the effect. You can adjust the strength in the Aircraft.cfg ([brakes] section).

I have no problems with the F-18, but i think that the speed brake is a little bit weak. I always deploy the speed brake after touch down if i don't land her on a carrier but it's not very powerful.

[Dangerous Beans]

Like Nils I have no problem stopping the F-18 but I use the toe brakes on my CH pedals.

If your using a button it could be different.
the default setting in the aircraft.cfg is
[brakes]
toe_brake_scale=1.7
try lowering it and see what happens.

[jimjones]

I use a Logitech Extreeme 3D Pro Joystick which has rudder control using rotation of the stick and a trigger switch mapped to the brakes. It seems that braking can't be reduced in aircraft.cfg. That leaves periodic on and off of the brakes for control. I tried using both the joystick trigger and the keyboard "period" key to brake. Perhaps the keyboard is better since it isolates the control from the joystick rudder control which is very sensitive.

It seems that if there is the slightest yaw motion, once the front wheel is on the ground, braking can soon end in loss of control. Braking then causes that yaw to increase. Rotation of the joystick is too senstitive and the plane begins to oscillate back and forth. Seems the wheels don't have much sideways traction. Setting the rudder sensitivity very low did not help.

I did a lot of ground practicing. Started on a long runway, accelerated to 60, let the aerodynamics of the plane settle the yaw to zero then applied the brakes. Sometimes with brakes on full, sometime with periodic on and off. Success was somewhat better with on and off braking.

Now with much practice, my landings have a better success rate, but I'm convinced MS can do a better job of ground control.

Thanks gents for your comments.

Jim

[gsnde]

Jim,

I experience the same like you.

Martin

[piperarcherpilot]

Yikes! I've not experienced anything like this...I can land the hornet with a pretty good sideload and kick the rudder around quite a bit before it starts loosing it. Realism settings set anywhere, and its all good. Makes me wonder if MS released different versions of the air model...or maybe is just joystick settings...odd.

[Killbilly]

Yikes! I've not experienced anything like this...I can land the hornet with a pretty good sideload and kick the rudder around quite a bit before it starts loosing it. Realism settings set anywhere, and its all good. Makes me wonder if MS released different versions of the air model...or maybe is just joystick settings...odd.

Same here. The Hornet is pretty tame on my rig. I've never had any trouble controlling her during landings, on the taxiway, or during take-off rolls. I've even put her down on some fairly short runways. My settings are to full realism. I'm using a Saitek X-52. I've done no modding of the flight model at all. It seems that these problems must be setting or controller related. :kilroy:

[fliger747]

The Hornet does have a few issues. The main gear is insuficently strong to take the verticle aceleration of a deck type landing on a runway. Brakes are OK, I use about 2000' ground roll. The directional control issues comes from the noewheel steering. FS does not currently allow a correct portrayal of nosewheel steering, as it is far too senesitive at speed to allow proper turning radius. The real systems are far more sophisticated.

The speed brake seems about right, they are not terribly effictive on rollout. Also this one is not effective at killing lift, as wing mounted spoilers are.

You may have to adjust your rudder sensitivity for this plane. Remember it IS (clintonian emphasis) a fly by wire plane and does not respond in the linear manner that the FS engine uses for conventional controls.

I made comments about some of the flight charcteristics during beta test, it is much better!!

Cheers: T.

[mmorgan]

The loss of control (slipping, sliding, ground looping, and other fun stuff) is generally a result of your FSX realism setting. With the slider set at or near 'low', you get the braking issues; with the slider set at or near 'high' (I use 1 click below max) the problem should disappear.

Rgds,
Mike

[IanP]

My realism slider is maxed out and unless I lock the brakes out fully, both the Accel and CS F/A-18s dance on the runway like they are on ice, so unfortunately that isn't the fix... ;)

Ian P.

[Daube]

In case of erroneous behavior of the ground contacts, try lowering a little bit your FPS limit, and see if it helps. I have absolutely no problems landing the F-18 on my FSX.

Explanations of the above advise: sometimes, when the CPU gets too busy, the ground contact computations get somehow "corrupted", leading to strange phenomenoms like the airplane jumping on the tarmac. Lowering the FPS limit sometimes helps saving some CPU power for the ground behavior. At least, it won't cost anything to try.

[IanP]

Deleted. There's no point.

Ian P.

[Piglet]

Also noticed there is no keyboard command for the refuel probe, nor for any of the MFD's..

[Daube]

Also noticed there is no keyboard command for the refuel probe, nor for any of the MFD's..

"Good VCs don't need keyboard commands". Your creations are perfect proofs.

[jmig]

Also noticed there is no keyboard command for the refuel probe, nor for any of the MFD's..

If any one figures out the offsets for the MFD (Garmin buttons?) please post them. I would like to be able to program external buttons in my cockpit to emulate them.

[dswo]

The team that did the Hornet's avionics for MS has put a bunch of extra documentation here:

http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php?board=4.0

Regulars will already know about this; I don't recall there being anything about button offsets (which is too bad). Using the mouse is fine...so long as you don't have dedicated hardware with extra buttons; if you do, you want to be able to program those buttons so you don't have to use the mouse.

[AlphaWhiskeyFoxtrot]

If any one figures out the offsets for the MFD (Garmin buttons?) please post them. I would like to be able to program external buttons in my cockpit to emulate them.

John,
What to you mean by offsets?

Conrad