Landing Dino's Skyhawk T-4 on a Carrier

[Cees Donker]

Can anyone here give me a clue? This one always tips over on landing, no matter how close to stall speed I land. I trap aircraft like the RFN Crusader and the Etendart without any problem, this A-4 is frustrating.

Cees

[Duckie]

Can anyone here give me a clue? This one always tips over on landing, no matter how close to stall speed I land. I trap aircraft like the RFN Crusader and the Etendart without any problem, this A-4 is frustrating.

Cees

Cees, it may have to do with the tail hook length or location. Beyond that I'm no help. Maybe someone else has some good numbers for it. Also check the cable force adjustment. The ones of mine I just checked are in the 0.6 to 1.4 range.

Steve

[Mike71]

Can anyone here give me a clue? This one always tips over on landing, no matter how close to stall speed I land. I trap aircraft like the RFN Crusader and the Etendart without any problem, this A-4 is frustrating.

Cees

Do you mean up on a wingtip??

Real A-4s / TA-4s were always susceptible to this with any right or left drift or off center at touchdown; often caused a strut to over-compress and jam. Flight Deck crew would run up, grab the upper wing tip to pull it down and unjam the over compressed strut. Normally worked!

[Cees Donker]

Do you mean up on a wingtip??

Real A-4s / TA-4s were always susceptible to this with any right or left drift or off center at touchdown; often caused a strut to over-compress and jam. Flight Deck crew would run up, grab the upper wing tip to pull it down and unjam the over compressed strut. Normally worked!

That's it exactly! I received some other numbers for the tailhook that I'm gonna try.

Cees

[Sbob]

Cees, I don't FSX but this problem sounds very familiar in the older sims.

The Skyhawk (if accurately modeled) has an unstable landing gear footprint.
Imagine that you're looking down at the plane and you can see the three tires.
It looks like a triangle.

In this case, the triangle will look like its tall at the top and the base will be narrow.
The Skyhawk also has a relatively high COG which doesn't help.
Imagine sitting on a three legged stool with the same triangle at its base.

To fix it, or at least make it land-able, you'll need to edit the [contact points] section of the aircraft.cfg file.

Check first that the two main gear legs have the same length (Z axis). In some cases they won't.
Next, try making that base of the triangle wider (Y axis). You don't need to add a lot, try adding a half of a foot to each main gear. One will be positive, the other will be negative.
You can test these changes at a normal airport. Just taxi around like you've had a few too many to drink.
Be aggressive, make sharp turns, jam on the brakes in the middle of a turn, do all the stuff you normally wouldn't do.

You could also make the triangle a little more stable by adding a second nose wheel. Offset the original nose wheel to the right by about a half of a foot. Add the new wheel and offset it the same amount in a negative direction so the new nose wheels act like bogies.

Another thing to check is the damping and damping ratio for the gear. If they are set too high the shock absorbers will act like catapults.

If you don't have a lot of experience with these edits, copy the [contact points] section and paste it in this thread and I'll show you what I mean.

[Cees Donker]

Good advice Sbob!

I appreciate it very much!

Still testing and improving my skills!

Cees

[Josh Patterson]

Good advice Sbob!

I appreciate it very much!

Still testing and improving my skills!

Cees

Virtavia's Skyhawk was also susceptible to tipping over. (I remember the Virtavia A3D and F-11 Tiger also gave me issues.) Maybe it's just the nature of the beast? SWS's Midway Battlegroup addon did something with their carriers that virtually eliminated tipsy aircraft when trapping, even the Skyhawk. (Unfortunately it interfered with planes like my Wilco and SSW Harriers hovering ability. Apparently FSUIPC likes one or the other but not both, so I uninstalled MBG.)

[Cees Donker]

I have the Virtavia Skyhawk and I can put that one on a carrier almost effortles. The Indiafoxctechno version is compared with the Virtavia version a real challenge. Still is after a lot of tries, but gives great satisfaction when you succeed.
FSX rules if you're into naval flying and trapping. I still enjoy this sim a lot!

Cees

[Josh Patterson]

I have the Virtavia Skyhawk and I can put that one on a carrier almost effortles. The Indiafoxctechno version is compared with the Virtavia version a real challenge. Still is after a lot of tries, but gives great satisfaction when you succeed.
FSX rules if you're into naval flying and trapping. I still enjoy this sim a lot!

Cees

My friend has MSFS and although the graphics are outstanding the planes just seem to fly like they came out of Ace Combat. I still love FSX! (I forgot where it came from but I fly off of the Bon Homme Richard quite a bit!) I'll have to break out the Virtavia Skyhawk and try it again. Maybe I'm suffering from the Mandela Effect.

[PhantomP]

Hey Cees anyway you could please post those tailhook numbers? I’ve always had a problem trying to land that same plane.Thanks

[Cees Donker]

tailhook_length= 4.285
cable_force_adjust= 4.0
tailhook_position = -28.0, 0.0, -2.25

This may seem an improvement, but I managed to trap it only once on the Nimitz. It has the tendency to miss the wire as if the hook isn't long enough.


Cees

[PhantomP]

Ok thanks for the advice,and the tailhook numbers maybe we can find better ones in the future?

[TARPSBird]

Cees, this comment came up today in my "memories" post on Facebook. From June 2, 2013... I believe I was flying the Razbam A-4E:

"I just got off Microsoft Flight Simulator X after wasting over an hour trying to land aboard USS Oriskany in a A-4E Skyhawk. Twitchy little jet, I couldn't catch a wire to save my a**. I could barely get the damn plane down to the deck. I'm not posting any screen shots, you wouldn't want to see my performance. Guess I gotta do less Facebook and more flight sim!"


My carrier landing skills are still not world-class (real-life LSO's would laugh at me) but I can get aboard with other jets so maybe it's time to give the A-4 another try with Dino's plane.

[Cees Donker]

Cees, this comment came up today in my "memories" post on Facebook. From June 2, 2013... I believe I was flying the Razbam A-4E:

"I just got off Microsoft Flight Simulator X after wasting over an hour trying to land aboard USS Oriskany in a A-4E Skyhawk. Twitchy little jet, I couldn't catch a wire to save my a**. I could barely get the damn plane down to the deck. I'm not posting any screen shots, you wouldn't want to see my performance. Guess I gotta do less Facebook and more flight sim!"


My carrier landing skills are still not world-class (real-life LSO's would laugh at me) but I can get aboard with other jets so maybe it's time to give the A-4 another try with Dino's plane.

Please give it a go Jerry, and let us know how it goes! Dino's Skyhawk are gorgeous but difficult to trap.



Cees

[TARPSBird]

Please give it a go Jerry, and let us know how it goes! Dino's Skyhawk are gorgeous but difficult to trap.
Cees

I downloaded Dino's A-4 and TA-4 packages from SimMarket (the price was right - free) so I will give the Scooters a try tomorrow when I'm not so tired. If I'm going to scare myself at "the back end of the boat" I want to be at least wide awake and perky.

Gonna be a big change from Paul Clawson's TBD-1 doing 85 knots at the ramp.

[Mike71]

I downloaded Dino's A-4 and TA-4 packages from SimMarket (the price was right - free) so I will give the Scooters a try tomorrow when I'm not so tired. If I'm going to scare myself at "the back end of the boat" I want to be at least wide awake and perky.

Gonna be a big change from Paul Clawson's TBD-1 doing 85 knots at the ramp.

Maybe a dumb question, but are you making approaches with your speed brakes OUT? - helps with power (glideslope) control --

[Cees Donker]

I approach with full flaps, not with the speedbrakes, maybe inintially to reduce speed, but not on final.



Cees

[johndetrick]

I approach with full flaps, not with the speedbrakes, maybe inintially to reduce speed, but not on final.



Cees

Speedbrakes out for carrier landing according to the NATOPS.

[Cees Donker]

Speedbrakes out for carrier landing according to the NATOPS.

Thank you for the info! (It worked!)



Cees

[Cees Donker]

Having a great time with this one!



Cees

[TARPSBird]

Cees, is that CVA-31 one of Klaus Nowak's 27-Charlie carriers?

[Cees Donker]

Cees, is that CVA-31 one of Klaus Nowak's 27-Charlie carriers?

I don't really know Jerry. I think it's older and was one of Lazarus' files which he has taken with him and are no longer on the OH. I had a very extended Boat-folder on my old computer which I transferred to the new one.
The folder has this title: USS_Bonnehomme_Richard.
The cfg-file:

[fltsim.0]
title=USS_Bonnehomme_Richard
model=
texture=


[fltsim.1]
title=USS_Oriskany
model=
texture=oriskany


[fltsim.2]
title=USS_Hancock
model=
texture=hancock


[fltsim.3]
title=USS_Lexington
model=
texture=lexington


[fltsim.4]
title=USS_Shangri_La
model=
texture=shangrila


[fltsim.5]
title=USS_Oriskany_loaded
model=loaded
texture=oriskanyloaded


[fltsim.6]
title=USS_ShangriLa_loaded
model=loaded
texture=shangrilaloaded


[fltsim.7]
title=USS_Hancock_loaded
model=loaded
texture=hancockloaded


[fltsim.8]
title=USS_Bonnehomme_Richard_loaded
model=loaded
texture=BonnehommeRichardloaded


[General]
category=Boat


[contact_points]
static_pitch=0.0 //degrees, pitch when at rest on the ground (+=Up, -=Dn)
static_cg_height=0.0 //feet, altitude of CG when at rest on the ground


[DesignSpecs]
max_speed_mph = 50
acceleration_constants = 0.5, 0.4 //Time constant (effects responsiveness), and max acceleration (Gs)
deceleration_constants = 2.0, 0.5 //Time constant (effects responsiveness), and max acceleration (Gs)
SternPosition = 50


[Effects]
wake = fx_wake_l
//wake = fx_wake_haa_Essex

[fltsim.8] is added by me because it only had one with an empty deck.

Cees

[jeansy]

if you have a few dollars spare you should look at these addons for Naval aviation

https://secure.simmarket.com/cimogt.mhtml

[Mike71]

Thank you for the info! (It worked!)



Cees

Speedbrakes were ALWAYS used in the A-4, A-3, F-4, A-6, EA-6B, F-14. As I recall the S-3 did not, nor the F-8 or A-7 as I recall. The location of S/Bs on these planes did not allow it or they would likely also have been used.

The higher RPM range with "boards out" on approach gave very quick rpm changes which made glideslope control and bolters much easier because of this quick response.

The A-3 in particular would float like a kite if a little fast and you did not keep up with speed control; the boards made a big difference in power control with the J-57s. In fact the J-57 was the grandmother of the JT3 / JT8 series of low bypass fan engines, though it was a split spool, not a fan.

[expat]

Cees, is that CVA-31 one of Klaus Nowak's 27-Charlie carriers?

Think that is one of Gary Payne’s last series of Essex boats. I enjoy these and his Midway carriers most of all for SEA era ops.