

Under your airspeed indicator, you will see three numbers grouped lower left.
#Dcs f18 carrier landing tutorial full#
You get everything ready to do a straight in approach and let it slam into the deck, and as you hit, you go full throttle full afterburner, in case of the bolter (miss the arresting wires). You can't flare on a carrier deck, there is no space to do so. Hornets and carrier aircraft are designed to NOT FLARE upon touchdown. It's maybe not as critical on an airport landing, but the plane is designed to land a certain way for the geometry of the landing gear. I believe the hook needs to contact the arresting wire BEFORE the main wheels touch the carrier deck. Then that means burning fuel you are low on, waiting for your next turn to land. The angle of attack is important in the real world because its very critical to ensure the landing gear and hook interact with the landing wires/cables on touchdown, or you'll miss the arresting wires, get yelled "BOLTER, GO AROUND", go full afterburner and pray you have enough airpspeed to climb and try again. this is far from a "textbook landing", in fact this one is kinda ugly, but you can notice the HUD symbols and how they work as an observer: Watch this video, and pay attention to how the E bracket interacts with the Velocity Vector. You are now on a path to landing your Hornet right where you aimed it, at the ideal airspeed, ideal angle of attack, whether for a ground landing or carrier landing (but put the hook down if doing carrier landings of course!) meaning the E and the O are perfectly beside each other and stable. Then you adjust your throttles until the E bracket's middle is aligned right beside the "wing" on the velocity vector. You aim your Velocity vector onto the runway numbers. The E bracket is your precision angle of attack indicator for a perfect landing. The E bracket will move about up and down until you stabilize your approach. Once you drop your landing gear and flaps, you will get what's known as the E bracket, right beside the Velocity Vector O. If you want to land someplace, put it right where you want to touch the ground, or move it with pitch and power (or rudders and ailerons if needed!)Īirspeed on the left rectangle in Knots of airspeed, altitude in feet on the right rectangle. Basically, it shows where you'll end up flying to. Ok, what others are calling "flight path marker" is generally known among fighter pilots as "Velocity Vector", it's the circle with two little wings and a rudder, and it's the same thing despite different names.


I'm not sure if the SuperHornet uses it's airbrakes for landings like the older legacy Hornets used to. First off, you will need to set a keybind in the Controls options for "afterburner", maybe "arresting Hook", and "wing fold", maybe some others too.
