fsx acceleration aircraft carriers aren't working

[hawker445]

Fsx carriers won't work. THe carrier in Hawaii disappeared one day. This was a long time ago but i didn't do anything about it. I had the AI carriers installed but that didn't work either. I have many add ons. I have REX and bit of aircraft.

Any ideas why the aircraft carriers won't work for free flight?

[ScatterbrainKid]

There's this carrier anchored a few miles southwest of the Golden Gate bridge which you can land on and takeoff from, it seems to always be there but it doesn't show on the game map, you have to find it by eyeball-



There are also some others at different places which seem to come and go according to a sailing schedule or something, there's a good thread about it here-

http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?246384-Is-there-an-aircraft-carrier-out-there-that-i-can-spawn-on&highlight=toko

[f16jockey_2]

The four default carriers are AI, they follow a given route on a weekly basis.
Shown below is the carrier route goin' from San Francisco to San Diego and back. Enroute times can be seen at the different waypoints.
The carriers sail at 25 knots.



In practice, this means for example that when you take off KNTD Point Mugu NAS rwy 21 on a wednesday 11h00 (in summer), there'll be a carrier right in front of you, sailing west. Save a flight at that situation, and you can practice carriers whenever you want.

Be aware: traffic slider for "Ships and ferries" must be at 91% at least for the carriers to appear.
And please, don't save the flight as default, or day/time will move with your system's time.

Wim

[ScatterbrainKid]

Okay let's give it a try, 11 o'clock on any Wednesday morning in summer-






..and at least 91% ships/ferries traffic-


　
　


Yeehaw, there's our boy out in the Pacific just like F16jockey predicted-

　
　


He's steaming about 280 degrees so I set the wind at 15 kts from 280.
The 'meatball' lights on the carrier are reading green so i must be on the glideslope-

　
　


The carrier doesn't show on the map but the plane icon shows where he is, it's just gone 11a.m on a Wednesday morning remember. (red circle is Los Angeles for reference)

　
　

Ugh, I grunt as I dump the freeware Skyraider into the wires, the secret is not to try to flare but to fly straight into the wires and trust that naval plane landing gear is built to take the shock-

　
　
　
Bingo, the kite stops within about 25 yards, we don't see any graphic of the hook picking up the wires, it's abstracted.
It took me a few tries to succeed, the carrier moves at around 20 kts and because its flight deck is angled, landing is not as easy as you'd think because it generates a slight crosswind, I think you'd need a pocket calculator to work out what wind direction to set in FSX to negate the crosswind effect.
And during one flight I swear the carrier changed course about 10 degrees, maybe the captain likes to zigzag to make it hard for us flyboys-

[f16jockey_2]

And during one flight I swear the carrier changed course about 10 degrees, maybe the captain likes to zigzag to make it hard for us flyboys-

Notice there's a waypoint close to Point Mugu. At 11:06 the carrier makes a slight turn indeed.

Wim

[ScatterbrainKid]

Notice there's a waypoint close to Point Mugu. At 11:06 the carrier makes a slight turn indeed..

Somebody court-martial the captain!

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Okay I just HAD to try my luck landing the stock FSX F/A-18.
For the first attempt I tried to be smart and deliberately touched down short of the wires like this, expecting the hook to scrape along the deck and snag one as I rolled over it-




But oops, the hook missed all the wires and I ended up in the Pacific! I think landing short meant the plane and hook 'bounced' over the wires by a few inches-




My next attempt was done by the book, dumping the kite straight into the wires and it worked, note the puffs of smoke from the wheels as they violently hit the deck at around 120 kts-




And the hooked kite stopped within just a few yards-


NOOB TIP- I did it all in external locked spot view because i find it easier to learn that way because you can see how the plane sits in the air and get a better feel for flying, just glance at your airspeed now and again and try to touch down between 100 and 150 kts.