Steve Hinson's F-14 panel and plane-VOR2 question

[fonebone]

I had to retune the radio to get the DME working, but how do I get the VOR2 gauge, on right hand of windscreen, to activate and show an accurate approach? I pull up the map,but I'm missing something. I'm on the Ike, CVN 69, using Car2004 carriers,doing traps.Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

[old_wombat]

Is it activated in the aircraft.cfg file? Can you post the [Radios] section of that file?

[fonebone]

Hi Steve; I managed to change the radio freq. around and finally got the DME and VOR2 to work. What's hard to do is setting the needle on the VOR2 gage to line up on the approach centerline, as it varies several degrees from the forward cats. I even tried slewing the plane and centering line of sight down the center line where you land, hoping the gage would move as you moved,and I could the adjust the needle to center it, but that did not work. The gage did not vary with the planes' movement. I tried readjusting it on final approach, but that is just impossible, having to watch your AOA,airspeed, etc., you really have your hands full!! You wouldn't know the difference in angles from the forward cats to the ship centerline, would you? Or how to calculate it? I'm missing something there, and I bet it's simple stuff! Thanks for answering! [Radios]

 

// Radio Type=availiable, standby frequency, has glide slope

Audio.1=1

Com.1=1,1,0

Com.2=1,1,0

Nav.1=1,1,1

Nav.2=1,1,1

Adf.1=1,1

Transponder.1=1

Marker.1=1

[PhantomTweak]

First off, you can take the GS off of NAV2. IE: NAV.2=1,1,0, second, you can drop the 3rd digit off COM1 and COM2, IE: COM.1=1,1

Next, most carriers used in the Sim world have the angle deck 7° off the BRC, or Base Recovery Course, the course the ship is sailing. Yes, I know the ships are stationary, but it's the course it would be sailing if it were moving. The two forward (for'ard) cats are slightly off the BRC. Lining up on them is not the correct BRC.

Finally, the ILS is for NAV1, not NAV2. You can use NAV2 the line up the BRC for your course into the break, if you use it for landing, and then, as you come around the fantail, the HUD should be displaying the ILS dialed into NAV1.

To give the last little bit of reality, set the wind at ground level to about 30-35kts, and as close to down the angle deck as you can get. That way, as you see the LSO's platform as you are on downwind, you will come around during your turn to the groove at just the right distance to line up at the right distance to give you about 18 seconds in the groove.

I did go into altituddes, as I am going to presume you know what they should be at which step in the recovery.

If you care, the little add-on for FSX, AICarriers.NET, permits the use of moving carriers. Dino has a wonderful F-14 for FSX also. Mix in vLSO, and PitchingDeck, and you have a super realistic carrier experience. I know, this is the FS9 forum, I'm just offering a possible improvement, should you choose to go to FSX someday.

Hope all my rambling helps a little :D

Pat☺

[fonebone]

Hi Pat; Thanks for the reply! Could you go into more detail on the dropping of certain digits on the radio config., and what that does? (what's GS. glide slope?) What freq.'s am I tuning to, to set Nav1 and Nav2? When you say Nav1 is for the ILS, is that freq. shown on the map? When that is set, and if you are using a HUD, do the brackets in the HUD guide you down the approach? I know we aren't talking autopilot locking to glide slope. I'm sure with FSX, there is a lot more realism, and someday I might use it, but my old 533 machine still does great with FS2002 and FS2004, and it will never handle FSX. I watch some youtube stuff on FSX carrier scenes, and it is amazing. I do put the wind as you describe, and lighten the fuel load to no more than 50% capacity for min landing weight. Again, a more thorough breakdown of what you replied would be most educational! I'm an eager student! Thanks so much. Semper Fi Pete

[PhantomTweak]

Semper Fi, Brother!

OK, in the [radio] section of the aircraft.cfg, the first number after the = sign is the primary, or active frequency, active or not, ie: is there a radio associated with that heading, like COM2, NAV1 etc, the second is does the radio have a standby frequency, that you can flip-flop to with the button a lot of radios have. The third is "does that particular radio (com1, nav2, whatever) have a GlideSlope capability?". A 1 is yes, a 0 is no, and I don't recall any COM radio that has a glideslope :D Almost every [radio] section I've seen only has a glideslope on NAV1. VERY rarely on NAV2.

As to what freq goes where? NAV1 is the ILS, or the frequency associated with the runway (angle deck in this case), NAV2 is normally for the VOR associated with the ship. Most of the add-on carriers, as I recall (I used fs9 for the LONGEST time! You should see the cockpit I wound up building for Dino's Tomcat and the FS KBT F-18F! Realistic? Nope, but darn useful to me!) have an ILS and VOR both. The ILS usually has about a 15 or 25 nmi range, and the VOR has a much longer one, about 100nmi, I think. You use the VOR to get close, the ILS to bring her on in.

Once you have the ILS active (most need you to be +/-5° of the angle deck heading to get left/right information) it will usually show a normal ILS display on the HUD, the crossed bars, vertical for left/right, horizontal for up/down information. Well, you hope they stay crossed, at least :D Usually, the ILS is on the "runway" so you have to click on the "airport" to see it (the "runway" heading shown will be the angle deck's heading, so the BRC is about 7° stbd of that), and the VOR is shown on the map as the little square where the ship is. Some of them give the TACAN the VOR is associated with, 25X = 117.60 for example, but I can't recall many FS9 radios that accept TACAN inputs.

AND you need to have the E symbol lined up with the velocity vector, the little circle with 3 lines sticking out of it which tells you where the aircraft is going. Ideally, the ILS bars will overlay those two. I don't recall if the FS9 HUD has an acceleration carat or not, the little triangle to the right of the VV that tells you whether you accelerating or decelerating, but I don't think so. I may be wrong though. I may fire up my FS9 and see.

I am going to assume you know the right altitudes and positions for an "Overhead Recovery", or Break. It's the Navy way, after all :D

I think I covered all your queries, but I may be wrong. Often am, just ask the great and powerful Stringbean :) If I didn't, or you have more, feel free to ask. Be careful, though, I have the nasty habit of telling you how to build a clock if you ask me the time, y'know? But I'd really rather give too much info, up to a point, than not enough.

By the way, I ran FSX-SE on an old Dell 2 core 2.4 GHz laptop for the longest time. You might be surprized what can run FSX. Did I have all the sliders full right? No, but it worked fine for me as was.

Good luck, and enjoy it, no matter what you use :D

Pat☺

[old_wombat]

To answer your questions and comments...

 

I found the easiest way to measure angles was to:

 

- Select View -> View Mode -> Top Down

- Press Shift Z untili the red line display appears.

- Press Y to get into Slew Mode

- Use the 1 and 3 keys to rotate until what you want to measure is "perfectly vertical".

 

I use Carriers 2006, and using CVN68, the one outside Port Macquarie in Australia, and using that method produces:

 

Angled Deck: 133

Port Bow Cat: 139

Stbd Bow Cat: 138 (so cats are not parallel ...)

Ships centreline: 142

 

If you are using RCBCO to provide the HUD, then the approach dot on that definitely does NOT use the ILS. If for no other reason than the HUD will work even if you do not have an ILS.

 

Also note that the glide slope for the HUD is set in \Gauges\rcb-miljet\COP_Config.ini, parameter number 06 ("Lvar_06=COP_GlideslopeAngleDegrees"). If this is not the same as the glideslope in your carrier's AFCAD, then you will end up very confused - the ILS glideslope will be different to the HUD glideslope!

 

I have also done what I certainly accept is "cheating". I have spent many pleasant hours adding a Support Fleet, and have placed one of the ships directly astern of the angled deck, and equipped it with an ADF. This gives me something to "home in on", and I know then that I have to fly directly over it to land correctly. This is certainly "cheating and also unrealistic - in hostile territory neither the carrier nor any support ships would do anything as silly as broadcast an ADF or ILS signal.

 

I also second Tweak's comments about setting a 30-35 know headwind, which is certainly appropriate for a nukie. Having an animated wake and adding smoke going due astern to the support ships increases reality as well.

 

Finally, a matter of personal preference, I use the IRIS Tomcat with a fantastic FDE customised for me by Chuck (Napamule). IRIS provides four different models, with different underwind and underbody loadouts. I think that the IRIS Tomcat has the best textures.

[fonebone]

Hi Steve; Thanks for the very detailed info! It's amazing how you can be simming for years and not get into all aspects of the game. Spent way too much of the time in CFS1 and CFS2 dogfighting, especially on-line, in the early days!! Yes, I have used RCBCO since it first came out. Still fly FS2002 with ArrCab, which you can tweak and make very realistic cats and traps. I like to fly (in FS9) the Scott Printz full screen HUD on the F-18, and cat and trap solely by using that view. I'm still learning! I do have the Iris Tomcats, and I jump from one to the other models trying to figure which one gives me the best realistic control on approach. Which do you think is closest? The F-14 OAQM CARR.zip I find has a nice panel view with nothing above the instrument panel, and a great Airfile that I use on other aircraft, also. Very controllable and forgiving at low approach speeds. I will practice with your view info-thanks so much! Pete

[fonebone]

Hi Pat; Thanks again for a very detailed reply-just the stuff I was looking for. I'm the same way--if someone wants an answer, I'll give them or show them everything down to the last detail, because that's how I like to be helped! I just rechecked my F-18 full screen HUD by Scott Printz that I fly, and yes it does have what they call the "energy carat". Is this the HUD that you use? His HUD panel is great,as it has the complete carrier patterns in the Docs that really break things down. Thanks for the info on runways relating to carriers, and where to find this; that's the stuff that I needed! I will definitely try FSX then, for my old machine handles FS9 quite well. Can you still buy it? I thought I saw something about there being a free download for it somewhere. Pete 'Nam 66-67 Mekong Delta

[PhantomTweak]

Hey Pete!

Thank you very much for your service :D

 

I'm glad I could help a little. Steve is also darn good at this stuff, if you hadn't noticed. I personally use Dino Cattaneo's F-14, but I modified the .air file and aircraft.cfg slightly...ahem...ok a lot, but oh how I love the way it flies! I can dig up the zipfile I started with if you want. I love that plane for the way it flies, although yes, the Iris planes have some features it doesn't, like the DLC, but I just like Dino's better. I think a lot comes down to personal preference, the way you fly, and so on.

As to HUDs, I use an add-on HUD I found, zipfile named hudhrnt.zip. I love it. Pretty realistic, for FS9. Yes it's for the Hornet, but it works on pretty much any plane you want to use it on. A couple others is one from Tim "Piglet" Conrad, which may be found in the library HERE, very realistic, and one contained in THIS DOWNLOAD, which is specifically for Dino's Tomcat, but again, you can use the HUD where ever you like.

The best way to get ahold of FSX these days, IN MY OPINION ONLY, is the FSX-Steam Edition. It is usually $25.00, but they frequently have sales where it can get down to $5.00. It seems like most Box Editions are pretty steep nowadays, because of rarity. Make sure, if you do get a Boxed Edition you get the Deluxe edition, and the Acceleration addon. I can never recall what all is included in what edition, I just know SE includes everything :D

Some add-ons for FSX you MUST have for Carrier fun is AICarriers.NET, not .exe. That is an important distinction. And the FSDT FSX Blue ANgels F/A-18C, v16.1, along with vLSO, and Javier's Nimitz package for AICarriers. It rocks. This stuff lets you add moving carriers to your world, a fantasticly real Hornet, and an obnoxious AI LSO. They hate me, they really do. No matter how well I do, they still nitpick me to death :D Kidding, really. The vLSO makes a very realistic LSO in the SIM to grade your landings and display graphicaly what you did right. Or in my case, wrong. I still think the guy that programmed it, one Paddles over on the FSDT forums, has it in for me. Humph :D ;)

Hope all that babbling helps a little. I'll see about posting a picture of my ...ahem...slightly modified F-14 cockpit as soon as I can. Is it realistic? Nope. But I love it and spent a lot of time making it, and making changes to other parts, like the .air and aircraft.cfg files. I am an inveterate tinkerer :D

Pat☺

[fonebone]

Hi Pat and Steve; First, thanks for your detailed replies! I'm applying what you have suggested. I checked Hudhrnt.zip and it is the same Scott Printz HUD I dwnld several years ago. Great HUD! One small favor, if you could. Try traps with the F-14 in " F14D- OAQM CARR.zip" and find out why it will not grab a cable in RCBCO in FS9. Oh, I know it was for FS2002, but it works ok in FS9. I like the view over the instrument panel, and what I feel is an excellent Airfile, giving precise control on approach. It can be an ornery plane in FS9, right in the middle of a flight rebooting FS9, and other odd traits, like sometimes showing up as a default Cessna, but it is a good looking and performing plane. I went into the Aircraft config. and added tailhook, both 4 foot and 7 foot hooks, and on approach I hit Shift T to lower it, and it does show that in upper left, in red, but it will NOT grab a cable on the most perfect landing! I sure would like to know why it can't. Thanks guys! Pete

[PhantomTweak]

LOL! It doesn't sound like that '14 is the best possible choice for FS9 :)

It crashes the game, and so on. No, I think I'll pass on that.

I went into the Aircraft config. and added tailhook, both 4 foot and 7 foot hooks, and on approach I hit Shift T to lower it, and it does show that in upper left, in red,

What did Mr. B's three little lights show? It's been so long, I forget if orange is right or red, when flying, but it's pretty important. 4 and 7 foot tailhooks are just for two specific aircraft, not just generic.

As to the tailhook. Did you read Rob Barendregt's instructions in the RCBO 2.0 package on how to install, which you obviously can do, and test the tailhook for the right length and position? The position is easy, if you understand the coordinate system used in the aircraft.cfg. Look for the furthest aft light, and put the tailhook about there, but at the middle of the plane left/right, and the middle vertically. I personally use the length of the main gear to get a starting point for the length of the hook. Using Mr. B's method works best for the length, though. Not all planes fall into an easy to install category, have odd measurments, and so on. And I won't swear (yes, I will, I do a lot) that the plane you have will accept a tailhook because of the .mdl file. I ran into a few like that.

For the View over the panel: In the VC, if you use that, and I do a lot, you can adjust the aircraft.cfg's [views] section easily. Just change the vertical number to either less negative or more negative, depending on if you want to sit higher or lower. Easy peasy.

Finally, and this may be a stupid question, but did you try to land on a carrier capable of accepting a landing, and has the right "stuff" installed from the RCBCO? Did you try the shore-based practice location? TFFG I think it is? Just to check?

Maybe a dumb question, and I'm sorry, I don't mean to be insulting. It's just an easy thing to do, and I know I have more than once...

Anyway, have fun! I personally would stick to FS9 planes. If you like the .air file, try either using that .air file for an FS9 specific airplane, or taking sections out of it and putting them into the plane you want's air file? Again, Wombat likes the Iris plane, I'm more a fan of Dino's Tomcat. Just a thought. Or do some studying, and change the .air file to make the plane react how you want. I do, on every plane I get :D Except the FSDT Hornet. That is about as perfect as it gets, as-is. But it's FSX, so...

Pat☺

[old_wombat]

Regarding your not trapping with a particular HUD, I have three brief comments to add to this very long post.

 

First, agree with Tweak, you have to test your tailhook. Does the gauge light turn orange when you lower the hook?

 

Second, reading between the lines of your post, I am assuming that you have done this, and it works, that it is merely changing the HUD that has prevented you from trapping. Is that correct? As in, if you change to HUD #1 and do NOTHING else, then you cannot trap, but if you replace it with HUD #2 and again do NOTHING ELSE then you can trap correctly?

 

If so, then maybe with HUD #2 you are not activiting one or more of the "hidden" gauges? These ones, that "do things" but dont display anything?

 

gauge01=COP_Config!config, 0,0,,, ./gauges/rcb-miljet/COP_Config.ini

gauge02=COP_Sound!dsd_xml_sound3, 0,0,,, ./gauges/rcb-miljet/COP_Sound.ini

gauge03=rcb-miljet!CatLaunch, 0,0

gauge04=dsd_carrier_zones!dsd_carrier_zones, 0,0

gauge05=rcb-miljet!SonicBoomControl, 0,0

 

Finally, if you are having ANY kind of trouble trapping or catting, then for diagnostic purposes you should have displayed on your panel the high-resolution position display, the red/green one: rcb-miljet!PositionDisplay . AFAIK, this is the ONLY way of knowing fur sure whether you have actually landed in the trapping zone.

[fonebone]

Hi Steve; I didn't know I was making a very long post--- I changed the length of the hook and it seemed to work, along with flying right down to the wire with the red/green RCBCO guide. Thanks for showing those "hidden gauges" and explaining their importance. I went through the process in the Docs on tailhook length, and passed the test finally after making the hook unrealistically long! Pete

[fonebone]

Hi Pat; Finally got that bird to trap. Looks like a combination of factors- because the plane is a might troublesome in the sim, I think a major problem was a kind of poor modeling of the parameters associated with the plane causing it to act strange. One observation--I still go back to FS2002 a lot, because I have learned to tweak ArrCab for very realistic traps, where it stretches the cable out (depending on your plane weight) to a realistic stop. I just cannot get that realism in FS9; it just traps and screeches to a unrealistic sudden stop. And yes, I fly many different planes trapping on different carriers. I did use the updated Carriers2006 for a while, and while the colors and detail were nice, I missed seeing the deck hands and planes and equipment on the flightdeck--it was barren! So I went back to Carriers 2004. I like to hit "replay" and study my approach from all different angles, and it's nice to see the crews on board as you view around, especially the LSO gang, extreme aft, port side, who study and grade your landing. Pete

[PhantomTweak]

Oh, I know the LSO's. Quite well. In FSX, there is a little add-on called vLSO (yes, virtual LSO). They grade your trap, show you a graphical representation of the approach, everything a real LSO would do.

And the hate my guts, I swear. I think the guy that wrote it wrote in a special Malicious LSO just for my benefit. They hate me...

Anyway, you may think the plane's hook is unrealsitically long, but if that's what it takes to make it work on that bird, then it's just the right length. :)

As to the sudden stop, there is a parameter to change that. The [tailhook] section has a line cable_force_adjust = 1.00. Try lowering it a bit. There was something very similar in the RCBCO settings too, but it's been so long...

How to adjust it for a particular plane's weight is in the documentation though.

Also, if your plane tends to move to one side or another when you trap right on or very close to the centerline, take and move the tailhook's position further aft. It my seem to be behind the aircraft, but it stops that veering off or tipping over.

Hope that stuff helps a little bit :D By the way, FSX-SE is on sale for $7.99 until the 23rd. You mentioned you might be interested i getting it...

Pat☺

[old_wombat]

Well, Peter, glad you got your bird to trap. But I can't let go your comment about "... I missed seeing the deck hands and planes and equipment on the flightdeck ..." I would urge and exhort you to be a glass half full kind of guy and see the empty carrier deck not as a problem, but as a blank canvas full of opportunities.

 

1. For every carrier in 2006 there is a "hangarsmulersradartowers.bgl", which as the name suggests, will populate parts of the deck with (amongst others) towing mules.

 

2. If Carriers2004 is anything like 2006, then everything you like to see on the carrier deck is likely to be contained in a separate bgl. You can easily figure out which one it is. It is possible, even high likely, that you can copy this bgl to your 2006 Scenery folder and it will work there, so then you will have your deck repopulated. The "Rainbow" textures should already be there in the corresponding texture folder, but if not, you can obviously copy those too.

 

3. If you have the (free!) MCX program (and you should!), then you can make up static aircraft from your flying ones, and thus you can populate your flight deck with static aircraft that look EXACTLY like your flying one - after all, they will use the same textures! So you can really be "one of the guys". You can also "move and freeze" any of the animated parts to get slightly different looking variants of the same plane.

 

4. If you get the (free!) MAIW Scenery Library Objects, then you will have literally hundreds of very relevant objects that you can put on the deck - on, near, under and around your static aircraft. Incidentally, that library contains several rotating radars, of which you can place one or more on a suitable tower on your carrier. Again using MCX, you can spend a few pleasant evenings just looking through those objects to see which ones you might like.