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Naval Flight Operations - An Evaluation And CritiqueBy Ray HillThroughout the history of flight,naval aviation has always been far more challenging than landoperations. The naval flight spectrum, taking account of the need ofany marine arm, has operated a broad spectrum from landplanes,seaplanes, shipborne catapult launches (e.g. from cruisers and CAMmerchantmen), rotary wings, from almost anything that floats (civil aswell). Finally of course there are the aircraft carriers. I willignore the nasty flying things that come out of submarines thesedays. The X-Plane platform offers some access to this type of flying,although in my opinion, they could offer customers far more, even as a$20 cost option. Out of the box we get the Nimitz and the Perry, plusan oil rig, and sometimes even a sloop enjoying a life of leisure. Intheir own right they are all reasonable enough; the Perry and oil rigare equipped for rotary operations, maybe even VTOL (I remember aP1127 practising landings on our old cruiser HMS Tiger). Nimitz ofcourse is well equipped for CATOBAR operation, but the downside isthat there is no option to set up a non catapult launch for somethinglike a Harrier/AV8 Osprey or F35, unless you land it on the deck firstand then save it as as a .sit file. Those simmers not familiar withaircraft landings, will have immense difficulty landing on Nimitzbecause the special situation for the 'carrier landing' does not offerenough time to get the aeroplane into a stable situation. Why oh whyif you use Shift+4, does it stupidly give you a front view? Aworkaround for some of these problems is to take off from a shorebased strip and then find the carrier. X-Plane is pretty smart, inthat it will always put Nimitz somewhere near to your start position(you can open the map to find it). If you want to do a water start fora seaplane (in the UK we seem to get Loch Lomond as our default), youcould equally take off from Southampton airport, land in PortsmouthHarbour and then save it as a .sit file. Landing on a carrier involves a moving runway at roughly 20 kts, andif the carrier is heading into a 15 kt headwind, we get 35 kts. If ourjet has a stall speed of maybe 160 kts, we can hit the deck at around arelative 105 kts groundspeed. In a high sea the deck of the Nimitz maypitch through a range of more than 50 feet, so if we are on approach andthe rear deck is down, we may overshoot the arrestor wires, andlikewise, if it is pitched up, we may well slam into the stern. Notsure if there is any truth to this, but apparently someone mentionedthat the US Navy could never have carried out the Falklands operationas they would have been unable to fly high speed jets in heavy seastates; whereas VTOL planes (used by the RAF), are more adaptable -that is not to say it is easier however. Anyway, whether this is oldwives gossip, I cannot possibly comment further. Be careful of possible wind effect from the bridge; a good skipperwill hold the ship dead into the wind, but it may shear. However I amunsure if .obj files for ships have any actually simulated aerodynamicvalue; it may be just a spook from a wobbly hand. Apart from Nimitz and Perry, there are a few other alternativecarriers (freeware), in which to try your hand at landings: Queen Elizabeth, a new build recently published by MRL: hms_queen_elizabeth.zip One of my own: future_royal_navy.zip Operational testing done in X-Plane 11.30. With MRL's Queen Elizabeth loaded up, I thought I'd send my 'spyplane' out for a clandestine visit. On the way back, I used the XCARR(Nimitz) approach scenario. /images/howtos/navalflt/t/1.jpg /images/howtos/navalflt/t/2.jpg /images/howtos/navalflt/t/3.jpgThe build of this carrier is exceptionally good, possibly as goodas Nimitz. It is however, rather let down by some problems whichprobably have more to do with the limitations within X-Plane, ratherthan the skills of the talented author. For starters, the bow wave istoo far forward, and the stern wave cuts off too sharply. In myopinion, it should be staggered and broken up a bit. It also requiresa Cat Shot for take off, but Queen Elizabeth will never have one, andif you load the 'Cat Shot' situation, your plane is rudely dumped intothe sea. My analysis makes me think that the ramp start for the catshot is set close to the bow wave, so ultimately only dimensioned forNimitz (if Laminar have features to fix this, they should publishthem). I suspect if MRL set his ship up so the bow wave was at thestern, it may go some way to fixing this issue - at the expense of thestern wave being a long way back. /images/howtos/navalflt/t/4.jpg /images/howtos/navalflt/t/5.jpg /images/howtos/navalflt/t/6.jpg /images/howtos/navalflt/t/7.jpgConclusionsThe default carrier, Nimitz, provides a realistic platform for USNoperations. However, since all ops are built on that default model,Laminar really ought to improve carrier handling. With that in mind,here are some ideas about how they could possibly go about it. 1. Provide a naval operations menu option, complete with a drop downlist of carrier choice. 2. Provide carrier builders with a framework of rules, so they canput it into something like a .prefs file. For example, this would need to contain basic parameters: Ship length, against which, software can position both bow and stern wakesCat on/off Deck heightRamp start positionArrestor wire positionCatch net position (we don't want to write off £800,000 of F35 parked on the deck of a modern carrier)The ability to import a custom catapult, e.g. for a cruiser/battleship or armed merchantman CAM ship. Nice to have a Kingfisher launched from the back of USS Missouri or a Walrus from HMS Belfast.3. Geographical start co-ordinates so we con override the defaultlocation; this could also be applied to seaplanes. If enough people start taking about this, maybe Laminar willimprove matters, or maybe it's possible to write a 3rd partyplugin? I just love the Brit' calling the "Ball Bar" & "Wave Orft". Happy landing shipmates. Ray Hill www.rayhillwrites.com
