For one thing, a carrier is moving.
It is a lot easier to land on a carrier that is moving in the direction you are trying to land.
Easier to take off of a moving carrier too--especially with full tanks and ordinance.
So practicing on land would actually be more difficult.
But if somebody really wanted to do this, then all they would have to do place an aircraft carrier (static ship) on land. In fact, you could find some terrain that is about the height of the carrier and the deck would be at ground level.
Also--look at the tutorials/training tracks in the game for help.
There is a campaign called "Straight Off the Farm" that you should look up. I dont even fly carrier missions, and after playing it, I can hit a fight deck everytime, almost!!!
Davis0079 almost has it right ... the campaign is called "Straight From the Farm" by Zeus-cat and it's normally available from Mission4Today ... however;
They are upgrading their servers and when I tried to access it a few minutes ago it was not available. It appears that the downloads section is temporarily off line while they are installing their new servers. I believe M4T hopes to have the new servers on line sometime Friday.
While I'm not very good at carrier landings I've at least got a chance at a non-fatal landing (crash) since I used the campaign ... good luck.
i always have come in a little shalow. 87% sucsess, 2% boomer, .5% bolter, 10.2% clapsed gear and/or bent prop, .3% fire ball.
Try using the CTRL+F1 function so you can where your plane is moving. The little circle with wings will tell you where your plane is headed. It makes landing on Carriers much easier (it's what it was designed for...). After a little practice you get a feel for the angle and speed of decent.
P-38L has made a very cool mission pack called "Real Pilot"
I think it is the 3rd mission there--but it is a carrier landing without fuel.
Real tough--excellent fun.
Took me about 10 tries.
You can find them here:
viewtopic.php?t=12697
Posts: 678
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Hi mate!
Why don't you try a little program (you can find it on M4T when the site will return available in the next couple of days) named "Carrier Training MIssion Generator" ?
It's a very useful program that allow you to set a lot of landing parameters (ship headling and speed , kind of plane and ship , solo or multiplane landing , wind , condition , time...etc etc) so you can exercitate better!
cheers
walter
SEMPER INCOMMODUS
EasyRider, that is a great training flick!! I wish I could put something like that together. Is that FRAPS?
As RichardH so politely put it, that is not necessarily the best way to actually go about it, but I sure do appreciate the quality of the production. With the advent of Fireball's Wind Config mod, you can now carry out very realistic carrier flight operations, even on the little Jeep carriers. For those of you who are so inclined, I can't recommend that mod highly enough.
The initial entry into the pattern should be done at pattern altitude - about 500 ft, passing right alongside of the carrier with tailhook extended to signify your intention to come aboard. If they have a ready deck, they would have hoisted a "Charlie" pendent letting you know that they are ready to accept you. So, there you are, passing along the starboard side, just about a hundred feet or so away from the island, doing something like 120-130 kts. You give yourself a good 10 second count after passing the bow, then break left into the downwind putting your flaps and gear down. As you roll out onto the downwind leg - about 1000-1200m away from the carrier, you should be slowing to about 90 kts while holding your pattern altitude of about 500 ft. When the bow of the carrier comes to the leading edge of the wing tip, start your turn to final. Keep in mind that the ship is chugging along at 19 - 30 kts, depending on what you're landing on, and if you have the wind config mod installed, you should have a bit of wind blowing you away from the ship! So, you want to continue that turn to put your nose right on the fantail of the ship as you control your rate of decent with power - keeping the ball centered with pedals and not allowing your airspeed to increase as you descend. This style of approach is not only the way they actually did it for real, but it will help you - as it did them - to keep the deck in sight all the way down to the trap. The key to a good trap is to arrive over the deck with wings level, and in a nose up attitude with an airspeed just slightly above the stall speed. Pull the throttle all the way off and keep the nose up with the stick. Avoid the use of the brakes.
The most common errors we see in our carrier training are turns to final being done way too late. This results in a long straight in approach with the deck almost impossible to see in the last critical moments prior to the cut. The next most common error is the pilot "spotting" the deck - this is where he drops his nose just for a second to catch a glimpse of the deck - which results in an increase in rate of decent and an unwanted build up of speed. This, more often than not, results in either a bent prop or a large bounce with a subsequent broken landing gear. Another result of a long straight in approach is a touch down on the mains only, with the tail hook failing to catch the wires and a bolter - assuming that there is nothing sitting out in front of him. It takes a lot of time offline getting yourself comfortable with handling the plane in the landing configuration at speeds just above the stall. But once you get it down, there's nothing more rewarding than to make a perfect trap after a long mission over blue water with your squaddies in an SEOW campaign! :wink:
