Often when it comes to carrier landings manuals in flightsims talk about the aircraft landing speed. What they often fail to mention is the carrier is moving. So a carrier travelling 30 knots with a headwind of ten will still require you to have an IAS of 190 to come in at the required speed to land. Otherwise you'll land short in the drink.

This is noticeable when trying to land the SU-33 on the carrier I couldn't understand why I was constantly failing in the past until the fact was explained to me in an article I read. I welcome any comments regarding this effect.

A valid point. But I think the wind is more of a factor here... Actually- no I'm wrong- it's the ADDED speed of the wind AND the carried.

That speed has to be subtracted from your groundspeed. That resulting number is what you want to keep an eye on for an efficient landing.

Or I am wrong again? Never been good at Naval Ops anyway! :P

Oh!
And welcome to the SimHQ forums!

Good topic! It would be good if we have a topic where someone with naval aviation experience write aboute some useful technique. And others, like navigation over water etc.

Very good topic to bring up, as I'm relearning how to land the Su-33 as well. However, the biggest point to remember is, once your have the deck in sight, normal operation is to follow the AOA lights and indicators, as they will provide more accurate indication than just airspeed.

Check out flankertraining.com. Ironhand has a video there that covers carrier landings pretty well.

The approach speed should center on the flight dynamics. It doesn't matter if the carrier is doing 30 knots or stationary. You'd want to touchdown at 4 knots if it was possible. What I'm saying is don't adjust speed based on what the carrier's doing. The airplane is happiest at a certain IAS/AoA/alpha so fly it there.

You should of course adjust your approach path to compensate for the moving target, but fly best speed regardless.

Building on the consensus answer, you land by glideslope and AOA on the carrier. While for a specific configuration the aircraft will have that AOA at or near a particular airspeed, it is AOA that matters because that gives you proportionally more lift at slow speeds.

While the headwind (coming from the carrier driving into the wind) is technically a factor, it tends to be a minor one that is adjusted out by flying the meatball on final. The headwind only subtracts from the aircraft's groundspeed while keeping indicated airspeed (and lift) is high as possible. Same with the carrier doing 30 kts into the wind; while the carrier speed and additional aircraft speed vectors cancel out (with exception of the x component on an angled deck), this allows a lower relative groundspeed for landing while keeping the indicated airspeed up.

Really, the biggest thing to adjust for after AOA/Glideslope is the x component. If you're landing 30 degrees offset from the bow of the carrier, the carrier moves constantly to your right while you are lined up. You actually have to line up right of the strip on final to catch the wires on touchdown.

Gosh I wish they'd include an NOLF FCLP setup somewhere on the new map... (I know that doesn't have anything to do with the moving ship topic..LOL..)



BeachAV8R

And for the record. I'm pretty sure that AOA and speed are the only things any pilot cares about regardless of whether the carrier is doing 5 knots or 35 knots.

BeachAV8R

Once you're configured and on-speed(AOA), you shouldn't really look at airspeed much, if at all. Your scan should be centered around the meatball and the AOA indexer (or the E-bracket and velocity vector on the HUD).

And also, everything I've read about carrier operations indicates that the biggest reason for being worried about the ship's speed during landing would be if one was spotting the deck, since that's how ramp strikes happen most often.