My second carrier landing...

Teller1900

Teller1900

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...Was surprisingly good (two wire). The third and fourth were great (for a beginner; at least each was on the three wire). My instructor was happy to point out, as I rolled to the #4 catapult on the "USS Nimitz," that it was perfect weather, daytime, and calm seas ...can't let me get too big of a head. I'd say my first trap did a pretty good job of humbling me; I killed myself, my GIB, and probably a few people on the deck.

No, I'm not writing to you from the grave; this weekend I had a wonderful opportunity to go to NAS Oceana and fly one of their F/A-18F simulators. I know there are many on here who have flown fighter type aircraft for real and to you this will probably seem parochial, but for an Air Force reject like me it was quite good fun (even though it was a Navy jet).

Long story short, after 4 traps, 5 runway landings, three catapult shots, a lot of Gs, and a lot of Machs they practically had to drag me out of the seat when my two hours was up. Unfortunately phones and cameras were strickly verboten, but I figured y'all could appreciate the experience. I wrote more about the day here so as to not bore you with too many details. :D
 
very cool. all that flight sim 2004 practice paid off.
 
Teller1900 said:
...Was surprisingly good (two wire). The third and fourth were great (for a beginner; at least each was on the three wire). My instructor was happy to point out, as I rolled to the #4 catapult on the "USS Nimitz," that it was perfect weather, daytime, and calm seas ...can't let me get too big of a head. I'd say my first trap did a pretty good job of humbling me; I killed myself, my GIB, and probably a few people on the deck.

No, I'm not writing to you from the grave; this weekend I had a wonderful opportunity to go to NAS Oceana and fly one of their F/A-18F simulators. I know there are many on here who have flown fighter type aircraft for real and to you this will probably seem parochial, but for an Air Force reject like me it was quite good fun (even though it was a Navy jet).

Long story short, after 4 traps, 5 runway landings, three catapult shots, a lot of Gs, and a lot of Machs they practically had to drag me out of the seat when my two hours was up. Unfortunately phones and cameras were strickly verboten, but I figured y'all could appreciate the experience. I wrote more about the day here so as to not bore you with too many details. :D
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Fun stuff!!

:D

I was down at Oceana for a Navy-sponsored conference last August. We were there near quittin' time (GS types run the place), but they were gracious enough to let me do a couple of T/O and landings.

It took a few tries to get the proper throttle setting on landing -- it takes alot of power to fly an F/A-18 that slow!
 
dmccormack said:
Fun stuff!!

:D

I was down at Oceana for a Navy-sponsored conference last August. We were there near quittin' time (GS types run the place), but they were gracious enough to let me do a couple of T/O and landings.

It took a few tries to get the proper throttle setting on landing -- it takes alot of power to fly an F/A-18 that slow!
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It's backward, isn't it! You've got to pull a lot of power to get the darn thing slowed down, but then once that nose comes up into the high Alpha, you've got to put it all back in to keep from falling out of the sky. I think I found 23-24% on the nozzles with 88% RPMs seems to be a good glideslope. File that under useful information for your everyday life :rofl:.

If you're every back down here for another conference, you'll have to let me know!
 
Teller1900 said:
If you're every back down here for another conference, you'll have to let me know!
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I certainly will -- I usually have work in the area several times a year, but I always stay at the Beach (Holiday Inn Surfside).

It's worth the few extra minutes drive time to be able to run along the beach first thing in the AM!


Last time I was there I flew into Hampton Exec.. With a name like that I was expecting lots of jets, King Airs, etc.

Ummm.....

Not so much.
 
dmccormack said:
I certainly will -- I usually have work in the area several times a year, but I always stay at the Beach (Holiday Inn Surfside).

It's worth the few extra minutes drive time to be able to run along the beach first thing in the AM!


Last time I was there I flew into Hampton Exec.. With a name like that I was expecting lots of jets, King Airs, etc.

Ummm.....

Not so much.
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:rofl::rofl: Ya, not so much! I love that airport, though; I think it's the last airport left in the US with no fence at all. Chesapeake is where I rent (KCPK), it's much more "executive" looking than Hampton Roads and has a bigger runway. Of course, Norfolk is pretty nice too. Either way I'm only about 7 minutes from the beach. I probably won't be there first thing in the AM, though :no:.
 
Teller1900 said:
:rofl::rofl: Ya, not so much! I love that airport, though; I think it's the last airport left in the US with no fence at all. Chesapeake is where I rent (KCPK), it's much more "executive" looking than Hampton Roads and has a bigger runway. Of course, Norfolk is pretty nice too. Either way I'm only about 7 minutes from the beach. I probably won't be there first thing in the AM, though :no:.
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Shannon airport in Fredricksburg, Va is another with only a decorative "fence" near the ramp.
 
Does it give a 'g' readout on the sim, as an indicator of touchdown vertical energy? (if that was not a factor I bet I could hit the deck...somewhere)!
 
Nimitz, eh? Move up to the next boat and you'd be in some style, particularly with the name. I feel that way even if Chester was born near here. :)
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Does it give a 'g' readout on the sim, as an indicator of touchdown vertical energy? (if that was not a factor I bet I could hit the deck...somewhere)!
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Haha, no they didn't have a meter specifically for that, though I suspect it would red screen if you screw up too bad (come in too low and you crash on the back of the ship, too high and you have to dive for the deck...and you crash). The G meter on the HUD only gives you real time readout of current G-load and a display of the maximum sustained G achieved. I don't know if that would show a hard landing before the sim would show a crash. The good part is, you can hit pretty hard, and that's a good landing by carrier standards. I can do hard landings!
 
KennyFlys said:
Nimitz, eh? Move up to the next boat and you'd be in some style, particularly with the name. I feel that way even if Chester was born near here. :)
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It would have made a little more sense to be on 69 when I was off the coast of Virginia (especially since the Eisenhower has been sitting at Navy Norfolk for a while now, to boot) but I guess they want to practice on the flagship :D. That, or the guys in the simulated Nimitz got lost and found the wrong coast. Now if I had been flying the S-3 sim, I would've insisted they take me to the Eisenhower.
 
Was it full motion? I'm guessing it was, being the military. Flying a non-motion sim at SimCom was a stomach-churner. It's amazing how the brain perceives motion, or not.

BTW, you suck x 1000^42:p
 
flyersfan31 said:
Was it full motion? I'm guessing it was, being the military. Flying a non-motion sim at SimCom was a stomach-churner. It's amazing how the brain perceives motion, or not.

BTW, you suck x 1000^42:p
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I think this is the first time I've gotten the "I hate you" treatment (at least when it was meant in a good way). It's kind of fun :D.

Actually the ones we flew were the floor models. The screen wrapped around about 320 degrees left-right and on about a 45 degree angle behind the back of your head. There was no actual motion, but the visuals are good enough that...well...the instructor had trouble sitting on the side rail of the cockpit without falling backwards when I would roll or loop.

They do have full motion versions there, though. Those things were something to see! The motion platform is basically the cockpit section of an F-18 (front seat and back), with a working canopy, mounted on hydraulics. The whole thing sat in the center of a monolithic dome (which is the screen). The visuals are provided by a dozen or so laser projectors, each of which is around $1mil, they said. The dome is only about 20 feet in diameter, so talking inside of it causes some really trippy auditory effects. They said maybe next time we'll get to use those, unfortunately they had already been shut down for the weekend by the time we got there.
 
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