Pitching Deck

[TARPSBird]

In the second video, last guy to come aboard did a pro job. The other folks kept coming in high, no wonder they boltered. They were like 2/3 of the way down the angle before you even saw sparks from the hook.

 

[PRB]

What is the proper technique in this situation? I'm guessing the "Fresno Lens" is "Earth Stabilized", and if so, it looks like the pilots are adjusting power, up and down, in order to maintain proper orientation with the deck, and not the approach light lens system. If I'm a nugget carrier pilot, what am I told is the proper way to do this at night when the deck is pitching? Fly the Lens, or fly the deck?

 

[orionll]

Pitch for airspeed, power for altitude. Follow the glideslope based on the ball's indication (IFLOLS) or LSO (if you're running vLSO). Don't try to chase the deck up and down. The FSX Blue Angels have a nice carrier landing tutorial entitled "OK, 3" on Vimeo.

 

[SH427]

FLY THE BALL.
for the love of GOD fly the ball!
That's what was drilled into me over various conversations with RL Navy pilots.

 

[PRB]

Flying the ball makes sense, but doing so all the way down to the wires seems to imply that the difference between a bolter and an OK-3 pass, in pitching deck conditions, is 100% luck, driven entirely by where the deck is when you happen to cross the wires. It looked to me like every one of the pilots in the PBS show was chasing the deck, to some degree. Of course most of them boltered too... I guess that's why they get paid the big bucks.

 

[gray eagle]

I guess rotor heads don't have it as bad with carrier landings as the fixed wing community.

 

[strykerpsg]

Gray Eagle, thanks for sharing. I see both Helldiver's point about a more extreme roll, but PRB's as well about an apparently somewhat calm looking surface but much bigger roll translated on the deck. That must be a pucker factor moment to one moment see the intended landing space appear as usual, only to be quickly marginalized or put into a much higher angle. My hat's off to all Navy and Marine aviators that fly that regularly. My question is does a rolling deck such as that require quite a bit more brake usage, stopping a rolling, wheeled, multi-ton machine from going off the deck? I mean land based field isn't moving so braking is predictable. I suspect mush tougher in that environment and throw in darkness, NVG's and again, fantastic job of not loosing few, if any, off the deck.

 

[Victory103]

I guess rotor heads don't have it as bad with carrier landings as the fixed wing community.

Deck landing on a pitching/rolling smallboy is about as close as they get, it's not easy even if it's a RAST recovery. Similar challenge level unaided at night.

No NVG's for landing on the carrier, many mistake that given the PBS series had to film at night. As soon as he is in his parking spot, he's chalked/chained before shutdown.

 

[gray eagle]

Deck landing on a pitching/rolling smallboy is about as close as they get, it's not easy even if it's a RAST recovery. Similar challenge level unaided at night.

No NVG's for landing on the carrier, many mistake that given the PBS series had to film at night. As soon as he is in his parking spot, he's chalked/chained before shutdown.

Thanks for bringing this to light. Maybe someone would like to develop a pitching deck for a small-boy. But, my original comment was for an aircraft carrier = much larger landing surface for a helo
then what a small boy has to offer.

To go off onto a slight tangent; I give you great moments in helo parking:

 

[HvyEng]

Thanks for the hard work on the pitching deck utility, I think it is awesome, and adds another element of immersion to the sim!

Rotary wing aircraft have another trick up their sleeve...

If you made the cable long enough, I'm sure you could do the same with a hornet. Right?

--Dan

 

[Wizard]

Underway! has rolling. Never really gave any thought to pitching, but I'll add that in the next release. In Underway! rolling - and soon pitching - are controlled by the sea state and your angle to the wave motion... regardless of what flight sim says - the data are controlled by the Naval Engagement! server in the weather section of the scenario file.

 

[aeromed202]

Please excuse the intrusion, I was just across the hall in FS9 when I heard a commotion. "Pitching deck" caught my eye and this alone will get me to fire up FSX once more. I thought this effect would be a must in the box but any way it got done is great! For some reason, FSX seemed to run well on my machine but I found the scenery a bit too different for my experience so never spent time with it. Can't wait to get my new house livable and un-box the rig and get back to a more normal life. Thanks for a wonderful effect!

BTW... the download triggered a danger alert but I said yes anyway. Would that be a quirk at my end or is there something giving a false hit?

 

[petejg5]

As I work at sea I love the whole pitching deck add-on from what I've seen I just hope the Next flight sim incorporates waves and sea states like some ship simulators have done.

 

[orionll]

gray eagle: I'd be glad to develop such an addon, but are you sure my program doesn't already support deck motion similar to what you're thinking of? You can set up to a maximum of 30 degrees of pitch and roll in the program itself, and pick whatever value you like if you modify the XML configuration file.

Dan: Glad you like it!

aeromed202: You're welcome! I can assure the file is safe and that it's a false positive. The VirusTotal analysis (for both the ZIP and the executable) shows that all 53 antivirus engines concur that it's clean.

petejg5: Glad you like it as well!

 

[SkippyBing]

You can set up to a maximum of 30 degrees of pitch and roll in the program itself, and pick whatever value you like if you modify the XML configuration file.

The only times I've seen 30+ degrees roll on a Frigate/Destroyer was when the Officer of the Watch put the wheel hard over at speed to clear the weapons arcs for a simulated engagement during an air raid. That's not to say you couldn't see it in rough seas but most FF/DD have stabilisers to reduce the roll amplitude anyway as it improves the effectiveness of the weapons systems.
I hate to think what 30 degrees of pitch would do to the ship!
I can't find my copy of the deck limits for operating the Lynx, but the sloping ground limit for landing was only around 10 degrees anyway so you wouldn't want the ship rolling more than that.

 

[orionll]

Earlier in the thread people were complaining that the maximum amplitude of 3 degrees wasn't enough (rightly so), so I wanted to pick a new value that would be enough for anything (regardless of boat size). I liked that 30 degrees was pi/6 radians, so I tried that, and it looked like more than enough for even the smallest boats in FSX. The maximum in program amplitude doesn't prevent you from choosing smaller values. Should I make another update and limit it to 10 degrees?

 

[Wizard]

On my LST-1179 class ship - in the middle of a typhoon - I recorded a maximum roll of 68 degrees. Yes, 68 Degrees in about four seconds. Huzzah for flat bottom ships. We took green water over the signal bridge routinely in that storm. At the time I had the embarassing situation of try to update the classified material in Combat and had opened the doors to this HUGE standing safe. It promptly let me know who was in charge as the doors swung open - hitting the coffee pot next to it, spilling hot coffees on the deck - and Laurel and Hardy proceeded from there. Let's just say that thousand microfiche card pickup ain't fun on an LST. It was really neat to stand in the tank deck and watch as the forward half of the ship twisted oppositely from the aft. The keel of those ships was huge, and thankfully held up to the god-awful pounding we took. So I kind of laugh at destroyers and their fin-stabilizers and 30 degree rolls.


'Rah-rah ree, We're the "Big T", give us shot three" ... if anyone out there knows what this means - we were on the Big T at the same time!

 

[gray eagle]

Earlier in the thread people were complaining that the maximum amplitude of 3 degrees wasn't enough (rightly so), so I wanted to pick a new value that would be enough for anything (regardless of boat size). I liked that 30 degrees was pi/6 radians, so I tried that, and it looked like more than enough for even the smallest boats in FSX. The maximum in program amplitude doesn't prevent you from choosing smaller values. Should I make another update and limit it to 10 degrees?

The thing I'd like to know is how to make this program work with other ships?

 

[orionll]

Set the pitch and bank amplitude manually in the XML file! I give up trying to find a slider maximum that suits everyone.

As indicated in both the first post and readme, simply edit the textboxes to change the boat, location, heading and speed. The edited settings will not be saved as a new preset in the locations drop down. If you want to make a new preset, create an XML file as described in the readme (it appears the formatting got lost in the first post's example), then in the PitchingDeck.xml file, add a LocationFile element containing the path to the new XML file you just made.

 

[flewpastu]

Orionll, I'm functioning illiterate when it comes to XML files, could you post what it would look like with say a coast guard cutter or something , sorry but I just don't get it .

Bill