DCS: Carrier Ops - The Burble

[DD_Fenrir]

So you've been practising and lately your finding that you can land your shiny little DCS Hornet (or not so little Tomcat) on the good ol' Stennis 9 out of ten attempts , not always pretty but generally safe - you must be getting pretty good eh? Might even have had a shot at passing real life US Navy carrier quals, hmmm?

If you have jumped on the DCS: Supercarrier bandwagon and pre-purchased this exciting looking addition to DCS: World, then be prepared to re-programme your technique for getting aboard 'the boat' and to have your carrier landing skills tested even further.

"Why?!?!" I hear you cry in disbelief, " it's a carrier, the same sub-class of USS Nimitz as we have just with shiny new textures, toys and deck crew!"

True. It's also got a brand new feature to DCS carrier ops. It's called the burble. 

Sounds cute enough. I can almost hear you thinking: "Something with that innocuous a name surely couldn't cause me that much grief?"

Well...

What is the burble?

To paraphrase the AOPA webpage:

Quote

The burble is a pocket of disturbed air behind the carrier’s island, the tall superstructure that houses the bridge...[an aircraft] enters the burble in the final seconds before touchdown

And the Fighter Pilot Podcast website:

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The increased and, subsequently, decreased lift an aircraft experiences as it approaches an aircraft carrier for landing as a result of the relative wind as it flows around and off the ship.

Still, no biggie right? Again I can hear your thoughts: "Bit of rough air in the final stages of approach - can't be that bad?"

Well if your definition of 'not that bad' is first a patch of rapidly rising air that will cause you to balloon out of glideslope (and over every last wire!) unless you chop throttle - to idle - followed immediately by the exact opposite, a patch of descending air that will try and throw you into the ramp well short of the wires and can require a  solid burst of full military power to control the sudden descent rate (remembering your engines were spooling down to idle because of the updraft you received a second earlier) then my friend you are an uncustomarily unflappable customer,  cool as a cucumber in ray-bans and a darn sight more imperturbable than I.

Be prepared gents....

 

[fruitbat]

Well, that sounds like a bundle of fun🤣🤣🤣

[DD_Arthur]

I can reliably land my Tomcat nine outta ten although most of the time that cheeky barstool in the back seems to think we're going 'round agin'.

However, can anyone consistently land the 'cat how it's meant to be landed; getting the 'E' across the bar using the angle of attack method?

When I try I reliably end up in the drink 

[DD_Fenrir]

I ignore the HUD - typically I leave it in Cruise or Air-to-Air mode - and use meatball, centreline and AoA indexer only.

[Kira]

As Fen says, landing mode worked great - in theory.  In practice, it was so slow to respond that it was useless (by the time the information got displayed, you'd be, as you said, in the drink), so they used some other mode. Personally, I prefer takeoff mode for the vertical speed on the HUD.

[DD_Fenrir]

Use the AoA indexer (the three light cluster on the left wind shield frame with the amber ring between a green or red chevron) to tell you if you are "on speed". If you have the amber ring this gives you your appropriate AoA of 8 degrees. Green chevrons is too slow, red too fast.

The issue here is, that while you require 8 degrees AoA, the glideslope is 3.5; ergo you need to ensure that your nose is pointed 4.5 degrees above the horizon on your approach. 

It sounds to me, Arthur, that while your AoA is ok your nose is too low ref the horizon - you'll need to set the nose higher to give you the correct glideslope. Bear in mind to the knock on effect to your engine power - because you're essentially falling less quickly you'll require a touch more power to hold "on speed" at this new attitude.

[FoolTrottel]

Blêh ...

Mk1 eyeball and speed indicator - keep that needle on the triangle and wing that beast in ... no worries 

 

[Kira]

Note that you can adjust the horizon bar on both the HUD and the VDI (the top big display in the pilot's cockpit), to put the horizon back to level regardless of nose angle.  The knobs are on the lower right of the VDI.  HUD knob is white, VDI is red.  As set at mission start, the HUD at least is slightly low for cruise flight, which can be annoying.  Adjusting once on speed for landing might help.  Or it could just make things even more confusing.