F-35C Lands at Lakehurst For Testing

Another BAE (in UK I guess) F-35C Sim Video of a conventional carrier landing approach for the F-35C. This sim cannot 'look behind' apparently by an early comment of pilot.

F-35 lands on aircraft carrier (Simulator)

http://link.brightcove.com/services/pla ... 2942311001

SAME VIDEO is on Utube:

F35 FLIGHT SIMULATOR with STEVE LONG

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d2ep8i0sRs

"Uploaded on Feb 7, 2012
Steve Long BAE Systems test pilot, shows you how he lands an F-35, travelling around 150MPH, onto the deck of a moving aircraft carrier. All this is done in the Carrier Simulator, at Warton, Lancashire."

F35 FLIGHT SIMULATOR with STEVE LONG

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d2ep8i0sRs

"Uploaded on Feb 7, 2012
Steve Long BAE Systems test pilot, shows you how he lands an F-35, travelling around 150MPH, onto the deck of a moving aircraft carrier. All this is done in the Carrier Simulator, at Warton, Lancashire."

I noted that Steve Long has considerable experience with the Typhoon, and is concurrently a test pilot with the Typhoon AESA integration project. All these F-35 pilots actually knowing how a Typhoon flies first-hand, and would also know the strengths and weaknesses of each jet.

As good a place as any to hide this information about 'aircraft carrier stuff' because the PDF is about EVERYTHING to do with operating USS Midway...

530 page, 17Mb PDF Guide for Docents for tour USS Midway:

USS Midway Museum Docent Reference Manual 2012 Edition

http://www.volunteers-midway.org/assets/files/12364.pdf (17.4Mb)

Not only about the aircraft carrier but also about operating the carrier and air operations including carrier landings, LSO stuff etc. Great value for FREE.

I've visited the USS Midway 3x times so far, it's a great museum.

Tailored to Trap
F-35C control laws give Navy pilots Integrated Direct Lift Control for easier carrier landings, and they open the door for future landing aids. Frank Colucci 01 Dec 2012

http://www.aviationtoday.com/av/militar ... 77964.html

"...Lockheed Martin test pilot Dan Canin at Patuxent River Naval Air Test Center, Maryland, explained, “What IDLC does is improve the flight path response of the airplane, allowing the pilot to make almost instantaneous corrections to glideslope while maintaining a constant angle of attack.”

“The landing approach in the F-35C is flown with the stick only,” noted Canin. “The throttle is automatic.” IDLC may someday facilitate hands-off landings and other possible F-35 shipboard enhancements.

F-35 System Development and Demonstration (SDD) plans now call for first arrested carrier landings in early 2014....

...Safe carrier approaches require the airplane be stabilized in the correct glideslope and attitude to touch down with the proper geometry and rate of descent. Carrier pilots maintain that glideslope with visual reference to an optical landing aid on the ship, or “meatball.” They make continuous power changes while holding the aircraft at a near-constant angle of attack (alpha). According to Canin, “If we’re going to hold alpha constant, then the only way to change lift is by accelerating or decelerating the airplane. We do this with power, but because of engine lag and aircraft inertia, there’s a lot of anticipation required, and a lot of corrections and counter-corrections. Doing that well requires skill, seat-of-the-pants [flying], and a lot of practice.”

He offered, “A much better approach would be to control the coefficient of lift itself, by changing the camber of the wing.”

All three F-35 versions have trailing edge flaps to change camber. In addition, the longer-wing F 35C has ailerons. The flaps normally droop 15 degrees in the landing configuration. However, active IDLC moves the flaps up and down from that reference point proportional to the rate of throttle movement. Canin said, “With IDLC, we change the symmetric deflection of the flaps and the ailerons in response to pitch and throttle commands by the pilot. The glideslope response is immediate, and doesn’t require a speed or alpha change. This is a tremendous advantage over a stiff-wing airplane.”...

...The JSF test program currently has no autolanding requirement, but plans call for an F-35C autolanding capability based on the Joint Precision Approach and Landing System. “The F-35 will take more of a self-contained approach — an internally generated glideslope from GPS.”

IDLC is just one part of the F-35 test program which will now include tests of a refined tailhook for arrested landings. “We look at approach handling qualities every chance we get,” said Canin. “Where the rubber meets the road, though, is at touchdown. Until recently we haven’t had a loads clearance that allowed us to do carrier-type landings, but now we do, so now we’ll be able to look at our control precision to touchdown.”

I wonder what sort of cushioned landings have been done up till recently? This is a very long article with a lot more information about carrier landings under this 'new' system with the HMDS II etc.

Go to these forum URLs (pages) for other relevant bits from same article:

http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopi ... t-105.html
&
http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopi ... t-315.html

“The landing approach in the F-35C is flown with the stick only,” noted Canin. “The throttle is automatic.” IDLC may someday facilitate hands-off landings and other possible F-35 shipboard enhancements.

Interesting. Would be nice to know how this compares to the autothrottle installed in the Viggen to facilitate roadbase landings.

It sounds more advanced, but from what the pilots told me viggen were on rails on final....

regards

Landing on a road and landing on an aircraft carrier (at night) are probably not the same exercise as far as precision of glideslope and speed control and line up are concerned. I guess we will have to wait for the Carrier Landing version of the Viggen?

Landing on a road and landing on an aircraft carrier (at night) are probably not the same exercise as far as precision of glideslope and speed control and line up are concerned. I guess we will have to wait for the Carrier Landing version of the Viggen?

Pretty long wait for that one... or do you mean Gripen? My dad made the same mistake the other day, actually.

'Prinz_Eugn' (yes I'm almost ready for the Eugenic Soylent Green - but not yet) I was responding to 'linkomart' assertion immediately above. I can see I will have to lift my game on this forum. In the meantime in response to the general question of what a land based aircraft might need to do to become carrier capable here is some easy to digest info from the land of the Typhoid - as an example to us all.

http://www.eurofighter.com/media/news0/ ... -2011.html

http://www.eurofighter.com/fileadmin/we ... utaway.pdf (1.3Mb)

Landing on a road and landing on an aircraft carrier (at night) are probably not the same exercise as far as precision of glideslope and speed control and line up are concerned. I guess we will have to wait for the Carrier Landing version of the Viggen?

Pretty long wait for that one... or do you mean Gripen? My dad made the same mistake the other day, actually.

No, I meant the Viggen, it was the first Saab aircraft to have AFK, Automatic Speed Control. I'm not allowed to share any data on the Gripen, more than what can be found on the net, so I try to not speak about it.

@Spazsinbad, Yes I realise that a heaving deck is more challenging than a fixed road base, and I was not trying to say it would be carrier capable. My point was that in the sixties Saab realised that automatic speed control really helped presicion approach, and finally the other manufactures are beginning to catch up...


Best Regards

'linkomart' I think you may not realise that carrier landings are done 'in reverse' compared to runway landings. So instead of 'speed' control as you call it, naval aircraft have at least 'Auto Power Control'. Not that I know about it from personal experience (because A4Gs did not have APC) by an early modification to the A-4E/F was this 'Automatic Power Compensation' APC for carrier landings around the mid 1960s or earlier probably on older USN aircraft. Compared to today it would have been primitive. I'll dig out the NATOPS.

Power controls glideslope in a naval aircraft flying at Optimum Angle of Attack where at any particular weight the airspeed will vary according to the weight.

OOPs in the early A-4s it is called the 'Approach Power Compensator' but all that went over my head at the time because it was not there for us. From NATOPS:

"...Approach Power Compensator
The approach power compensator (APC) system is installed in aircraft reworked per A-4 AFC 268-I-II-III. The APC controls the fuel control and is designed to maintain the optimum angle of attack of 17.5 units resulting in an optimum approach speed on the glide slope and during normal manuevers in the landing pattern at any landing gross weight. Major APC components are the computer, amplifier, servo actuator, accelerometer, elevator potentiometer, angle-of-attack vane transducer and the APC control panel.

The APC is designed to command throttle position between an approximate 70 percent rpm and an approximate military rated thrust (MTR) in response to angle of attack. The angle-of-attack signal is modified by normal acceleration and elevator control stick position. If the APC is engaged or operating when aircraft angles of attack are greater than or less than optimum, the APC will compensate by increasing or decreasing throttle position accordingly. At angles of attack greater than optimum, the APC will command an increasing throttle position until MRT (approximate) is attained or the angle of attack returns to optimum. Conversely, at angles of attack less than optimum, the APC will command a decreasing throttle position until 70 percent (approximate) rpm is attained or the angle of attack returns to optimum...."

@spazsinbad:
I realise there is a lot I don't know about carrier ops, rest asure. I'm not going to tell you how to 'run the boat' as I quite frankly don't know enough to do so.
I translated AFK to automatic speed control, (the real swedish name would have you ROTFL), maybe it is more like the APC that you describe, I have not dug in to the system in detail as it's not really the kind of stuff I work with, I just know that the pilots really liked it, as it made the Viggen approach like it was on rails until touchdown.

my 5 cent

The F-111B had approach power compensation in the mid-sixties.

The F-111B had approach power compensation in the mid-sixties.

Well, as we say here, Nothing new under the sun....

This one is for 'madrat' delectation....

CARRIER SUITABILITY OF LAND-BASED AIRCRAFT José-Luis Hernando and Rodrigo Martínez-Val Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

http://www.icas.org/ICAS_ARCHIVE/ICAS20 ... RS/167.PDF (1Mb)

"Abstract
The paper describes the first steps of a study aimed at assessing the modifications that should be introduced in ground-based combat airplanes to make them compatible with aircraft carriers designed with ski-jumps and arresting devices. The present analysis includes operational and performance aspects, and describes the complexity of the take-off and approach/landing manoeuvres, identifying the key variables intervening in such manoeuvres. A last section is devoted to summarise the most critical features for carrier suitability....

...4 Final considerations
The present paper has described the take-off and approach/landing manoeuvres, as they are performed on aircraft carriers equipped with ski-jumps and arresting mechanisms. The operations are very different from those on ordinary runways, for the size and longitudinal motion of the deck, for the pitch and heave displacements of the carrier, and for the potential interference between the carrier superstructure wake or the rough sea generated air turbulence and the approach glide path. The findings include the following critical items:

- The thrust-to-weight ratio at take-off must be appropriately matched to the available deck length and the ski-jump geometry, including wind-on-deck effects;

- The approach speed must be compatible with wind-on-deck and the available landing distance to completely stop the airplane after engaging the last arresting pendant;

- The thrust-to-weight ratio at approach must be high enough as to allow fast acceleration and safe lift-off should the airplane hook failing engaging the arresting pendants.

Obviously, since the present paper only describes the first steps of the study there are other important aspects that will be addressed in future works. They include, for example:

- Very fast control to give the pilot full authority on the aircraft after the semi ballistic jump at the end of a hands-off take-off;

- Suitable aircraft attitude during ground runs, that may require meaningful modifications of the nose landing gear; and

- Rear fuselage modifications to fit the arresting hook, as well as structural reinforcements to withstand the hook transmitted loads."

Loads of explanatory diagrams and formulae to help with understanding the text.