Ok, so after a lot of testing (and sim restarts) I have found the following:
With just the aircraft and…
pbk-carrier-pz61 - the giant OLS did not appear (I did 4 touch and goes)
pbk-carrier-pz61 and pbk-carrier-crew - only appeared after some landings and only when the aircraft was already stopped on the deck (while sitting there I could make it appear/disappear with tailhook extention/retraction)
touchingcloud-test-moving and/or test-static carriers - usually appeared during approach.
The fact that it sometimes doesn’t appear is puzzling (and time consuming).
For now I’ll leave the basic three in the folder. I can live without the extra carriers and if it really never materializes until after landing it’s no problem (more testing needed to be sure though… intermittent bugs are a bummer).
I appreciate your help.