Hi all,
Thought I’d try a landing like the real pilots do and hold the nosewheel up while going down the runway. I landed around 140 knots, and as the speed decreased, I held the nose up. 110… 90…80…60…40…20…10… nose still up… Until I stopped… with the nose still up.
Someone bring an extension ladder!
Is this a bug or something I may have done wrong?
Thanks
Did you tried with the Maverick livery and already saw the same issue ?
Looks like you had the nose too high and incurred a tail collision with the ground.
The sim often will maintain the collision attitude under those conditions.
As Seven said. Collision damage is not simulated very well yet, and wierd things like this can happen.
To paraphrase from available info about aerobraking(field):
Crosswind below 5kts, use the waterline as a guide but do not excede 10 deg pitch up as a tailhook/exhaust nozzle strike can happen.
As speed drops below 100 knts, slowly relax pressure on the stick to lower the nose and to have nws available because rudder below 100knts has little affect and differential braking is not very affective. It is not normally used, but can be, when the aircraft is a lttle heavy, wet conditions or… pilots just having fun 
LOL! Ok, I’ll bite. You don’t aerobrake, short for aerodymanic braking, in the F/A-18. The F-16 pilots use that technique all the time. Check out this fun video of an F/A-18 landing in high cross winds.
And for a great tutorial, nobody does it better than Wags.
They offer no different functionality than the speedbrakes on an a320: Providing additional drag.
In fighter jets, they may be used more liberally when performing air combat maneuvers as you are able to turn a smidgen tighter at lower speeds.
I know this, just the OP said it’s not used in F/A-18E
To clarify, I’m using them on carrier landing in MSFS to properly decrease the airspeed at a reasonable value from level off transitioning and starting glideslope, this is why I’ve added screenshots to show they are present on the F/A-18E, so I don’t understand why one would say “You don’t aerobrake in the F/A-18” ?
I would think landing on land may require aerobraking depending on fuel and payload. I’m not an expert on the f18 by any means and in fact i barely know how to fly the one sitting in my DCS hanger. Just know if i land like in that video, i’m gonna have a bad time…
But since in FS2020 you don’t really have to worry about “payload” for the f18 as there are no guns, missiles, rockets or bombs to attach so at least in this game you shouldn’t really need to aerobrake.
So, the questions are, is there speedbrakes on F/A-18 and are they used if yes ?
… and the answer is “Yes”, for both questions :
Since the original post talked about aerobraking on landing I thought I would throw in my two cents.
My son flies Hornets for a living so I have this on good authority. Navy/Marine Corps pilots fly approaches to land-based fields the same way they fly them to the boat. On speed and on AOA all the way to touchdown. There is no flare. You don’t hold the nose off for aerodynamic braking. Speed brakes can be used on short fields, but it normally isn’t necessary.
Just pointing out that is not a Super Hornet.
C vs F
Austrailia does have the E/F version that msfs has, but not carrier based and yes, in this case the pilot decided to use them. Also note it wasn’t planted into the tarmac but gently put on the mains first.
LOUD RAAF F/A-18 Super Hornet Takeoff & Landing ● Melbourne Airport Plane Spotting - YouTube
To clarify things here: “Aerobraking” is a method
“Airbrakes” is a device
SO… its a bug
Thanks for the precision, though I’ve made two different external screenshots showing the speedbrake in a different location, so obviously different aircraft, even if I’ve not mentioned it. Again, I wasn’t in such details, just a discussion on speedbrake usage. However indeed the links you’ve provided are of high interest
Just for precision, my last screenshot came from the first video provided by another OP (here around the proper time where I made the screenshot) and my second screenshot of a previous post was with the Super Hornet in MSFS, different aicrafts shown between both case :
Just to add a bit more detail, as @DashingLeper is indicating, in aerobraking you’re using the entire aircraft’s pitch attitude to create more drag, which you can perceive as increasing the AOA of the wings and lifting body of the aircraft to cause more induced drag or otherwise as increasing the cross-sectional area that you’re presenting to the incoming airflow. This is distinct from using drag-inducing devices like what happens when you use the speedbrakes, which in the Rhino basically adjusts most of the control surfaces, and not just the small LEX spoilers, to increase drag (which ones and by what deflection being determined by the flight control system based on the flight regime/conditions).
I concur; to the OP, in a word: don’t. You should fly amber donut/centered E-bracket to the deck and use the speedbrakes after weight-on-wheels as required.
Thanks all for these important precisions
Does this means we should only deploy speedbrake while wheels already touched the deck and not in the air ?
At some point, I was performing some training on carrier landing and watching some other who want to achieve some very short approach on high speed and very steep turn after the base leg, indeed conducting in failed landing, I conclude I would train with more long approach, surely uncommon for the F/A-18E, a bit more like airliners scheme : at first stabilizing the speed around 160~200 kts while level off, then starting descent while on proper glide slope and maintaining around 125~130 kts. However this requires starting the landing procedure far away from the carrier than usual and I don’t understand how one would achieve steep and short descent while not using aerobrake method or speedbrake device ?
The simple answer to your question is that you don’t do short and steep approaches to the boat.
In a normal Case 1 approach you fly the upwind leg at 800 feet and 350 kts. As you pass the boat, you start the break. Throttles go to idle and start your upwind turn. Maintain 800 until the aircraft slows to 250 kts. Below 250 you can drop the gear, set flaps to full and descend to 600 ft. Vary the angle of bank in the turn so you end up in a downwind about 1 - 1 1/2 miles from the boat. You should be on speed and on AoA in full landing configuration at this point. Just past abeam of the stern, begin the 180 turn to final. This is a gentle turn. Usually less than 30 degrees of bank. You will need to add a little bit of power to control your descent rate which should on be about 200 fpm. At 90 degrees of turn you will be at about 450 ft. Roll onto final about 3/4 miles out at 350 feet. By then you should have the ball and you fly that down the rest of the way.
Case 3 is used at night or in bad weather. You will be at 1200 feet 10 miles out at 250 kts. At about 8 miles out, gear down, flaps full and slow to final approach speed. You will capture the glideslope at about 6 miles. Start your descent maintaining the proper AoA. Power controls your rate of descent. Once you have the ball, fly that the rest of the way down.
Adding to the summary from @MikeB54331, the Rhino usually has no problem slowing down, and, in the landing pattern once you’re at the initial at 800 feet getting ready to go into the break (for Case I), using speedbrake basically means you’ve gone seriously out of parameters (e.g. if your scan/cockpit workflow isn’t up to speed yet and you’re not mindful of your power adjustments and let yourself get way too fast). Even in the break, just going idle, going into the turn, and configuring (gear, flaps) should get your speed down adequately quickly. (In Case III, none of the maneuvers or altitude changes should be abrupt enough to really need speedbrakes.)
I didn’t fly in the Rhino in the fleet, so I couldn’t tell you if you’d use speedbrakes while descending from the port holding pattern normally. For fun, there have been times in MSFS or other sims where I’ve gone from a much higher altitude down to pattern altitude using a steep dive where I used speedbrakes (or an Immelmann or such), but that’s probably not what you’d realistically see in real life.
Thanks Pilots for all the clarifications made, time will come to practice, for me
