I’m not even sure how to approach this topic. I’ve made a couple flights with the F18 and I’m not able to express a complete opinion about this aircraft.
The point is that I don’t understand if it’s a matter of being just too complex for me, bugged, incompleted or else.
I’ve watched three different tutorials on youtube about the Autopilot and the Navigation System.
Here is what I concluded.
TACAM information is quite rough. You can’t set a radial really through the HSI. All you have is distance and current radial… is that correct?
It’s not easy to get VORTAC frequencies and, for what I’ve tested, standard VOR are not visible even converting the frequencies. The only one I’ve able to find are the one listed as VORTAC. This is probably how it is in real… is it?
ILS is not available (am I wrong?)
I’ve seen tutorials saying the autothrottle is not available and others explaining how to use autothrottle (I could not use it).
You can’t work with waypoint while in flight. You have to load your plan through MSFS2020 and that’s it.
Going through the various legs of the flight plan requires manual staff… it’s not fun neither realistic…
AP HDG is complicated. I understood its functionality by the tutorials but still it looks bugged. When it set to mantain baking it often jerks for no apparent reason in a different position to return the previously set banking. When it is set to mantain both ground or in-flight heading often it start turning around pointlessly. The setting of the wanted heading is absolutely insane. You have to stay one minute pressing your mouse to have the bug rotating till the wanted direction…
It’s almost impossible to taxi. Either it stops or it passes 50 knots. I did play with the throttle up and down destroying my wrist for the whole time and honestly, I will not do that again.
Flaps seem to have only one possibility to be set (full or nothing). The real F18 is like this?
I’m a bit confused because the plane itself looks not so bad and people spend times making tutorials…
Tip for everyone:
When your looking at online information, be sure it is about the E/F (Super Hornet) and not the C/D.
Although they look the same at first glance, they are very much different.
If you’ve been following along with development, would you please note which of the items have been fixed since you posted this? Would be super helpful if you don’t mind. If you don’t have the time or inclination, I completely understand
Reading through my post earlier, happy to say they actually did resolve most of this when the Maverick content launched. The only outstanding bug would still be inconsistent TACAN ranges outside of the Continental US. The only other thing is the “missing” ILS, but that’s a design choice, otherwise everything else I discussed is resolved or implemented now.
Did they ever make the CRS and HDG bug’s mappable within MSFS without requiring some external application? It’s a tad annoying that this jet is so good but left so unfinished
