RN Hellcat Carrier training

[SkippyBing]

I have a DVD somewhere of a training film of the actual procedures used in WW2 by the RN, I'll try and work the salient points into a read me for the next version of the Vic.
To summarise, the RN unlike the USN had had to make do with some aircraft with rather poor visibility forwards and down at the start of the war, think Fulmar and Sea Hurricane where the Merlin rather got in the way! The P&W radial engines in the USN's aircraft were less of a problem in this regard except for the Corsair which was land based only until the RN proved it could be safely got on-board. To get round the problem the RN used a curving approach so you basically ended up wings level a second or so before crossing the round down, I don't use TrackIR but it's not that hard to do controlling the view with the hat on the joystick. Over the wires you should be in the three point attitude and about 5kts above the stall, you then cut the throttle, all being equal you should catch a wire and stop! You shouldn't flare as this will cause you to float along the flight deck, with hilarious consequences. There was another subtle difference between the two navies in that the RN batman guided the pilot onto the deck at the wires and issued the cut, whereas the USN guided them to a point ~6 feet above the wires where the cut would be commanded and the loss of thrust cause the aircraft to drop the last bit.
I'm not sure if the two services converged on the final point at some stage, I know after RN and USN joint carrier operations became more prevalent the RN changed its batting signals to be the same as the USN's to avoid confusion (they had been exactly opposite, i.e. if the USN batman raised both arms it meant you should climb whereas the RN batman meant you were too high).

[DaveB]

Tks for that Ted and Skip I've taken to flying the Catalina this afternoon so I can land where I want! Being poor.. I can't afford the Aerosim Cat but if you've not tried it.. the Alpha Cat ports over just fine. You have to change the 'render_3d_window=0' line from 1 to 0 otherwise you get cinemascope and throw some sounds at it but otherwise.. it's no better nor worse than in FS9
I currently have Victorious chasing down Graf Spee off Quimper.. KG5 should be there too but doesn't like being AI.. and the Cat is passing PCS reports

ATB

DaveB

[Badgerman]

Skippy,

From what I understand, the RN never fully accepted USN batting styles... but they always seemed to use them when in joint ops with the Yanks. I always put it down to the RN being more adaptable than the USN!

I love the stories from the late 40's when the RCN was doing North Atlantic Ops with their Fireflys... a mish-mash of USN and RN batting which would have most likely been fatal to anybody other then the CAG's who were operating from Warrior at the time...

Mark