Take off and landing on cruise ship (while its navigating)

R.Perry · Dec 14, 2019

clolsonus said:
This is kind of a dumb video, but back when I was first messing around with autoland stuff I programmed the FlightGear F-14 to autoland on the moving carrier (with any arbitrary cross wind.) The computer doesn't care about visibility so you can easily land in some pretty intense conditions:

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Here's a more technical video with a camera view on the deck at the touchdown target point looking up the ideal glide slope ... so the aircraft should center itself in the view and hold that position all the way in. I do a couple approaches in different wind conditions:

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Again, dumb old videos but fun to dig up and look at again to remember what I was fiddling with 10 years ago (or more?)

First of all, during recovery operations a carrier always turns into the wind, so crosswind landings isn't a problem. The other issue is the carrier doesn't create turbulence due to structure other than at the fantail and it is very mild.

The F14 did have an autoland system if I remember correctly, but I got out of the Navy before the F14 was put into service. Simulators are great in one sense, but simulation and reality can be two very different things. The trick to carrier landings is keeping your eye on the ball, and the LSO, know where the ship is going to be when you arrive. Also things can go wrong very quickly and when they do you better be prepared. The real fun part is a carrier landing in rough seas when your runway is moving up and down, that will definitely get the pucker factor going. If you start visually chasing the moving deck it will screw you up big time.

Red90 · Dec 14, 2019

I flew from a small boat whilst in St Lucia last year. The take off was fine, but you have to be pretty switched on when it come to landing - it’s not something for the unskilled/faint of heart.

The boat will be pitching and rolling even in relatively calm seas and this can really mess with the craft’s landing sensors. I flew a P4 Pro and it was not easy to get it back on deck at all. Just as it was coming in, the boat would drop 2 or 3 feet and you’ve immediately got to adjust for this. Of course, you could get someone ready to catch it, but it only takes the boat to roll and your catcher can get a face full of props, this wasn’t a risk I was willing to take.

As others have said, you have the RTH issue as the boat continually moves, but as I wasn’t flying too far away from it I wasn’t bothered as I always knew I had enough battery power to bring it back safely.

Good luck to you & I hope iiy goes well, this is the boat I flew from to give you an idea of what I had to land on.

Cheers,
Martin