Lastly, others have commented never to touch the brakes trapping as that will crash or unsettle the aircraft. Perhaps not.
The trick is to gt on the brakes after you stop. Let the wire pay out as far as it's going to, and then, before the plane spit's out the wire, grab the brakes and cut the throttles to idle. But not until you're completely stopped. There's a short moment of time, between when the wire's holding you stopped, and the engines start moving the plane. That's when you get on the brakes. It takes some practice to get the timing right
But then, what part of recovering on a boat doesn't?
My traps are therefore likely part of the problem as I often line up off the angle and more toward the bow (probably as the eye is drawn to the longer deck runoff area on an empty CV than using the angle deck space). Have to stop that. Re-training classes now required!
Making a couple of presumptions here. The boat is in motion forward, and the WOD is correct for the plane and it's gross weight. In the case of the FSDT Hornet, with the boat moving forward, you need about 10Kts wind to make up the proper WOD value. You can set this in the Custom Weather, Advanced tab. And make sure it's down the Angle, not the boat's centerline. All that being the case, when you roll out in the groove, you should be aimed toword the boat's "crotch". Actual Naval terminology
That's your line up, not the bow, not the angle, but the crotch, where the angle meets the boat's centerline, on the port side of the forward portion of the boat, starboard of the front of the angle. Correct your line-up when in close with the rudders. Of course, when you roll out in the groove, you've got the correct sink rate established, and the proper AOA. That keeps you lined up properly for the angle, since the boat moving ahead, with the wind, moves the tailhook's touchdown point (between the #2 and the #3 wire) at an angle to your motion, if you see what I mean.
Again, assuming an overhead recovery. For a nice, easy, gentle, straight-in approach, you need to still line up on the crotch, but you've got a lot more time to get the AOA and sink rate set.
For both, your course is the angle, not the BRC. The BRC is for upwind, then after that, it's all relative to the angle, not the boat's course.
If you want to use real-world weather, you have to adjust the boat's speed in it's sim.cfg to make the proper WOD, and set the boat's course to make the wind down the angle. A bit more complex, but not impossible.
This is, naturally, for FSX Accel, not the real world (where IS that place, anyway??), but comes fairly close.
-79 feet seems not too realistic, but if it does the job, great!
It's not about the hook's position visually, which is set in the .mdl file. It's about where the sim places the hook and then the forces it applies to everything with the hook there.
No matter what, have fun with it! Can you tell I do? Although those AI LSO's hate me, I swear. I won't comment on the grades they give my recoveries, even under the most perfect conditions...
Pat☺
