Flying Stations Ark Royal

[DaveB]

Have you tried reading the manual?

ATB
DaveB

 

[delta_lima]

My suggestion:

If you've never flown to a carrier before, why not

1) start by using AI Carriers to simply spawn the carrier, so you can

2) learn approaches and landings, and then

3) learn to navigate to them using RFN TACAN.

Otherwise, I predict a great deal of needless angst, lots of wasted time, and declining interest in people willing to help.

There are people here willing to help, but it really helps if you help yourself by trying to learn in logical, incremental steps. But hey, if you want to hunt throughout the English Channel all day long looking for the Ark - fill your boots.

dl

 

[DaveB]

Sensible words DL

Tom..
I uploaded a small track to Flying Stations for a user this afternoon. The ship track starts at 0650z and runs from the bay (where St Michaels Mount is) counter-clockwise around the Isles of Scilly back to it's start position in an 8hrly sequence. Your nearest naval air station will be Culdrose. If you just want to see Ark Royal and fly to it.. go to Culdrose and wait until at least 1200z (GMT) and it will come to you. There are 2 other ships in company but if you don't have them (and you won't) it doesn't matter. Ark Royal IV will steam happily on her own.

Check first what the title= line is in the sim.cfg of your copy of Ark Royal. The traffic file is setup to run title=HMS Ark Royal so if your title= line differs from this.. change it to this. Failure to do so will leave you seeing nothing. Add the traffic file to Scenery/World/Scenery.. start the sim.. your scenery will update.. go to Culdrose and either go find her or wait for her to come to you.

ArkTrafficFile

ATB
DaveB

 

[Tom Burnside]

My suggestion:

If you've never flown to a carrier before, why not

1) start by using AI Carriers to simply spawn the carrier, so you can

2) learn approaches and landings, and then

3) learn to navigate to them using RFN TACAN.

Otherwise, I predict a great deal of needless angst, lots of wasted time, and declining interest in people willing to help.

There are people here willing to help, but it really helps if you help yourself by trying to learn in logical, incremental steps. But hey, if you want to hunt throughout the English Channel all day long looking for the Ark - fill your boots.
dl

Actually I do pay attention to what people reply I have downloaded aicarriers2 spawn a fleet right in front of me and landed on the carrier. Ark Royal isnt in the carriers that I can select alot of USN ships plus I landed but I havent yet figured out how to launch from a carrier. So could anyone tell me how to add ark royal to this and what is needed to launch from a carrier.

 

[DaveB]

Go to your AICarriers folder.. open the folder conf.d then double click on the file cvn_id.cfg. Add the following to the cfg making sure the formation number is the next consecutive number (eg, if the last is 11.. make sure this one is 12)..

[formation.XX]
title=HMS Ark Royal
unit.0=HMS Ark Royal, 0, 0

.. then save the cvn_id.cfg.


Make sure the unit.0= line matches exactly what the title line reads in Ark Royal's sim.cfg (open Ark's sim.cfg and look at the name on the title=line. Whatever that says is what goes in the unit.0= line. The other 2 numbers are positional and you won't need them unless you add further ships.

ATB
DaveB

 

[delta_lima]

Actually I do pay attention to what people reply I have downloaded aicarriers2 spawn a fleet right in front of me and landed on the carrier. Ark Royal isnt in the carriers that I can select alot of USN ships plus I landed but I havent yet figured out how to launch from a carrier. So could anyone tell me how to add ark royal to this and what is needed to launch from a carrier.

Well then the conversation is around AI Carriers and Acceleration's launch functions, and not about trying to navigate to a carrier using RFN TACAN.

Dave's already sorted out how to add the Ark to the AICarrier config file. In case it's not obvious, that's the same process you add any other carrier (or other ship, for that matter), just mind the sequencing, and the contents of the title= information, just as Dave correctly points out. This is crucial, since 99% of the issues people have with "I can't see the carrier" has to do with those two simple items. Oh and again, in case it's not obvious, the Ark Royal needs to be in the "boats" simobjects subfolder.

Next, you mention not having figured out how to launch. I'm assuming that if you're seeing other carriers, and that they're moving, and that you've landed on them - that Acceleration is correctly installed. First, make sure you're positioned at the aft end of the catapult track, in a centered (left to right) position, in front of the JBD (jet blast deflectors), and somewhere near the catapult shuttle. I'm being a bit vague as to "somewhere near" because it's not the exact place for all planes. F-4s, Buccs, and other older aircraft usually need to be well astride the shuttle, whereas modern types like F-14, F/A-18, etc, the shuttle needs to be ahead of the nose gear. It needs to be close, but not exact - the sim will make the final small positioning correction - see point 3 below.

So then, when you're wings unfolded, trimmed, and ready to go, you need some basic keystrokes to get you catapulted off.

1. Press Shift + U to put the launch bar down.
2. Press Shift + I to attach to the catapult. You'll know you did things correctly when the JBDs come up, and the sim moves your plane slightly to exactly where it needs to be on the catapult track.
3. Throttle to full mil power
4. Press Shift + Spacebar to launch.

I haven't gone into details around MTOW, as well as some refinements to make catapult speed realistic vis-a-vis the plane, etc. Let's just see if you get the basics sorted out, then move on from there.

dl