What makes the Hornet unique?

[Boss_BlueAngels]

This question is pretty much geared toward you Matt, or any other Hornet driver out there... what makes the Hornet "the best" in your personal opinion? Like handling characteristics, avionics... all of the above. I've always liked the Hornet, and cannot begin to get enough of information about it. As a college student planing on joining the Navy, and wanting to be a combat pilot... what advice would you have to give about this jet?

Also, do you have any pet peves with the Hornet? Does the structural frame around the canopy/wind screen bug you at all? Like those side post things in cars... if there is a car coming around the corner, it always seems to sneak behind that stupid thing... anything like that?

I know this is a lot, but thank any of you for any input on this. All the aircraft are amazing and even any answers of these questions about any other aircraft would be appriciated as well!

God bless,
Jason

 

[wali]

Hey Matt;
If you don't mind, I have a few questions too. First of all, what is "High Alpha" Performance? What is the Thrust-to-Weight ratio of the Hornet and if clean, can it accelerate in a vertical climb? This might sound stupid but I have a Hornet in my MS flight Sim 2k2. Supposedly it has an accurate airfile but I don't know. My problem is each time I make a tight turn, say 7 to 8 g's, the thing stalls out and eventually I end up dead restarting the game. Sorry man, but unlike you, this is the only flying I am doing right now, LUCKY YOU!
Anyway, is the top speed still under mach 2 in the Super Hornet? Let's see, well what the hell, flying the Hornet surely beats flying anything else in the Navy so damn, You have fun. Sorry but I don't know any Technical Aviation term used by you guys.

 

[Boss_BlueAngels]

Thanks for the input Matt! Today I just got my hands on a "new" (new to me... but was from like '95 or something) issue of "World Air Power Journal" and was reading about the Super Hornet, and how it says its new F-414 engines have 38% power... but conversly the empty weight of the plane went up 28%! So that's like what, only a 10% relative increase?! And from what I read, the Hornet was pretty poorly thrown together, with all the range, armament, and fuel restrictions. I read that by increasing the size of the fuselage spine thing, would have increased range at the cost of transonic acceleration, but the Navy was in too much of a hurry to get her in the fleet. Another thing was how they needed to make the LERX's larger to make up for a shortfall in instintanious turn performance... Humm... Hopefully in the next few years though we can get some more creative designers (which is worthless without the money and cooperation they need!) who won't think so far on the side of eliminating close in dogfights and get less obsessed with Stealth. Too bad the Navy can't get some F-22's eh!?
Nonetheless, I still think the Hornets a sweet bird, and my personal favorite.

Ugh, flight simulator games... don't even get me started with that Jane's F/A-18... It just aggrivates the heck out of me not being able to actually control the plane on takeoff (carrier and land!) For having "the best flight model" of any sim out there... it sure can't do ANYTHING as compared to the real thing. (From the perspective of seeing my first Super Hornet at an airshow last year.) I mean come on... it won't even let you do a dirty roll on takeoff, or have a nice vertical climb right after cat-launch!

Anyway, thank you again Matt!

 

[wali]

[/quote]


"It just aggrivates the heck out of me not being able to actually control the plane on takeoff (carrier and land!) For having "the best flight model" of any sim out there... it sure can't do ANYTHING as compared to the real thing. (From the perspective of seeing my first Super Hornet at an airshow last year.) I mean come on... it won't even let you do a dirty roll on takeoff, or have a nice vertical climb right after cat-launch!"

Dude, I think that take-off is actually Automated in the Hornet (Matt, you can correct me if I am wrong). I have seen many shows about Naval Aviation and in all they say that the Hornet has automated takeoff and all you control is throttle. Yes, you can control the plane during landing even in the Game, don't know, maybe you should check your settings or go to the option that says "Manual Landing on a Carrier".
About A vertical climb right after Cat-launch, well Matt can help you there but dude come on, would you really want to risk losing the jet for thrill definitely worth seeking when you have a 2 mile runway.







Edited by - wali on 07/06/2002 22:56:34

Edited by - wali on 07/06/2002 22:58:17

 

[Boss_BlueAngels]

I know the Hornet has the "automated" takeoff from the cat, and the pilot holds on the to the "towl bars" or whatever on the canopy rail, and as for the vertical climbout... I don't mean TOTALLY vertical... just a "fun" vertical. On the videos of the Super Hornet launcing from the cats, I've noticed it's the ONLY plane I've seen that has absolutly NO SINK whatsoever as it leaves the deck. Quite amazing. I know for a fact though that the real beauity takes off differently from this game. Don't know whether you'd have the FCS turned off or not... but on the sim, the most you can pitch the nose up on takeoff is like 10 degrees, stick full back, accelerating past 200kts. Now I KNOW a Hornet can get past 10 degrees at that speed! haha. As for the carrier landings, the game rocks! Nothing comes close to that one. The combat and everything is cool too.... just a little pet peeve about the takeoff.

And not to be argumentative, but at an airshow last year the Super Hornet there did a beautiful half of a dirty roll on takeoff... as he started the roll the gear started to retract, and was fully in just as he was inverted.

I dunno, not a big problem though, since it's just a game.

 

[Dave Shutter]

All that performance, and just think, they had to add 5 tons of weight in heavier landing gear, arresting gear and enforcing the airframe before the YF-17 became the Hornet.

 

[Mikeman02]

Hey has any "real" FA-18 pilot tried FA-18 Precision Strike Fighter or Janes F-18? I was wondering if that was how the F-18 performes, or if it was a simplified flight model even on Pro? If no one knows or u dont want to answer no problem because I was just wondering and its a stupid question.
Thanks!!!

 

[Boss_BlueAngels]

Matt... you're right, those vids are of the jets with nothing on them. lol And I like your term "siliness" lol And after I read what you mentioned about this I dug out my home video from the Lincol back in 97 and noticed those "normal" Hornets didn't have much of a sink either. And as for the course rules you were mentioning... I guess that'd be the same thing as a standard traffic pattern at a civilian field, and why Cessna's don't just enter wherever they want? lol (Gotta love that Mighty Cessna 150 )

As for the info on instintanious turn, the artical said they fixed it by the enlarged LERXs... so I'm assuming (as you have stated) it isn't a problem anymore.

No, no, no... I'm sorry... the 10 degrees nose-up thing is on the LAND FIELD takeoff... not the Cat. I don't know anything about how the catshot works with actually flying the plane (duh! lol), so I have no idea how that'd work.

I don't know how I got onto this video game thing... but whatever. lol the more I talk about it the more I love it.

Anyway, thank you soooo much Matt for taking the time to answer these questions! I can assure you this won't be the last of me on here.. but hopefully I'll be able to think of some more intellectually stimulating questions for you! haha. But until then, thanks a bunch!
(In fact, I just thought of something else to ask... lol) And I also don't wanna come accross as some 18 year old punk who thinks he knows something about the Hornet by spitting out this stuff above.

"Fight to fly, fly to fight, fight to win"
FLY NAVY!