...in the opposite direction of the carrier heading.
Set the wind in the Advanced Weather the
same direction as the carrier is traveling. That sets the wind to come out of the carriers heading, thus, down the deck. Setting it on the opposite heading makes the wind come out of the carriers fantail, thus
reducing the wind over the deck.
IE: Ya gots it bass-ackwards
Also, you want the wind out of the ship's crotch. That little corner where the angle deck meets the forward portion of the flight-deck. Split the difference between the ship's heading and the angle deck's heading, approximately 8° off the BRC. Thus, the wind's direction should be approximately 4°
left (port) of the BRC to be absolutely perfect. Setting the wind can be a bit of an adventure, as when you set it in the Advanced weather section, it then changes it according to the magnetic variation in that location. So you can set it to what you think is the right direction, then when you look at it when you get out of the weather, it's suddenly 5° from what you originally set, just for example. Something to watch out for.
How fast is "forward" with the carrier?
25 kts is standard for the carrier speed. I understand it can be changed in the carrier's sim.cfg file, but I haven't looked into that. I am sure there's a way, I just don't know it yet.
I assume the carrier speed is adding to wind over deck? Do I go 24 kts with the wind?
Since the default carrier speed is 25kts, if you set the wind to come out of the the ship's BRC, as discussed above, then you need 10-15 kts windspeed to get the required 30-35 kts WOD, for the F/A-18C.
What I do is fly out to where I want the ship, set the AP to hold me at 1,000', heading hold on, 350 Kts. I try to get a heading that is a whole number, say 270°, just for example, to make my life easier, figuring out my downwind heading. I'm lazy
. Shift+J, choose the carrier I want, 10nmi ahead of my location to give me a little time. SHFT+J again, select Forward to set the carrier moving. I have the correct freq punched into the UFC ahead of time, and the hook down, ILS needles ON on the HUD control panel (shft+2). And the correct weight of fuel on board to get the bird below 33,000 lbs. Shft+6 is a great little readout. With the hook already down, You will need to hit shft+6 twice to get the display to show. After that, every time you put the hook down, the display will pop up automatically.
I then hit pause, and set the wind correctly. Once I get that taken care of, I unpause, AP OFF, all of it, and descend to 800', and fly so I am "close aboard" the starboard side of the boat, 350kts airspeed. I usually try to fly so the boat passes where the wingroot hit's the fuselage, from my POV in the cockpit, on the ship's BRC. In this case, 270°. If I have everything all set, great. I do a break turn, etc etc to land on the boat. If it's not just right yet, I go around and come back from about 10nmi again to get everything that way.
except I don't see any cockpit shadows and the funny extra face sticking out of the pilots head. LOL.
I don't sweat the little stuff like that. I'm in it to fly, not take screenies, but that's just me. I hardly ever get out of the cockpit, honestly, except to get lined up in the little box on the deck for launch. The only gripe I have about the cockpit is that at night, with the lights on, I can't see the Advisory lights (like the Launch Bar, or Speed brake lights), or the Flaps/Gear lights. I just turn the cockpit lights off, and those all become visible again.
Anyway, hope all this helps a little bit. have fun!
Pat☺
Since the wind + ship's speed gives me 30 (ish) WOD, I am all set up for launching again, too. So away I go, launch, recover, lather rinse repeat