Carriers Extended: US Navy - SimWorks Studios

Disclaimer

This product is an artistic representation of the subject matter. SimWorks Studios Ltd. does not endorse or is endorsed in any way by the manufacturer of the subject matter. The subject matter and is simulated within the limitations of the Flight Simulator X/Prepar3D SDK and the product and/or its manuals are not to be used as a substitute for real-world training.

Credits and thanks

Thank you for your interest in our carrier products. We are striving to provide high-quality carrier ops products for flight simulation and your support helps our talented developers continue to push the bar higher. The development team members are:

Mark Sewell: Fleet Traffic:US Navy author, original models & textures
Alex Vletsas: 3D model & texture editing, design of Carriers Extended
MacFarland Masterton: Design and implementation of Carriers Extended v2.0 features & physics
Dino Cattaneo: Static F-35 3D model
Tony Cullen: Information & reference on helicopter landing aids

The following sections serve as the user manual, allowing you to utilize the carrier group to its full capability and familiarize yourself with its features.

Settings

Carriers Extended:US Navy is built with performance in mind, but will still stretch out Prepar3Dv4 to the maximum of its capabilities. While highly optimised, with large numbers of static aircraft present. Therefore we recommend that you use as many aircraft & crew as your system handles smoothly. We also recommend the following options

Detect crashes: OFF. Found under Options->Realism Settings, it is required for Warp to Deck feature to work, as well as avoiding aircraft crashes due to Prepar3D's inaccurate crash detection algorithm.
Dynamic lighting: ON (Required for deck & hangar floodlights)
Target frame rate: 30 (depending on preference it may be set higher or lower)
Launching off the catapult: to trigger a catapult launch, press SHIFT+SPACE. It is not possible to reassign this control to another combination or controller at this time.
Ship traffic: In order for the ship routes to be visible, AI ship traffic needs to be set to 10% or higher from the simulator settings.

Major features

DYNAMIC DECK EDITOR

The new Dynamic Deck Editor allows users to customize their ship decks without any limitation. Supported ships come with their full air wing where each aircraft is unique and can be placed on any spot on the deck at runtime.

Aircraft will foul the deck and catapults depending on where they’re placed on deck, affecting the ship’s operational state.

The deck gauge also allows for control over the ships’ many animations such as elevators, LSO platform or bubbles.

NOTICE: In FSX-P3Dv3 you can only place aircraft/helicopters. Placement of vehicles and crew is not possible due to the inability of older platforms to draw these objects

Realistic moving deck

Ships will pitch, roll and yaw based on the current sea state. Our sophisticated physics algorithms are based on real US Navy data and will simulate ship movement based on the ship’s geometry and displacement, wind speed, wind direction and wave height.

Animated arresting gear

SWS’ carriers come with animated arrestor cables that deform and follow the hook accurately. Furthermore, custom physics programming allows for realistic deceleration and rollback. Finally, the custom physics system circumvents FSX/P3D’s tendency to topple aircraft with narrow main gear distance when trapping.

Realistic catapult operation

CEX catapults will launch aircraft with realistic accelerations. The endspeed of the aircraft depends on the aircraft’s weight. Furthermore, animated AI shooters (P3Dv4) will give the pilot proper hand signals to “run ‘em up” before launching them off the deck.

OLS/LSO

A custom Optical Landing System (OLS) has been scratch built for our carriers. The "meatball", as it is commonly referred to, works exactly like the real thing. The lights look the right size, the glideslope angle is adjustable, hook-to-eye correction varies according to aircraft type, and the cut and waveoff lights work exactly like on the real carriers. Furthermore, an LSO is there to guide you down the glideslope to a safe landing.

For helipad-equipped ships, a custom glideslope indicator has been built based on real world reference, guiding you safely to the landing area.

Controllable ship lights

The ship’s lighting systems are controlled automatically through AI. However, the user can take control of things manually. A total of nine light systems are available:

Running lights (aircraft & helicopter capable ships)
Deck edge lights (aircraft & helicopter capable ships)
Landing area lights (aircraft & helicopter capable ships)
Lineup lights (helicopter capable ships)

Custom elevators

Ride the elevator to the hangar. Taxi to it, click the button and just go! You don't need to wait for some timer to expire.

NAVAIDs

All CEX-enabled ships come with realistic TACAN. Aircraft carriers support Instrument Carrier Landing System and PALS (Autoland) .

Please note that these features require aircraft-side implementation by the aircraft developer.

vLSO implementation (experimental)

vLSO interfaces with SWS’ CEX technology, overriding our own LSO with Serge Luzin’s great iteration!

SWS’ installers always include the latest version of vLSO, but due to being separate developments, vLSO & CEX implementation is still considered experimental and may not work for all users.

Deck Tractor

A deck tractor can be called to pull you on the deck. Use CTRL+T to spawn the tug backwards (pushing the plane) and Shift+Ctrl+T to spawn it facing forward (pulling the plane), then use your elevator and aileron controls to drive the tug and park your plane in the tight spaces of the carrier! A tip when pushing an aircraft: look down the nose of the aircraft in spot view and keep the towbar in a straight line with the aircraft's fuselage.

Aircraft Configuration App

Overview

The ACA will allow you to easily activate the carriers' advanced features with any aircraft in your system. In order for your carrier aircraft to work optimally with our ships, we strongly recommend going through the ACA to assign profiles and deck-configuration gauges to your aircraft. Currently, CEX will automatically set up profiles for the following aircraft:

Aerosoft F-14 Tomcat
ALPHA RA-5C Vigilante
AlphaSim A-3 SkyWarrior
Aerosoft F-14 Xtended
Dino's F-14D
Dino's F-35 Lightning
Dino's S-3B Viking
Dino's E-2/C2
Dino's T-45
FSXA F/A-18C
FSXBA F/A-18C
MV F-4J/S Phantom II (not ADV)
Piglets A-1 Skyraider
RAZBAM A-6 and EA-6
RAZBAM A-7 TacPack
RAZBAM A-7 (Vol.1 & 2)
RAZBAM TA-7 (Vol.3)
SOH C-1A Trader
SWS F-4B/N Phantom II
Virtavia A-4 Skyhawk
Virtavia A-6E Intruder
Virtavia AJ-2 Savage
Virtavia E-2C Hawkeye
Virtavia EA-6B Prowler
Virtavia F3H Demon
Virtavia F4D Skyray
Virtavia F11F Tiger
VRS Superbug

Aircraft configuration app

However, it is recommended that you run the ACA before using the carriers, check your aircraft profile assignments, and add deck configuration gauges to the aircraft panels as desired.

After installation, an icon saying "CEX Aircraft Configuration" be in your Start Menu. Run it as administrator to see the Aircraft Configuration screen.

The ACA consists of nine areas, numbered in the picture:

List aircraft for the selected simulator. Supported: FSX, FSX:Steam, P3Dv2-v4
Manage filepaths button: in the event that your sim wasn't detected, this button will allow you to manually point ACA to your simulator's root folder
Manage presets: Allows you to see presets created for various aircraft and tweak them to fine-tune them in the sim
Preset from aircraft: It creates a preset automatically from the aircraft that is selected on the list
Preset activator: The drop-down menu allows you to select an aircraft preset to be applied to the selected aircraft.
ACA stores information in your aircraft's panel and aircraft.cfg files. In the unlikely event that something breaks, this will revert to the last backup made by ACA.
Saves settings for all aircraft that were modified
Aircraft listing
1. click to select individual aircraft for editing
2. Ctrl+click to select multiple individual aircraft
3. After clicking on an aircraft, Shift+Click on another one to select all aircraft between these two
4. Clicking on the checkboxes under carrier names will install the deck configurator for the respective carrier in that aircraft's panel
Opens the formations folder where you can place AI Carriers-type cfg files containing ship formations for placement

Assigning presets

Click here to be taken to the video tutorials

Selecting a ready-made preset

Let's assume that you broke our F-4B for FSX and want to reactivate our advanced features for it.

Click on Phantom II Early in the list
Shift+Click on Phantom II Late. Ensure that all three Phantoms are now marked.
Go to section number 5 in the ACA and from the drop-down menu select F-4B Phantom II
Under the drop-down menu, click the checkboxes of the carriers you want to activate. Let's assume Coral Sea 1965.
Click "Apply to Selected"
Click "Save all settings"

Your Phantom now is ready to use the cables of any one of our carriers and also has a window added that allows you to configure the deck of the 1965 Coral Sea.

Preset manager

Creating and modifying a preset

Let's assume that you want to make a preset for Dino Cattaneo's T-45.

Find the T-45 in the list
Click on the "Preset from Aircraft" button
A pop-up window will appear asking you to name the preset. Type T-45 Goshawk Dino or any other name you like and click OK.
The Manage presets window will come up requesting the hook pivot point and length, and three AoA values. If you have them, type them in, otherwise go to the next step.
Click the Save button
Click Save All settings and launch the simulator.

You will now need to go through the in-game calibration process for the tailhook and AoA.

Tailhook-cable alignment

For the first part you need to be stationary:

In the air in slew mode)
On the ground (slew or normal mode)
On a non-moving carrier

Make sure your hook is UP
In the menu bar, go to the Add-ons menu and select SWS Carriers.
In the menu that will appear click on Calibration Mode
Select the "Calibrate Tailhook" option
Go to spot view and you should see a yellow rod and a horseshoe cutting through your plane. The rod is to be aligned with the tailhooks point of rotation. The horseshoe is supposed to align with the hook's tip. Use the following controls to adjust the parts to your plane's hook:
- The arrow keys or numpads 2,8,4 and 6 are used to move the rod down, up, forward and aft respectively.
- The Numpad + and numpad - are used to move the horseshoe farther out or closer to the rod (hook length)
- Shift+numpad + and Shift+Numpad - will rotate the "virtual" hook down and up

The second part is to do this for the hook in the extended position. Extend the hook and get in the air in slew mode. Ensure that the hook is FULLY EXTENDED.

Repeat the previous steps for the extended hook and when done exit calibration mode.

The video & photos below illustrate key parts of the process:

How to find the carrier options menu

Carrier options menu

Hook calibration tools

AoA calibration

While inflight go to the calibration menu like before and select "Calibrate AoA"

Get in the air and fly the plane in landing configuration (full flaps, gear down).
Manouever the plane until the moment that only the "too slow" light stays on.
Hit the Spacebar key and the "too slow" angle of attack will be stored automatically
Manouever the plane until the moment that only the "too fast" light stays on.
Hit Shift+Spacebar and the "too fast" angle of attack will be stored automatically
Manouever the plane to a high angle of attack, until you are close to getting a stall warning
Hit Shift+Spacebar and the "waveoff" angle of attack will be stored automatically

Too slow AoA indication

Too fast AoA indication

Go back to the carrier options menu and exit calibration mode.

You have just created a preset for this aircraft type and can now mass-assign it to other aircraft of the same type using the Aircraft Configuration App, without exiting the simulator. Your plane is now configured and all you have to do is reload the aircraft in the sim. This plane model is done, you don't have to calibrate it again.

Assigning presets - video tutorials

Dynamic deck editor

There are two ways to bring up the Deck Configuration gauge. The first way is to go to the add-ons menu->SWS Carriers->Deck config. The other option is to use the key combination CTRL+D.

When the deck gauge comes up, we can divide it in five main areas:

Carrier list
Deck states
Placeable objects list
Deck map & ship controls
Close button

Hint: If the deck gauge is obstructing your view, you can click on it and drag it anywhere on your screen.

Carrier list

Contains a list of the carriers that are spawned in the world and are compatible with the deck configuration gauge. By left-clicking on a carrier’s name, you can view its deck map and edit it.

Deck states

To load a pre-existing deck state, click on the saved state’s name
To delete a pre-existing deck state, click on the red “X” icon next to it. A confirmation prompt will appear. Clicking “DELETE” will delete the saved state. Click “Cancel” to maintain it

Deck configuration gauge layout

When you wish to save your current deck layout, click on “SAVE NEW”. A text field will appear where you can type your state’s name
The “CLEAR DECK” button will remove any aircraft and crew objects from the carrier leaving you with an empty ship
Below the “CLEAR DECK” button is the “FLIGHT DECK”/”HANGAR DECK” button which allows you to switch between the flight and hangar deck to place objects

Placeable objects list

This area contains a list of object types that can be placed on the carrier. The POL has two modes:

Place aircraft mode: allows you to place aircraft by squadron. A list of squadron logos will be visible. Clicking on a squadron’s logo will make it selected and the logo will appear larger and coloured. The other squadrons will be small and grayscale. You can now place that squadron’s aircraft
Place yellowgear mode: allows you to place vehicles & ambient crew on deck. You will see icons for vehicle types and crew. The selected class will appear larger. The outlines of vehicles and crew groups will be visible on the deck map
Swap between Aircraft/Yellow gear: when in Place Aircraft mode, a vehicle icon will appear at the bottom of the area. Clicking it will get you in “Yellow gear” mode. Conversely, when in “Yellow gear” mode, a Hornet image will appear at the same space allowing you to go to “Aircraft mode”

Placeable Objects List (detail)

Deck map

The deck map’s main use is to place & remove aircraft and other objects on the ship’s surface. To do this:

Select a squadron or object type from the Placeable Objects List
To place an aircraft/object on the deck, double-click anywhere on the deck
To modify a placed aircraft/object, Left Click and Hold on the object. With Left Click held:
- Drag it to move it somewhere else on the deck. Dragging it out of the deck will despawn the object
- Scroll using your mousewheel to rotate the object

Placed aircraft will have their MODEX number overlaid on the deck map, as seen in the picture.

At the top of the deck map is a caption indicating whether the landing area is FOUL or CLEAR. The landing area will be fouled when an aircraft outline is past the safe parking lines on either side of it.

You can also zoom on the deck map and pan around the ship’s deck. To zoom, scroll using your mouse wheel. To pan the ship’s map, left click anywhere on the deck/water image and drag.

Finally, at the bottom of the deck map there are three buttons:

The deck map’s main use is to place & remove aircraft and other objects on the ship’s surface. To do this:

Select a squadron or object type from the Placeable Objects List
To place an aircraft/object on the deck, double-click anywhere on the deck
To modify a placed aircraft/object, Left Click and Hold on the object. With Left Click held:
- Drag it to move it somewhere else on the deck. Dragging it out of the deck will despawn the object
- Scroll using your mousewheel to rotate the object

Deck map (detail)

Placed aircraft will have their MODEX number overlaid on the deck map, as seen in the picture.

At the top of the deck map is a caption indicating whether the landing area is FOUL or CLEAR. The landing area will be fouled when an aircraft outline is past the safe parking lines on either side of it.

You can also zoom on the deck map and pan around the ship’s deck. To zoom, scroll using your mouse wheel. To pan the ship’s map, left click anywhere on the deck/water image and drag.

Finally, at the bottom of the deck map there are two buttons:

SHOW ANIMATIONS: will outline animated parts of the ship that can be controlled. You can toggle an animation by left clicking within its outline. Parts that are coloured GREEN will be controlled automatically by the ship’s AI with an AUTO indication over them. Parts coloured YELLOW or RED have been toggled by you and will indicate their current state with a caption.
MENU: Used to bring up the menu that controls the carrier's operation

MENU option

The MENU button will expand and collapse the various options that control the carrier's functions and operational states. These are:

OPTIONS
MODE
NAVAIDS
APPROACH
LIGHTS
LAUNCH/LAND HELI: launches or recalls the plane guard helicopter
WARP: allows you to warp your aircraft to deck by double-clicking on the map

Menu options (detail)

The OPTIONS level controls (v)LSO functionality and OLS stabilisation modes. Clicking on the button will change through the available options.

WAVEOFF ENFORCED: when turned on, if the LSO waves you off he will keep waving you off until you are clear from final
COMMUNICATION: Determines the type of comms used with the LSO
BALL CALL: When set to AUTO, CEX will call the ball automatically. MANUAL will require using vLSO's shortcut
OLS REALISTIC STABILIZATION: When set to YES, the OLS will compensate for deck motion.
AUTO-RUN SERGE LUZIN'S VLSO: When set to YES, CEX will automatically launch vLSO if it isn't already open.
CLOSE: Closes the OPTIONS menu

The MODE level allows you to change operational state between launch, recovery, launch AND recovery, AUTO. See Ship Systems Management below for more details.

The NAVAIDS level allows you to see the selected carrier's TACAN, ILS and PALS frequencies. You can also change the carrier's frequency by scrolling your mouse wheel over the respective frequency.

The APPROACH level allows you to select which Optical Landing System will be used on approach. The aircraft carriers have one IFLOLS station.

The LIGHTS level allows you to control ship lighting. See Ship Systems Management below for more details.

Close button

The Close button at the bottom right corner is used to hide the deck gauge. You can also close it using CTRL+D.

Ship systems management

Operational Deck States

The operational deck state options are:

Auto: the ship is in recovery mode when your aircraft is flying. It enters launch mode one minute after you've landed on the deck
Launch: the ship is in launch mode. Shooters on deck, bubbles up, catapults ready. Landing aids are disabled
Recover: the ship is in recovery mode. LSO station is active, catapult 3 is covered and no shooters are present. Relevant lights, OLS and LRLS are active
Launch & recover: the ship can both launch and recover aircraft, all systems are operational
None: the ship isn't performing flight ops and all relevant systems are off

Note that the operational deck state doesn't affect the static aircraft or vehicles placed through the deck gauge

Lighting

There are various lighting modes available, depending on the ship class. All lights are handled automatically by the ship, but can be overridden by the user through the Deck Editor LIGHTS menu. Available lighting options are Auto, Off and On. Controllable lights are:

Running lights (aircraft & helicopter capable ships)
Deck edge lights (aircraft & helicopter capable ships)
Landing area lights (aircraft & helicopter capable ships)
Lineup lights (helicopter capable ships)

Finding the carriers

SWS Fleet Placer

Part of our Carriers Extended! technology, SWS Fleet Placer is a tool for placing and controlling formations of ships in your sim. It also provides extra features like warp-to-deck and flight saving and loading while on a carrier deck.

How to open SWS Fleet Placer

To find and open the Fleet Placer:

Use the CTRL+SHIFT+S shortcut

OR

Bring up the FSX/P3D menu bar
Click on the Add-ons menu
Click on SWS Fleets

Placing a formation

To place a formation bring up SWS Fleet Placer. If no formation is currently loaded the menu will display as shown. fleet_placer_window.jpg | Caption: Fleet Placer main menu

Select formation: select a formation of ships to place from your available formations. file fleet_placer_formations.jpg | Caption: Fleet placer formations menui
Bearing: select a desired true bearing from your aircraft to place the ships on. This bearing also serves as their initial course.
Distance: select the distance from you at which the ships will be placed. Ships may be placed up to 5000 nautical miles away.
Speed: select the initial speed which the formation will make. Note that not all ships have the same max speed and choosing a higher speed than the slowest vessel will cause the formation to string out especially during course changes.
Place formation: places the formation with the parameters selected above.
Place and warp: places the formation and warps the aircraft to the selected parking space, if parking spaces are available on a vessel in the formation.

Controlling your formation

After you have loaded a formation the menu will be configured as shown.

Position: will display information to help you find the fleet. This information can be displayed at any time through the key-combination CTRL+SHIFT+P.
- Steer-TTI is the magnetic heading to fly to intercept the fleet at your current true airspeed and the time to interception. It accounts for ship movement and wind.
- BRG-DIST is the current magnetic bearing to the fleet and distance in nautical miles.
- CUS-SPD is the formation formation's currently commanded base course and speed.
Corpen: is one of two ways for the formation to change course. A "corpen" command produces a very slow turn but the ships in formation retain their relative stations that is the formation will still look the same after the turn.
Turn: is one of two ways for the formation to change course. A "turn" command produces a high turn rate but the ships all turn at once so their relative positions in the formation will change that is the formation will look different after the turn.
Carrier recovery corpen: uses the carrier carrier's speed and current wind conditions to steer the carrier so that the relative wind is down the angled deck. This reduces necessary crab and makes landing easier. If you select “Execute corpen xxx and follow wind” the carrier will adjust course periodically to account for changes in wind conditions and formation speed. The fleet utility is interlocked with cex so course changes will not occur while you are on final approach to a cex carrier.
Speed: changes the base speed of the formation. if “automatic” is selected the ships will cruise at 17kts slower in heavy weather unless carrier recovery corpen is selected in which case appropriate speed will be made to put 25-30kts of wind over the deck. Clicking execute will command the selected speed.
Sea state: changes the sea state of the formation. if “automatic” is selected the ships pitch and roll according to prevailing weather conditions. Scaling factors are present to allow you to pronounce or reduce the natural motion of the ships if desired. If Manual mode is selected, you will be able to select the sea state from calm (0) through gale force (9). You will also be able to select the axis of the wind. Clicking execute will activate the selected state.

Warp to deck: magically places your aircraft on the deck of one of your ships if that ship has a parking spot available.
Save parking space: is only available if your aircraft is on the deck of a properly configured ship. it will save your current location and heading on the deck as a parking spot which you can then warp to any time using the warp to deck command.
Remove formation: removes your formation from the sim so you can load another

“Warp to deck” and “Place and warp to deck”

The fleet placer provides the ability to instantly place your aircraft on the deck of a ship. It does this through a system of "parking spots". sws ships come pre-equipped with parking spots and additional spots may be saved at any time.

To enable warp-to-deck on additional ships see #configuring ships for sws fleets.

These menu options work in the following manner:

you will be prompted to choose between parking-equipped ships. If there is only one such ship in your formation this menu will be skipped.
you will be prompted to choose a parking space on the selected ship. If there is only one parking space this menu will be skipped and you will find yourself directly on deck.
the parking brake engages automatically. It is recommended that you are at idle power when you warp so that the aircraft does not simply taxi off the deck when it arrives.

Saving parking spaces

To save a parking space:

manually position your aircraft at the desired spot on deck by taxiing, towing with the CEX deck tractor or through slew mode. Any hard deck will work including flight and hangar decks.
open the SWS Fleets menu and select save parking spot
you will be prompted to provide a name for the new spot
after typing in a name and clicking OK your spot is saved and may be warped to at any time.

Adding and modifying formations

Formations for SWS Fleets are stored in %programdata%\simworks studios\carrierextensions\surfaceformations folder which may be opened through windows explorer or through a button in the CEX Aircraft Configuration App. You can access that folder by browsing to that directory or by bringing up CEX Aircraft Configuration App and clicking the "Formations Folder" button, labeled 9 in the image

Any number of formation configuration files may be placed there, in any number of subfolders and the format of the configuration files is identical to that used by AICarriers. This means that if you currently use AICarriers you may simply drag and drop any AICarriers formations folder s into the “surfaceformations” folder and they will just work.

Saving flights

If you save your flight through the normal simulator interface while a SWS Fleets formation is present, the formation data will also be saved. When you load the saved flight the formation will automatically be placed at its saved position, course and speed. If your aircraft was on the deck of a ship when the flight was saved you will automatically be warped to this point on the deck.

Note: because the formation data is saved separately from the simulator simulator's saved flight, it is not transferable between users. So if you send your buddy a saved flight, the formation will not automatically load on their computer when the flight is loaded.

Configuring your ships for SWS Fleets

SWS Fleets will load and operate any combination of ships from any developers with no additional steps. Configuring ships for use with SWS Fleets is covered in CEX SDK.

Approaching the carriers

Ensure your plane is in carrier landing configuration or you will get warnings from the LSO
At 1.5nm behind the carrier the LSO will communicate with you | Paddles contact
At 0.75nm behnid the carrier, press Shift+B to call the ball | Roger ball
Follow the ball and LSO guidance down the glideslope for a successful arrest
Upon touching the deck, move throttles to full to be ready in the event of a bolter
If the arrest is successful, return the throttles to idle to allow the cable to disengage

Using the tow truck

While on deck, press Ctrl+T or Shift+Ctrl+T to call the tow truck. The first combination spawns the truck facing towards the aircraft, while the second spawns it facing away. Use your Joystick to drive the truck:

Forward movement: truck drives forward
Rear movement: truck drives in reverse
Left/Right: steer the wheel

WARNING: Avoid using the truck in multiplayer. The truck can be removed for you but will stay present for the other players.

Included models

Static models included

F/A-18C Hornet
F/A-18E Super Hornet
E-2C Hawkeye
C-2A Greyhound
MH-60R
MH-60S
AH-1Z
CH-53E
UH-1Y
AV-8B
F-35B
MV-22
AS-32/A deck truck
AS-32A-35 crash crane
Forklifts (P3Dv4 only)
Deck crew (P3Dv4 only)

All static models will soon be released as freeware for users and developers who want to create CEX-enabled carriers