In some locations, the physics of the arresting wires doesn’t work. Sometimes
it pitches the plane up after catching the cable, other times it releases the
plane before it has come to a stop. This is dependent on the location, but
also the speed and angle of the plane, which can make the effect worse. See
the video for examples.
For a long time, it was unclear to me why some
locations worked and others didn’t. I thought it was related to the location
of the original carrier landing challenge in San Diego, but it wasn’t
consistent at all. To investigate this issue, I’ve tested over 100 locations
around the world. I’ve landed at the carriers, trying to be as consistent as
possible, and I’ve found out the cause of the bug: The bug is caused by a
difference between the altitude above the ellipsoid, and the altitude above
the geoid (AMSL). In some locations in the world, the ellipsoid is higher than
the geoid, and for some reason this causes a problem in the cable physics.
In the chart you can see the
altitude distribution of all locations that I tested, comparing the locations
that were functional versus the locations that were broken. It’s clear that
the altitude above the ellipsoid is (related to) the problem. I don’t know if
this is a small bug in the arresting physics, or a more fundamental problem,
but I really hope you can fix it. Right now the functional locations for
aircraft carriers are limited, but it would be really nice if people had the
ability to use carriers everywhere. If you want to reproduce this bug, here is
the link to a devmode project:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Alb0_eojdVNtjsxjY26RB3JdNq5HwQ?e=KXSuSk
